The world cracked, but they didn't flinch.
Lucian and Kyrell stood in the center of the burning sky, bare bodies marked by bond and blood, their hands clasped so tightly that even death would have struggled to part them.
Their wings—one of night, one of light—spread open wide, casting a trembling glow across the citadel ruins.
And still, Lucian whispered:
"If everything burns, then let it.
"You stay with me."
Kyrell turned to him, eyes radiant, no longer soft but forged in fire.
"I'm not going anywhere."
---
(Above Them – Damien's Fall)
Damien plummeted from the rift in the sky like a dark comet, wreathed in ash and grief.
His body was no longer wholly his—warped by the thing he'd let inside him, a god of famine and rage. Horns curved from his temples, his fangs elongated, but his heart—
his heart still broke for Kyrell.
He landed in the shattered courtyard, knees bent, weapon drawn. His eyes locked with Lucian's.
"You don't deserve him," Damien rasped, voice thick with corrupted magic.
"You took what wasn't meant for you."
Lucian stepped forward, naked and unafraid.
"I took nothing. He chose me."
That was when Kyrell stepped in front of Lucian, shielding him, voice clear as divine thunder:
"Try and take him," he said to Damien, "and I'll kill you myself."
The storm paused. Even the heavens held their breath.
Lucian knew it before anyone else did—before the earth shivered or the air grew heavy with copper.
Kyrell's scent changed.
His blood was no longer mortal.
Right there,…He shifted.
It was not his body that changed—it was the air around him. It thickened like smoke, rippling with quiet violence.
Then came the sound.
Not a growl.
Not a roar.
A note—low, resonant, like something a cathedral might sing when no one is listening.
And Kyrell stood untouched, still barefoot, still innocent-looking, save for his eyes—those once-soft, frightened things now filled with fire that remembered everything.
"I was never yours to claim", he said, voice calm and terrifying in its clarity and I might end up burning you if you refuse to understand".
Lucian, even with his centuries of power, took a step back—He knew what Kyrell could do.
---
(Inside the Council Hall – Silas Ascends)
As the outer world collapsed into chaos, Silas reached into the void Mara had opened and pulled something ancient from the darkness.
A blade. Silver and screaming. A godkiller.
"Time to finish this," he said.
Behind him, Mara knelt in silent ecstasy.
"Let them drown in each other's flame."
---
Back at the Citadel – The Lovers Rise
Lucian and Kyrell walked toward Damien slowly—together. Power spiraled around their joined hands like galaxies. Their bond had become a force the gods could not unmake.
And Damien—though burning, trembling, aching with loss—understood it.
"I tried to stop it," he said, staggering. "I thought I was saving him."
Kyrell's voice was quieter now, aching.
"You were never the enemy, Damien. You were just afraid."
Lucian came closer, touched Damien's hand—and the corruption hissed like steam.
"I release you," Lucian said.
And with that, Damien screamed—not in agony, but in freedom.
The darkness inside him broke. The sky cracked further.
And for one glorious second, all three stood beneath the broken firmament, wrapped in the light of something neither holy nor damned.
Love.
---
(A New Throne)
The citadel fell to ash behind them. The council's reign was broken. The sky rewrote its color.
---
Hours later..
Lucian sat on a throne forged of bone and starlight, Kyrell at his side, fingers intertwined, their marks glowing with rhythm. Wings folded behind them like a promise kept.
They had not just survived fate.
They had claimed it.
And so the gods wept.
And the dark sang.
And two hearts, bound in eternal hunger, beat like one.
---