Night blanketed Axis in deep blue hues, the stars like quiet sentinels above. Yet in the Hall of the Vow-Keeper, there was no peace.
Elira stood at the balcony, her arms resting against cold silver railings, face tilted skyward—waiting for a breeze that might carry away the burden in her chest.
Behind her, the door creaked open.
Step… Step…
Arin entered, cloaked in his midnight tunic, sword still sheathed, eyes unreadable.
"You called me here," he said.
She didn't turn. Her voice, when it came, was a whisper barely clinging to composure.
"I have a story to tell."
The Girl Who Betrayed the Sky
"I wasn't always Elira Veyr," she began. "Not to this world. Before the Ascendancy, before the Marks, I lived under a different name… beneath a different sky."
She turned to him now, eyes glassy with something more fragile than tears—regret.
"I was a priestess of the Celestial Tongue. One of the Twelve who called meteors to cleanse cities. Who wrote sermons in flame across mountain ranges. We didn't protect the world… we reset it."
Arin's brows furrowed. "You told me you were chosen by the Resistance…"
"I lied."
Thud.
The sound of a thousand dominoes falling in Arin's mind.
Broken Vows, Hidden Scars
"I left that life," she continued, voice trembling. "I couldn't kill another city. Couldn't burn another cradle to appease 'order.' So I stole a starseed and vanished."
Arin's voice was colder than he intended. "You were one of them. The Heralds."
She nodded.
"And that means… they're coming. For you. For Axis."
She lowered her gaze. "For you."
Silence stretched like the edge of a blade between them.
Finally, Arin exhaled, stepping forward. "Why tell me this now?"
She looked up—eyes shining, not with pride, but raw vulnerability.
"Because I'm falling in love with the man who might have to kill me."
In the Garden of Swords
The next morning, they stood in Axis's sacred training grove, where fallen warriors planted their weapons into the soil as trees of steel.
Arin handed her a dulled blade.
"Show me."
She blinked. "You want to spar?"
"No. I want to know the real you—not through stories, but through the way your feet move, the weight of your strikes."
Their duel began slowly—parry, step, breath, strike. But emotion seeped into every clash.
CLANG!"You betrayed kingdoms."CLASH!"You saved me from my own cruelty."THWACK!"You taught me trust."SLASH!"You shattered it."
The final blow sent both tumbling into the dirt—gasping, laughing… crying.
The Flower That Grows From Chains
That night, Elira sat in the library with Sarai, who'd been listening from the shadows all along.
"I told him," she said, voice barely audible.
Sarai sipped her tea, sighing.
"That boy… he'll either forgive the world or destroy it for trying to make him hate."
"You think he'll still let me fight beside him?"
"Only one way to find out."
Meanwhile… In the Dream Prison
Far away, behind the shimmering folds of space, Aya floated in the shattered remnants of the Mirror Vault—her body covered in ethereal chains, her mind flickering between past and present.
Voice from the dark:"Do you remember what he looked like… the moment he was expelled?"
Aya's lip trembled.
"I do. I remember every line of pain… and every ounce of love he still held for those who abandoned him."
The voice grew sharper.
"Then why do you still love him?"
Aya's whisper cut through eternity.
"Because he didn't break the world… we did."
The shadows trembled.
Back in Axis
As dawn painted the sky in pink and gold, Arin stood alone on the balcony, staring at his reflection in the blade.
Love her? Or prepare to face her?
Sarai appeared behind him.
"You can't carry every heart and still expect yours to remain whole."
He didn't look back. "Then maybe I was never meant to be whole."
She sighed.
"Then may the gods forgive us all."