“I’ll kill them, ember mine,”he snarled.
His voice was not his own—it was ruin.
“I will burn this city from the Chronicles. No history shall remember its cries. I will leave a crater so defiled no soul will dare whisper its name.”
The world shook.
Rubble lifted.
Light warped.
Fury became a storm.
A hand.
Soft. Trembling.
It brushed his cheek, and the crimson faltered.
Auryn’s eyes flickered open, hazy.
She saw him.
Red eyes. Slit pupils.
Not Kailorien.
The monster beneath.
Her lips parted, broken words spilling through a cracked throat.
“…Kail…stop…don’t let it…”
Her fingers curled weakly against his.
“The mask…is not…the man inside it…”
Her eyes rolled back.
She went limp again.
And the chamber stood on the knife’s edge of silence and ruin.
Kailorien held her. His breath came ragged now, every inhale trembling between fury and collapse. His arms curled around her body like he could keep her soul from leaving if he just held on tight enough. His runes still pulsed red, hungry, barely leashed.
A soft sound.
Not footsteps.
Silk.
A whisper of it across broken stone and ash.
The shattered doors shifted. Smoke parted.
And Shu’Khan entered the ruined chamber.
Barefoot.
