Behind him, theHastatistood rigid, watching not as soldiers awaiting command, but as witnesses to the fall of something sacred.
“She was never my weakness,” Val-Theris said, his voice low, shaking despite his effort to steady it.
Val-Oros laughed. “Still lying to yourself in the name of nobility and mercy. How veryyou.”
He moved then—fast, brutal, familiar. Steel rang as blades met, the impact shuddering up Val-Theris’s arms. They had been trained by the same hand, shaped by the same god, and itshowed in the way they circled each other, mirroring instincts older than memory.
The plaza seemed to fall away as they clashed, the world narrowing to muscle memory and reflex. Sparks flew where their blades struck, brief, violent stars against the smoke-darkened air. Each blow carried years of unspoken resentment, of diverging paths carved from the same origin.
Val-Theris forced distance between them and Jesenia, but his brother saw what he was trying to do and made every effort to close it once more. Val-Oros fought like flame—wild, consuming, laughing violently as he struck. Val-Theris fought like restraint finally broken.
Their boots slid on blood-slick stone. Shouts echoed around them, blurred and distant, as soldiers and civilians alike scattered from the wake of their fury. Their wings collided with a thunderous crack, feathers torn free and scattered across the ground like fallen banners. Val-Theris took a cut along his ribs and barely felt it.
His vision tunneled, prophecy screaming uselessly in the back of his skull.Too late. Too late. Too late.
Val-Theris roared then—a sound torn from somewhere deep and ruined—and drove forward with everything he had left. His blade found purchase beneath Val-Oros’s guard, piercing through obsidian armor, through flesh, through the heart that had never learned mercy.
Val-Oros gasped.
The fire went out of his eyes.
For a moment, they stood frozen together—brother to brother, breath to breath—Val-Theris’s blade buried deep, his hands slick with blood that looked far too much like his own. Prophecy flashed behind Val-Theris’s eyes, this very moment predicted months ago finally come to haunt him.
Val-Oros sagged against his brother, laughing weakly. “You forget I have prophecy too, brother. Did you really think this was enough to stop what was coming for her?”
The words fell into his chest like ice. Val-Theris pulled back sharply, horror blooming too late. Val-Oros’s smile only widened as his hand moved. Not toward him.
Towardher.
Jesenia had run to the edge of the causeway, her name already breaking from Val-Theris’s throat.
Val-Oros turned with the last of his strength and plunged his blade into her. The motion was almost lazy. A final, spiteful act against his brother. He did not look at her face as he struck, but to Val-Theris—preserving the memory of the devastation he chose to leave behind.
The sound was small. Dull. Final.
Jesenia gasped once, startled, as if she hadn’t understood what was happening until pain bloomed white-hot in her chest. She staggered back a step, hands trembling as they pressed uselessly against the wound. Blood spilled hot and dark between her fingers and over the small swell of her stomach. For a moment, she stayed standing, eyes wide with shock.
Val-Theris roared. The sound tore out of him, ripping through the smoke and the fire. Through the bodies and the banners and the stones. It was the final cry of a god watching his universe collapse on itself.
He crossed the distance in an instant, catching her as she fell, his knees hitting the stone hard enough to crack it. Blood poured through his fingers as he clutched her to him, wings folding around her without thought, without care for the world watching them break.
Her blood spilled across his golden armor, and horror flashed across his face when he realized he had seen thismoment in prophecy too. The blade. The blood on the stones. Jesenia crying, whispering his name.
But he had foolishly seen it as his death, and was too sure of it to understand what he had truly seen.
“No—no, no, no,” he whispered frantically, pressing his forehead to hers. “Stay with me. Please.”
Her eyes found his, glassy and soft and impossibly calm. There was no fear there, only sorrow for him and what he would have to carry without her.
“It’s all right,” she breathed, though blood filled her mouth. “It’s time for me to go home. Just let me go home.”
Tears blinded him. His hands shook as he tried to stop what could not be stopped. He begged to the world, to the Light, to his father to save her.
Her gaze drifted, unfocused now, toward the sky she would never see again. The smoke parted just enough for her to see a sliver of stars. Her lips curled upward into a soft smile at the sight. Her hand fell. The light left her eyes.
Val-Theris made a sound then that was not a word, not a cry—something raw and animal and utterly unmade. He bent over her, wings wrapped tight, rocking as if he could somehow carry her back into breath by force of will alone.
Behind him, Val-Oros collapsed to the stone, laughter bubbling weakly from his throat as blood filled his lungs.
