The sound of my heels echoed like gunfire. Each sharp step cracked against Maximus's glitter-drenched floors, ricocheting up the gilded corridor. My skirt still flounced, my gold-painted skin still blazed, but all of it felt wrong. A costume I hadn't agreed to wear. I didn't rush. I didn't cry. I just walked. Chin high. Spine locked straight. Past gods and demi-things too stunned to speak. Past laughter that rang too forced, too loud. Past Ravina, lounging with a serpent's smile and a glass raised like she'd already won. I didn't give her the satisfaction of a glance.
The moment the portal opened, I stepped through. Out of the temple. Out of the noise. Straight into the Observatory. Stars spilled around me. Galaxies turning slow and ancient. A million suns blinking awake like lanterns in the dark, watching me walk across the glass platform. Click. Click. Click. My heels rang too loud. Too sharp. Too much. I stopped. Breathed. Snapped my fingers. Just like that, the glamour burned away. The heels vanished. The tiny, traitorous skirt. The white straps and painted fire. Gone. In their place: a worn t-shirt, soft pants, sneakers. My hair twisted into a messy bun. A mug of coffee in my hand, still steaming. No glitter. No seduction. No shrine. Just me.
I walked to the edge. Slow. Quiet. No audience this time. No fanfare. Only breath and starlight. The glass stretched out in every direction, suspended in velvet-black infinity. Below me: darkness. Above me: galaxies. Around me: stillness. Warm stillness. I sipped my coffee. Let it sit on my tongue. My shoulders dropped. My jaw unclenched. I let myself be. Not for them. Not for him. Not to prove anything. Just to exist. In the quiet of the stars, I whispered, not for the universe or the gods or even myself: "I need a minute."
The stars heard me and they waited. He hadn't lied. But he hadn't told the truth, either. Not betrayal, just omission. The ache of it sat small and hollow behind my ribs, like a bruise pressed too deep. Embarrassed? No. Ashamed? Never. Just… tired.
Tired of toasts. Of sideways glances. Of half-truths dressed in gold. I drank again, slow. Above me, galaxies spun lazy and vast. Too bright. Too big. Too restless. Even here, this place was never truly still. Malvor's realm always hummed, a low, buzzing thrum of chaos. Beautiful chaos. Enchanting. But never quiet. Even wrapped in soft cotton with coffee warming my palms, I could feel it. The endless motion under my skin. His world wasn't wrong. It wasn't bad. It just wasn't rest. So I sat. Cross-legged on the glass, like I was a child again, like I could wait for the storm inside me to settle. I breathed until my mind drifted like silt in water, sinking. Waiting.
When I finally stood, the stars shifted with me. A heartbeat of red and white bloomed overhead, pulsing farewell. The portal opened before I reached the edge. Cold light spilled through. I stepped into Aerion's realm without looking back. Just before the door closed, I opened the bond to Malvor. Not wide, just a thread. Just enough. My Chaos, I whispered through it, brushing his mind with mine like silk. I am fine. I am here.
I didn't send the ache. Didn't press the hollow bruise into him. Didn't burden him with Ravina's voice echoing in my head. I gave him the only thing I had left to offer, peace. Soft. Steady. And love. I love you. I need space, not distance. I am safe.
I poured warmth through the bond, slow and deliberate, wrapping it around him like a blanket. My version of safety. My constant. Then I closed the bond again, gently. Not a shut door. Just a pause. A breath. The portal sealed behind me. The world shifted.
Aerion's realm was gone. Not empty. Not ruined in the way that leaves bones of stone behind. Devoured. As if a black hole had opened its jaws and swallowed everything whole. The sky was bruised gray. The ground under my boots cracked like glass. The air still stank of vacuum-burned magic. Pieces floated in the wreckage. A half-melted sword. A stone arch twisted in on itself. A banner hanging from nothing. No birds. No sound. No life. Just absence. Grief had teeth. And it had eaten everything.
I walked. Not with fury. Not with purpose. Just because my body needed motion. Dust clung to my sneakers. Bridges ended in air. Columns spiraled upward into clouds that swallowed them whole. I stepped over what might have been a shield once, now split like a broken vow. It didn't taste like death. It tasted like aftermath. Malvor's destruction of Aerion's realm was complete. Total devastation.
I felt it, a pulse. Wrong. Small. Familiar. I turned before I thought. It was nearly invisible, tucked between two leaning pillars that had no right to be standing. A fold in space. A scar. I shouldn't have seen it. Shouldn't have felt it. But I had been here before. I stepped through. Into the room. Not a throne room. Not a temple. Not a chamber of glory.
The Room. The one he'd taken me to. That night. Still standing. Untouched by ruin. Even the black hole that had swallowed Aerion's realm had hesitated here. The air was heavy. Stale. The walls, the walls remembered.
The pain lived here. Not just mine. Not just his. So many. Too many. It seeped from the stone like smoke. I brushed my fingers along an emblem carved into the wall. An old sigil of valor, warped and cracked. I wasn't the only one. Never had been. Just the last. The thought sank into me like lead. Cold. Absolute.
I stood at the center of the room, arms loosely crossed, coffee cooling in my hand. The pain here didn't scream. It didn't claw. It just pulsed, steady, hollow, like a slow heartbeat pressed into stone. Familiar. Almost quiet. I knew it wasn't just mine. I could feel the others. The ones who had come before me. Their grief still clung to the walls like breath that never faded. Some had begged here. Some had broken here. I had bled here. But I had also survived. I was glad Aerion was gone. Not out of vengeance. Out of justice. This place never should have existed. And yet, it endured, a wound that refused to close.
Where are you? The thought slipped loose before I could stop it. Not a prayer. Not even a question. Just exhaustion tugging at the edges of me. That was when it hit me.
The scream. Not mine. Not now. His. Aerion.
The same voice that had haunted my dreams. The same one that roared in my skull when he pressed me into the dirty metal cot. Pure rage. Agonizing. Divine. I dropped the mug. It shattered on the floor, coffee spreading like blood. The scream didn't stop. It tore through me, through the stone, through the air itself. Until the wall in front of me cracked. Warped. Split wide open.