Falling wasn't like it looked in dreams.
There was no end, no wind, no sense of time. Just pressure. Silence. A feeling like drowning in a sea that had no water — only memories.
Lena's hand clutched Lucien's.
Tighter than before.
Because she could feel him slipping.
Not from her grasp, but from himself.
They landed not on ground, but in thought.
A place shaped by mind and fear — a void that whispered with Lucien's forgotten pain.
Lena blinked into the darkness.
There was no horizon. No sky.
Just a shattered world made of fractured memories — towers that bled shadow, rivers that whispered names, and ruins shaped like guilt.
Lucien stood beside her, but not fully.
Something in him was… pulling.
His body shimmered between forms — god and man, star and shadow.
And then a voice echoed, deep and cruel:
"So you came back."
It wasn't Aren.
It was Lucien's voice.
But older. Colder. Hollow.
A shadow stepped forward — a mirror of Lucien, but taller, sharper, eyes black like collapsed suns.
"I am what you buried," the shadow said. "The truth you never wanted her to see."
Lucien trembled. "You're just a fragment."
"I'm the core."
Lena stepped forward, but Lucien held her back. "Let me face him."
The shadow smiled.
"You remember the first soul you shattered? She begged for mercy. You laughed."
Lucien's fists clenched. "That wasn't me—"
"It was. I am not a memory. I am you. The version that accepted the gift of the Void. The one who didn't fall in love. The one who became everything the gods feared."
Lena stepped beside him. "Then you're nothing."
The shadow turned to her slowly.
"I am what he would've been… without you."
The landscape warped.
Now they stood in a chamber made of stars and screams.
Chains hung from the black sky — each one bound to a memory.
Lena reached for one and saw it flash:
A child. Crying. Alone in a void. Abandoned by creation.
Lucien turned away.
Another flash:
Lucien kneeling in blood, surrounded by fallen gods. His hands shaking. His eyes blank.
The shadow Lucien laughed.
"You broke the stars for love. But it was fear that made you stay."
Lucien spoke softly. "You think power is everything."
The shadow's grin widened. "And yet, here you are. Back where it began."
Lena grabbed Lucien's hand.
"Don't listen to it."
But Lucien's breath hitched.
Because the shadow stepped aside.
And behind it — a throne.
One carved from his own spine.
Lucien staggered.
He remembered it.
He had sat there once.
At the end of the war. When the last god had fallen. When the stars burned out.
And in that moment — he had ruled everything.
Alone.
"Take it," the shadow whispered. "End this farce. Stop pretending you're human."
Lucien's fingers twitched.
Lena grabbed his face. "Look at me."
He couldn't.
"Lucien."
Still nothing.
So she leaned in and kissed him.
Not softly. Not gently.
A kiss filled with every moment they'd shared — every time she dragged him from the edge, every time he lit her fire, every promise she ever whispered into his scars.
And for a second — just one — the void pulsed with light.
Lucien gasped and collapsed to his knees.
The shadow staggered back.
"You... still cling to her?"
"She's not a weakness," Lucien said, rising.
"She's why I survived."
The void shook violently.
The chains snapped.
The throne cracked.
And Lena stepped forward.
"You said you were the core," she told the shadow. "But you were always the shell."
Lucien raised his hand.
From his chest, he pulled the silver cage — the one that held his true heart.
And he shattered it.
Light erupted, raw and blinding.
The shadow screamed — not with fear, but with rage. "You'll regret this! You need me!"
Lucien's voice rang out, calm and full:
"I needed you once. To survive. But not anymore."
The shadow dissolved.
And in its place… silence.
True silence.
Peaceful.
They stood in the stillness.
Lena reached out. "Are you okay?"
Lucien looked at her.
For the first time in all their lifetimes, his eyes held no pain.
"I remember everything. Every mistake. Every version of me."
He touched her cheek.
"And I still choose this."
She smiled, relieved. "Then let's go home."
He nodded.
But the void whispered one last time.
Not to Lucien.
To her.
A voice ancient and cold:
"You have seen his darkness, little flame. But what will he do when he sees yours?"
Lena froze.
But didn't speak.
Because some secrets weren't ready to be burned yet.