They existed in agony, wrapped in marrow chains that prevented merger, burning slowly as the bonefire consumed what remained of their consciousness. Time had lost meaning in this space between existence and oblivion—they might have been suffering for seconds or centuries, the distinction irrelevant when every moment felt eternal and each eternity compressed into a single breath of pain.
Through their binding, despite the chains meant to separate them, Selena felt Dante's presence like a constant warmth against the cold of dissolution. And he felt hers—steady, defiant, refusing to fade quietly even as the curse did its work. They had split the unbearable and made it bearable. They had turned absolute punishment into shared suffering.
And the cosmic order, it seemed, had one final attempt to break them.
