The spear of light screamed across the ruined corridor, brighter than any missile Adrian had ever seen. It tore the air apart as it came for him.Adrian threw himself sideways, the blast searing past his chest. The shockwave hurled him into the wall, concrete collapsing around him. Dust filled his lungs, his ribs shrieked in pain, but he forced himself back up.“Selene!” His roar split the storm. “It’s me, you know me!”But the figure before him was no longer the woman he’d held in the quiet hours of the night. Selene floated above the wreckage, her hair alive with fire, her eyes endless voids of white. The glow around her pulsed with something older than language, older than war.Her lips parted, but the voice was not hers, The oath ends with you, Adrian Kane, another blast surged from her palm.Adrian braced himself, diving forward into the shockwave instead of away from it. Pain exploded down his spine, but he moved anyway, driven by the one truth that anchored him: if he stopped

The first blast nearly tore him in half. Adrian dove, the searing white fire screaming past his shoulder, the heat stripping flesh from his arm. He hit the glass ground hard, the impact cracking through his ribs, but he forced himself up.“Selene!” His voice shredded in his throat. “Don’t let it take you!”She hovered above him, radiant, unrecognizable. The fire clung to her like wings, her eyes hollow pits of light. Every motion was not hers but the Eye’s, measured, cruel, inevitable.The vessel obeys, the chorus of voices declared through her mouth. The man before her is nothing but a chain to be broken.Her hand lifted. Fire coalesced, forming a spear of light. Adrian’s legs buckled, his lungs a furnace of ash. But still he stood.“Don’t,” he whispered, not to the Eye, but to her. “Don’t let it use your hands. Don’t let it make you kill me.”For the briefest second, her expression twitched. Her lips trembled as though she might answer, Then the spear flew.Adrian twisted aside, the

Adrian fell, the abyss wasn’t descent but disintegration, his body dissolving into shards of memory, bone, and light. He couldn’t tell if he was still breathing, if the fire peeling across his skin was real or a dream.Selene’s scream still echoed in his ears. Ending this. Before it ends you. His fists clenched, though his body felt like smoke. “Selene…”The void laughed, darkness pulled itself together, shaping into a battlefield of shadows. Corpses littered the ground, soldiers he had led into fire, friends who never made it home.Their eyeless faces turned toward him, mouths opening with the same word, Failure.Adrian staggered to his knees, blood dripping from his lips. “This isn’t real.”The abyss answered by shifting again. Now Selene stood before him. Not radiant, not aflame, just as she had been that night she handed him divorce papers. Her cold eyes pinned him, her voice sharper than any blade.“You were nothing to me. Nothing but shame.”The words gutted him. Even knowing th

The chains sang like molten steel, every link glowing brighter as they tightened.Adrian’s body slammed into Selene’s, their wrists shackled together, their chests pressed by coils that burned through flesh into bone. The prison throbbed with the rhythm of their merged heartbeats, each pulse stronger than the last.Selene’s breath tore ragged against his face. Her tears hissed into steam the moment they touched the glowing chains.“Adrian… it’s binding us,” she whispered, horror shaking her voice.“I know.” His teeth ground together as fire split down his spine. “But it won’t win. Not while I’m still breathing.”The Eye’s laughter filled the chamber, smooth and patient. You are already mine. The lock and the hand, fused as one. The longer you fight, the faster you turn.The chains constricted again. Selene screamed, her body jerking against him. Adrian roared back, straining, forcing the coils to give an inch, his muscles tearing in the effort.“Hold on!” he gasped. “Don’t you give it

The void hummed like a living wound. Adrian’s body sagged against the chains, his chest heaving. The silence was unbearable, worse than the pain, worse than the fire still searing his veins.She was gone. His head bowed, his breath ragged. For the first time in years, he let the weight crush him. No battlefield, no prison, no humiliation had ever broken him like this. Selene’s absence hollowed him clean through.I told you, the Eye murmured, a voice smooth as poison. You were never enough to hold her. She chose the flame. She chose me.Adrian’s teeth clenched until blood ran down his lips. “Liar.”If she loved you, she would have stayed. Instead, she bled herself for me. I am the proof of her devotion.The words dug deep, but Adrian refused to break. He lifted his head, eyes bloodshot, jaw iron. “No. She bled because of me. Because I couldn’t save her in time. But don’t mistake sacrifice for surrender. She didn’t choose you.”He spat, blood hitting the void floor. “She chose us.”The