🎵 Suggested Music:
"Experience" – Ludovico Einaudi (start soft, build tension)
"Archangel" – Two Steps From Hell (for the climax of Kyrell's power)
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The moment Lucian stepped into the council hall, he knew the sky had lied.
It should have stormed. Thunder should have broken the air, and lightning should've carved the mountain in half.
But it was silent.
Dead silent.
The elders stood in a circle, their hands veined with power, their lips chanting the old tongue that even Lucian had dared never speak aloud.
And at the center—
Kyrell.
Bound in shadow and gold, head bowed, shirt torn at the collarbone. He looked like sacrifice. Like divinity shackled for sport.
Lucian moved too fast for the guards to see.
He was beside Kyrell in a breath, tearing through the barriers with pure instinct.
"You brought him here like prey," Lucian spat, fangs lengthening. "You forget who you're dealing with."
Renak stepped forward. "You forget what he is."
"I know what he is," Lucian growled. "You fear it because it's not yours to control."
Kyrell stirred.
His voice was nothing more than a thread of sound, fragile—but wrong. Like a string pulled too tight on an instrument forged in blood.
"They wanted to break me, Lucian. Make me forget you." (voice croaked).
Lucian froze. "They tried to erase—"
"They failed," Kyrell whispered, eyes lifting. "Because fate does not obey."
And then—
The world tilted.
A hum bled into the room—no source, no end. Every torch blew out.
Shadows bent toward Kyrell like hungry animals. The walls groaned. Magic fractured.
The High Priest tried to cast a final seal, raising the blood dagger—
—but it melted in his hands.
Kyrell wasn't moving.
But the air around him moved. It vibrated, pulsed, tore itself apart like it remembered being part of a storm. Flames coiled at his feet, not orange but deep crimson, pulsing in time with his breath.
The sigils on the floor began to unravel.
One by one, the Elders screamed.
Some bled from the eyes.
Some were frozen in place as if time itself denied their escape.
One, the eldest among them, aged a hundred years in a second, his bones turning to ash where he stood.
Lucian watched, silent.
Kyrell opened his palm.
A sphere of silver-white light bloomed there—beautiful, mournful, as if the moon itself had come to bear witness.
"This is the part you were afraid of," Kyrell said, voice calm now. "Not because I'm a weapon. But because I chose who I'd burn for."
He turned slowly—eyes locking with Lucian's.
"I choose you."
---
Lucian didn't answer. He couldn't.
Because everything in him—his blood, his soul, his cursed immortality—was called to Kyrell like prayer answered.
He reached out.
And Kyrell stepped into his arms.
They kissed—not gentle, not careful, but as if the world had already ended and they were the last memory left behind.
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Later, when the smoke had cleared and the bodies were gone, Renak stood in the ashes, trembling.
"What… is he?"
Lucian wiped blood from Kyrell's lip and smiled without apology.
"He's what happens when love doesn't break. He's prophecy fulfilled.
And he's mine."
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