The forest path led them into ruins where stone thrones lay toppled in the dirt, monuments to kings who had long turned to dust. The air was heavy, not with ash or sorrow, but with something far more intimate—warmth so intense it pressed on the chest until breathing felt like surrender.
Hope halted, lantern trembling. "She's here."
From the shadows stepped a figure clothed in chains of crimson, each link gleaming like threads of blood and silver. Her presence softened the world, yet crushed it at the same time. Where she walked, the ivy curved toward her as if yearning for her touch.
"I am Love," she said, voice as gentle as a caress. "And I have found you, Cyrus."
Her gaze fixed on him, piercing and tender. Cyrus staggered as memories stirred within—the faces he had lost, the warmth of bonds long severed. The weight of it almost buckled his knees.
Hope's light flared, fragile but defiant. "He doesn't need your chains. His path is his own."
Love only smiled, lifting her hand. The chains that bound her body stirred, drifting toward Cyrus like threads seeking a place to root. "And yet, he is already bound. His sorrow ties him to all that has been broken. Why not let my embrace make that burden sweeter?"
The warmth was tempting, unbearably so. Cyrus felt his pulse quicken as the chains brushed near, promising solace, unity, the end of loneliness.
But Hope's lantern pulsed brighter, its glow fighting the suffocation. "You bind until nothing remains of him," she said sharply. "I guard the flame that lets him endure."
For the first time, Cyrus realized what Hope meant in the night before. Chains could bind or hold. Light could guide or fade. Neither was wholly salvation.
He clenched his fists, forcing the warmth away, though the ache of it lingered like longing unfulfilled.
The Sentiments were not allies. They were storms. And he was caught between them.