But she was too late. He wanted the hell that awaited him.
A destroyer of beautiful things. An oath breaker. A failed protector.
-Kael-
He saw it as he crested the ridge.
The veilspawn misted before his eyes.
The gods once walking amongst them, fighting at their side, gone.
In the distance.
The two bodies tangled on the ground like some cruel sculpture carved from grief and godhood.
And in the center, her sword.
Driven through Eiren’s chest.
And Maris, collapsed beside her, motionless.
His heart detonated.
Kael’s breath punched from his lungs. His shadows screamed. The battlefield fell away, noise and flame and magic reduced to a hollow echo inside his skull.
No.
He moved fast enough to fracture the stone beneath him, faster than a blink, faster than breath. His shadows guided him.
But not fast enough.
He saw Alarik standing over her. Blood on his blade. Blank eyes. A single tear cutting through the soot on his cheek. Him falling to his knees.
The king’s blade.
Kael knew it.
Recognized it like an old wound.
And in that instant,
He remembered.
That night.
A flash of memory,
Two princes, crowns not yet tarnished, standing beneath moonlight.
A promise hissed through clenched teeth.
“I will take what you love most and break it until even your shadows weep.”
Alarik's words after he drove the blade into Elenwe’s heart.
And in that moment, watching him, watching Maris bleed out beneath him, Kael knew —
Alarik hadn’t meant to.
