The world bled around her.Steel clashed, bodies screamed, and the valley filled with smoke and crimson spray. Yet none of it was louder than the voice inside her head.Strike deeper.Selene’s blade slid through an armored chest, the resistance of ribs giving way like rotten wood. She pulled free, breath ragged, eyes wild. The serpent’s voice was not a command — it was an echo of hunger, feeding on every motion she made.More. More. Break them. Break him.Her scar burned, searing across her face as though molten iron had been pressed into flesh anew. She stumbled, almost dropping her sword, before rage steadied her hand.She was not fighting the enemy. Not only them. She was fighting herself.The serpent’s army pressed like an endless tide. Shields drove forward, crushing men beneath their weight. Spears darted, stabbing her throat, her heart, her scar.And yet she cut them down.Not gracefully — violently. Her movements were jagged, desperate, but carried with a terrifying precision

The serpent’s army surged like a tide, pressing against Adrian’s line with merciless force. Shields splintered, spears cracked, and the ground itself seemed to shudder beneath the crush of bodies.Adrian fought at the front, his sword a silver arc cleaving through armored flesh. Every strike bought his men another heartbeat, but the tide pressed on. And through the smoke, through the screams, he saw her again.Selene.She cut a path toward him, though whether by will or by the serpent’s design, he could not tell. Soldiers scattered before her — his and theirs alike — as if the storm itself had chosen a direction.His chest clenched. Their paths were no longer parallel. They were colliding.The Pull of InevitabilityHer sword flashed in the haze. The scar burned on her face like molten coal. Her steps faltered once, twice — but each time she righted herself, blade dripping, shoulders squared.Adrian knew this was no accident. The serpent wanted this meeting. Wanted her hand to rise aga

The clash raged on, a storm of fire and shadow, but to Selene it all seemed muffled — like a dream wrapped in smoke.Every step she took left a trail of bodies. She felt their weight on her sword, on her skin, but none of it reached her heart. That part of her burned elsewhere — where Adrian’s words had struck, still echoing like a bell that would not stop ringing.You are not his. You never will be.Her scar pulsed with every syllable, as though torn open anew. She gritted her teeth, forcing her body to move. To kill. To survive.But then came the whispers.The Fear of Her OwnAt first, she thought it was the serpent’s voice again, slithering in her ear. But no — it was real, hushed words carried across the din of battle.“Is she even with us anymore?”“Look at her eyes. That’s not our queen.”“She cuts down our men as easily as theirs.”Selene staggered. Her grip faltered. She turned, desperate to see their faces, but her soldiers would not meet her gaze. They fought near her, but

Selene’s sword dripped red as she drove another foe into the mud, the weight of his body dragging her blade low. She yanked it free with a savage twist, flinging blood in an arc across the churned ground. Around her, the din of battle thundered — shields splintering, voices breaking into screams, the pounding of boots against sodden earth. It was chaos, relentless and suffocating. And yet, through all of it, her gaze kept dragging — unwilling, unbidden — to the ridge where he fought.Adrian.Through the haze of smoke and ash, she could see him, every movement etched in sharp relief against the backdrop of war. He was a force the battlefield could not swallow, a storm of steel and will. Where he stepped, enemies fell. Where his sword cut, the serpent’s army buckled.And she felt him.The thread that bound them tugged with every heartbeat. Every strike of his blade echoed in her bones. Every step he took pressed against her chest, like a heartbeat that wasn’t hers but lived inside

The rain fell hard.Each drop hissed as it struck his armor, turning the soot and blood to streaks of gray. Adrian did not move at first. He stood still, sword in hand, watching the woman before him as the storm gathered its breath.Selene.Even drenched in darkness, she glowed. Not with light, but with defiance — with the shimmer of power that made the very air around her hum. Shadows twisted around her form like living serpents, wrapping her in a crown of smoke. Her eyes were molten red, and yet, beneath that infernal glow, he still saw the glimmer of the woman who had once whispered his name like a vow.He wanted to speak. To say her name. To break whatever spell she was under with the sound of his voice.But words had long since become useless things between them.So instead, he moved.The ChargeHis first step was silent. The second tore through the mud like thunder.The world erupted.The ash-fire in his blade burst to life — pale, colorless flame that gave no heat but burned