The Eclipsed Plane trembled.
Seraphina clutched Ravon's hand, her fingers slick with blood and warmth fading. His breath was shallow — almost gone — yet his grip lingered like a whisper of defiance. Around them, the world was dimming. The Veil had not fully opened. No path home, only shadows circling like vultures.
The ancient voice returned, echoing from the abyss.
"A soul must remain. A price must be paid."
Seraphina's heart clenched. "Take mine!" she screamed into the void. "Take me! Let him go!"
The silence that followed wasn't peace. It was judgement.
Ravon stirred, barely conscious. "No…" his voice rasped. "You… carry life now… you can't…"
She gasped. He knows.
She dropped to her knees beside him, sobbing. "Then take part of me," she whispered. "Not my soul… but my fire. My light. My wings. Take something — anything but him."
A low rumble surged beneath them, and a figure began forming from the mist. Cloaked in black smoke, with eyes like dying stars, it stepped forward. The Cradle Keeper.
"You dare to barter?" it asked, voice neither male nor female, but everywhere and nowhere.
"I dare because I must," Seraphina said, rising slowly. "You guard the gate. Then you know what I carry… what I will become."
The Cradle Keeper tilted its head. "A queen yet unborn. A mother of dusk and dawn. You would risk that?"
"I would fight for that."
Ravon groaned, his body twitching. The ground beneath him began to crack.
The Cradle Keeper lowered its gaze. "Then give me your flame, Child of Heaven. And he may leave with you. But know this—"
Its voice grew colder.
"Without your fire, your path forward will be shadowed. Your strength halved. The child will still burn within you… but you will no longer burn with her."
A tear slipped down Seraphina's cheek. "Then let the darkness come."
She stepped forward and raised her palm. Light sparked — golden, trembling, raw. Her essence. Her gift.
She placed it in the Cradle Keeper's hand.
The world shattered into ash and stars.