Silence hung like mist.
The glowing red door ahead pulsed with a slow, ominous rhythm. It was alive. Waiting. Hungering.
Liara stood between Aeron and Cassian, her breath shallow. Their shared memories, their fractured truths—they clung to her skin like ash.
Behind them, Kael remained silent, a guardian and a witness.
"The bond was shattered once by fear," he said. "If you wish to reforge it… it must be done without it."
Liara looked to Aeron. Then Cassian.
"We've shared blood, power… even love," she said softly. "But this—this is more. This is surrender."
Cassian stepped forward first. "Then we do it on our terms."
"Together," Aeron added, his voice a low fire.
They moved to the center of the chamber, the sigil beneath their feet igniting in golden flame. It spiraled upward, a sphere of light encasing the three of them.
Liara reached for them both, one hand in Aeron's, one in Cassian's.
Their magic stirred. Wild. Hungry. Sacred.
Aeron's fire flared, kissing her skin, threading through her veins with burning tenderness.
Cassian's energy was colder—stormlike—but no less intimate. It wrapped around her spine like armor, coiling and claiming.
Liara gasped as power surged through her—not pain, but ecstasy. Not desire born of flesh alone, but of connection, raw and ancient.
Their bodies moved without hesitation, without shame.
Aeron pressed his forehead to hers, lips parting to whisper words in the tongue of flame. Cassian's hand trailed along her spine, reverent, grounding. She turned to him, drawn by memory and soul, and kissed him—slow, sure.
They circled each other in the sphere, a sacred dance of flesh and light. Heat and shadow. Breath and promise.
When she sank against them both, caught in their arms, it was no longer about who she loved more.
It was about what they were when bound.
Three hearts. One bond.
Their climax wasn't a single moment, but an awakening—a storm breaking inside her chest, flame beneath her skin, lightning in her pulse. Magic crackled and spun around them, lifting them from the ground.
The sigil below them blazed brighter than the sun.
Then silence.
Then a single sound—a hum.
The red on the Vault's final door faded… turning pure white.
The seal was remade.
Not as it was, but stronger.
Kael stepped forward, his eyes shining. "You did it."
Liara turned toward the door.
"Now we find out what we were meant to keep buried."