Aeris stood at the edge of a circle forged in living flame.
The fire wasn't heat—it was memory.
Each lick of flame whispered something she had buried: the moment her wings first tore from her back in agony, the day she betrayed her own kind to save Kael, the night she stood over a battlefield, soaked in blood, whispering never again.
She didn't cry.
She couldn't.
The chains binding her weren't made of metal. They were strands of time—woven from decisions that could never be undone. They held her wrists, ankles, and heart.
Above her floated the crown. It hovered in a prism of fractured timelines, formed from Kael's name spoken in a hundred ways—love, regret, guilt, hope.
And Null watched.
He stood beyond the circle, not moving. A silhouette of collapsing constellations, his face still hidden beneath the mask of shifting symbols. But his presence devoured light. Even fire dimmed near him.
"You were always the strongest," Null said quietly. "Not because you had wings—but because you chose to carry them even when it hurt."
Aeris lifted her chin. "Let me go."
He tilted his head. "Why would I? You've already given me what I needed. Him."
She narrowed her eyes. "Kael won't break."
Null stepped forward, shadows spiraling from his hands like liquid snakes.
"Everyone breaks. What matters is when."
He knelt before her. The chains tightened.
"Do you know what makes a soul shatter?"
She spat blood. "Fear?"
He shook his head. "Hope. The moment they think they might win—and then lose everything anyway."
A tremor rippled through the chamber.
Aeris felt it first—Kael.
He was coming.
Not with fire. Not with fury.
But with choice.
The same choice he made when he didn't kill Veyra.
The same choice that shattered the sanctum.
The same choice that terrified Null.
Aeris's chains cracked—just slightly.
Null turned, feeling it too. "No," he whispered. "He wasn't supposed to…"
The chamber trembled again. A flash of blue-gold light pierced the horizon, brighter than any dawn Aeris had ever seen.
And then—he was there.
Kael emerged from the corridor of broken timelines, his body wreathed in spectral fire. One eye glowed with cosmic runes. His hand held no blade, but something deeper—a truth forged in pain, tempered in love.
Aeris gasped. Not from pain.
From recognition.
He remembered.
Kael didn't speak to Null.
He walked straight to Aeris.
And reached for her hand.
The flames screamed.
The chains resisted.
But Kael's touch burned hotter than any curse. Not because it was violent—but because it was gentle. Willing.
He pressed his forehead to hers.
"I remember everything," he whispered. "And I still choose you."
Aeris's chains exploded in a flash of silver light.
Null roared, his form unraveling at the edges, reality shrieking in protest. "You're not supposed to choose!"
Kael turned, still holding Aeris.
And smiled.
"That's the point."
The chamber shattered—walls, ceiling, sky. All of it torn as Kael and Aeris leapt into the storm of collapsing timelines.
Together.
Somewhere, far below, the girl with starry eyes watched from the dark.
Smiling.
Because this was how the next war would begin.
And how one love might save everything.