She was still warm.
Zeyr held her body in the crook of one arm as if she might yet wake, might whisper some final contradiction into his chest. But her light had gone out—not faded, not dimmed, but left. The sigils across her spine had cracked like stained glass, and the radiant threads once laced through her veins had evaporated in the shape of birds, then dust, then silence.
The crowd was too stunned to scream again.
Too many were already dead.
The rot Zeyr had unleashed during the moment of her death had not stopped with the stone. It had spread—across the plaza, the foundation, the walls of the Sanctum itself. Vines blacker than oil bloomed from the marble underfoot. Statuary wept sap from their eyes. High Clerics who had been closest to the altar now lay contorted in their robes, faces split open into flowers.
Zeyr rose.
The robes he wore had burned away in the backlash. His scaled skin was slick with blood—some his own, most not. His claws pulsed green. The air around him shimmered with heatless humidity, the musk of damp earth and ruined time.
He laid Aeryn's body gently on the altar.
Then he turned.
And began to walk.
The guards had drawn their blades. One screamed something—an order, a command, maybe a prayer.
Zeyr raised his hand.
They died in a line.
Not from blade. Not from spell.
They simply stopped.
One blinked, eyes melting into black. Another froze mid-lunge, veins bulging with thorns. A third clutched his throat and fell backward, body sprouting lichen like sudden fur.
Zeyr walked between them without pause.
Toward the Emperor's dais.
Toward the one who had ordered the purge. The sacrifice. The resurrection. The lie.
Toward the man who had carved out Aeryn's soul and buried it inside a throne.
The Emperor stood unmoving.
He wore the Veil of Solace, a golden mask shaped to show nothing—no eyes, no mouth, only the outline of a human face surrounded by a sunburst crown. His robes hung in perfect lines, unsullied by blood or storm.
Zeyr stopped ten paces below the dais.
The rot did not touch the stairs.
Not yet.
The Emperor spoke.
"You are an echo, Zeyr Vol."
His voice was not loud.
But it carried.
"You are a reverberation of failure. A sickness clinging to memory."
Zeyr said nothing.
"Your love was a flaw. Your rage, a weakness. Your return, predictable. You walked the path we made for you."
Zeyr lifted his chin.
"You broke her."
"She was made new."
"She was made into a weapon."
The Emperor nodded.
"All things serve their purpose."
Zeyr took one step up the stairs.
The rot followed.
The Emperor did not move.
"You were always going to come here," the Emperor said. "Even she knew it."
Zeyr climbed another step.
Another.
"Even now," the Emperor continued, "you believe this ends in triumph."
Zeyr reached the top.
"No," he said.
"This ends in silence."
The Emperor reached for his blade.
But Zeyr was already in motion.
He crossed the space between them in a breath.
One hand on the Veil.
The other to the Emperor's mouth.
A kiss.
Slow.
Final.
Poisoned.
The Emperor staggered.
Choked.
His hands clawed at Zeyr's arms. His mask fell, clattered against the dais. Beneath it, his face was ancient—cracked porcelain, held together by gold threads and divine magic.
The rot ate it in seconds.
He fell.
And the Sanctum cracked.
A sound like thunder tore the air open.
The gold veins running through the marble snapped.
A column fell.
The sky darkened.
Every temple bell in the city rang once—without hands to strike them.
Zeyr turned and looked over the square.
The crowd was fleeing.
Guards abandoning their posts.
Priests collapsing into prayers they knew would not be answered.
He raised his hand.
The Seed of Collapse pulsed beneath his ribs.
He pulled it free—an orb now, black and smooth and humming with potential.
He cast it into the sanctum floor.
The rot drank it.
And bloomed.
A forest of death erupted beneath the palace.
Stone split.
Roots the size of bridges cracked the foundation.
The dome of the Sanctum collapsed inward, folding like petals in reverse.
The throne split down the center.
Zeyr walked away as it fell.
The empire behind him dissolved into fungus and whispering ruin.
Outside the city walls, a figure waited.
Eila Mournblade.
She stood atop a watchtower, twin daggers crossed behind her back, hair soaked from rain and blood. Her eyes glowed faintly now—she had drunk the sap of Yasshal two nights ago. Just enough to see this.
To watch it burn.
She smiled when she saw him.
"You did it," she said.
Zeyr walked past her.
"It's done."
Eila turned, following him.
"The people are leaderless."
"They'll crown a corpse."
"Let them," she said.
Zeyr didn't stop walking.
Eila stepped beside him.
"Where will you go now?"
He didn't answer.
She caught his wrist.
"Zeyr."
He stopped.
His eyes met hers.
Empty.
"She's gone," he said.
Eila nodded.
"You loved her too much."
"Yes."
"You should have let her go."
"I did."
He pulled away and kept walking.
Eila didn't follow.
That night, in the belly of a dead swamp, Zeyr found the mouth of the god.
Yasshal had grown.
No longer bound to the Root-Womb, the god's body now spread across miles of underworld, threading through catacombs, tombs, and wells. It greeted him in silence.
The rot moved aside.
He stepped into its heart.
Kneeled.
"I bring the world as promised."
The god pulsed.
"You bring ruin," it said.
"Yes."
"You are no longer man."
"No."
"You are not mine."
Zeyr looked up.
"I am no one's."
The god coiled around him.
He did not flinch.
"You can live forever."
"I am already dead."
"Then let us die together."
Zeyr exhaled.
"Let it begin."
The god opened its mouth.
And Zeyr stepped inside.
A week later, the flowers began.
Black lotuses bloomed across the empire.
Not planted.
Not grown.
They emerged—from walls, from mouths, from dreams.
Each whispered in a voice that was not quite wind.
Each sang a single line:
"He kissed me with poison, and I bloomed."
The people named it the Rot Tide.
No army followed.
No tyrant rose.
Only silence.
And petals.