Kael did not attend the council.
He locked the doors instead.
The chamber beneath Dravenfall — once used to interrogate captured gods — smelled of cold iron and old prayers. Lady Maevra was gone, but what she'd carried had not been destroyed.
It waited on the table.
A circlet of void-scribed metal, still humming faintly with divine intent.
Kael stared at it like it might speak.
Behind him, Elira stirred.
"You shouldn't be here," he said quietly.
"And miss the truth?" she replied. "Not again."
He turned. Looked at her properly.
She looked tired — not weak, but worn in a way only eternity could carve. The faint glow beneath her skin pulsed erratically now, dimmer than before. Mortal enough to bruise. To ache.
To stay.
Kael exhaled slowly. "She wasn't here to kill you."
"I know," Elira said. "They're trying to house me. Like a weapon they misplaced."
He reached for the circlet.
The moment his fingers brushed it—
The bond ignited.
---
The Dream That Wasn't a Dream
They fell at the same time.
Not to the floor.
Into memory.
Kael gasped as the world inverted — heat, cold, stars screaming past — and suddenly he was standing somewhere impossible.
A bridge of light stretched over nothingness.
And Elira—
No.
Aurelion Astraea — radiant, terrible, crowned in living constellations — stood at its center.
Kael staggered.
"You never told me," he whispered.
She turned.
Her eyes held galaxies.
"I wasn't allowed," she said. "And then… I forgot."
The memory unfolded without permission.
— Kael, younger, bloodied, kneeling before a celestial tribunal
— Gods debating his worth like a resource
— Elira standing alone against them
He is too fragile, they'd said.
Then make him stronger, she'd replied.
Or admit you're afraid of what he'll become if he survives.
Kael felt it then.
Her fear.
Not of heaven.
Of losing him.
The scene shattered.
They were somewhere else now — a dark room, close, intimate. Kael felt her breath like it was his own. Felt the echo of her loneliness burning through centuries.
Elira swayed.
"I didn't choose godhood," she murmured. "It chose me. And I hated how alone it was."
He reached for her.
Pulled her against him.
This wasn't flesh.
This was truth.
"I was angry at the world," Kael said, voice rough. "I thought I chose the serpent. I thought I chose war."
He pressed his forehead to hers.
"I chose you. Over and over. Even when I didn't remember why."
Her hands clenched in his armor.
The bond flared — not heat this time, but need. A deep, aching pull that begged for closeness, for grounding, for something solid enough to hold eternity.
Their mouths hovered a breath apart.
Elira's voice trembled. "If this keeps deepening…"
"I know," Kael said. "I feel it too."
Because he did.
Her fear of abandonment.
Her grief for what she'd lost.
Her dangerous, aching desire to be chosen not as a star…
…but as a woman.
He kissed her forehead instead.
A deliberate restraint.
A promise.
---
Kael jerked upright with a sharp inhale.
Elira did the same — gasping, clutching the front of his shirt.
For a long moment, neither spoke.
Then Elira whispered, "They're afraid of us."
Kael looked at the circlet on the table — now dark, inert.
"They should be."
She leaned into him, resting her head against his chest. He wrapped an arm around her automatically — protective, grounding.
"We can't hide anymore," she said quietly.
"No," he agreed. "So we make the truth dangerous to ignore."
Outside the chamber, the fortress shifted — alliances forming, plots tightening, heaven listening.
Inside, two beings bound by memory, shadow, and starlight prepared to become something the world had no name for yet.
And when Elira closed her eyes again…
She dreamed.
Not of falling.
But of standing beside him — unafraid.