Her body, if it could still be called that, was splintering into molten shards of flame and memory. Her face flickered, first the woman who had once kissed him in a quiet kitchen, then the woman who had glared at him across divorce papers, then the warrior who had stood against gods.Each version fractured, bled away into the storm, and still, Adrian clung to her.“Selene!” His roar was jagged, half choked by pain. “Don’t you dare do this. Stay with me. Stay!”Her eyes opened, glass-bright, threaded with tears of fire.“Adrian…” Her voice was faint, the echo of a woman who had already stepped beyond the veil. “You have to let me go.”“No!” His grip crushed tighter. He dragged her burning frame against him, ignoring the fire that seared into his flesh. “Don’t you dare ask me to let you go. I’ve lost you once. I won’t lose you again!”Her trembling hand lifted, touching his cheek. It was fragile, fading even as it cupped him. “You’ll survive this. You’ll live. You always had that streng

The void boiled, Adrian clutched the shard of Selene to his chest, its glow bleeding through his arms, searing his flesh, scarring his bones. The other fragments drifted closer, drawn by some tether stronger than gravity, drawn by his plea, his fire, his love.“Come back to me,” he whispered again and again, each word breaking, each syllable a prayer and a command. “Come back, Selene. Don’t leave me in the dark.”The first shard sank into his chest, He gasped, his body arching, his veins exploding with fire and memory. A thousand images ripped through him, Selene’s laughter, her scorn, her tears, her smile in the morning when she thought he was still asleep.It burned. Gods, it burned. But he welcomed the fire. “More,” he snarled, reaching into the storm. “Give her back to me.”The Eye screamed, fury rolling like thunder across eternity. Stop this! She is mine! Ash cannot rise! Dust cannot love!Chains of shadow tore at the fragments, trying to scatter them. Adrian ripped them back, h

The silence was worse than the storm, Adrian’s body hung suspended in light, every nerve ablaze, every muscle torn open. Blood floated from his wounds in thin ribbons, evaporating into sparks before it touched the ground.Selene’s face was inches from his, flickering, incomplete. Her form dissolved and reformed in his arms, shards of light splitting and fusing again.She whispered, her breath brushing his lips. You can’t hold me like this, Adrian’s teeth clenched, his grip like iron around her trembling shoulders. “Watch me.”The storm rippled, Light surged through his veins, searing down to his marrow. He gasped, choking on fire, as her fragments forced themselves deeper into his soul.Memories poured into him, too fast, too raw, her childhood laughter, her wedding tears, her rage the night she signed the papers, each memory was a blade. Each one cut him open, and still he clung tighter.“You’re not leaving me again, Selene. Not like this. Not ever.”The Eye’s voice boomed through th

The fire was no longer outside him, It was them.Adrian staggered forward, or thought he did, though he had no sense of legs, of arms, of body. He was flame and blood and memory, stitched together by light that pulsed with Selene’s heartbeat, and her voice was everywhere.Adrian, can you hear me?He gasped, choking on air that wasn’t air. “Yes. Too much. You’re” His own voice splintered, echoing across the storm. “You’re inside me.”Not just inside, she whispered, trembling. We’re the same now.The thought ripped through him like another blade. His memories flickered, his mother’s dying hand clutching the heirloom, the day he took his first oath as a soldier, Selene’s cold eyes as she signed the divorce papers.And threaded through them were hers, her father’s scorn, her lonely nights when she thought he’d abandoned her, her whispered sobs when she realized she loved him still. Their memories bled into one another until he couldn’t tell which belonged to whom.“No,” Adrian snarled, cl

The throne room pulsed like a living wound, Selene and Adrian stood shoulder to shoulder, though even here, even fused, she felt how thin the line between them had become.Their breaths matched. Their hearts thundered in the same rhythm. But every time she blinked, she saw him, the figure on the throne, It was Adrian, and it was not.He wore the same medals. The same scars. The same eyes, though darker, filled with bottomless hunger.The doppelgänger leaned forward, his voice silk and storm.“You’re finally here. Took you long enough.”Adrian raised his blade, the firelight trembling against shadow. “You’re nothing but a parasite wearing my skin.”The other smiled. “Or I am what you’ve always hidden. The ambition. The fury. The hunger for her.” His gaze shifted to Selene, pinning her in place. “Even now, you burn for her, don’t you? But she never believed in you. She abandoned you when you were nothing. And still you kneel at her side.”Selene stiffened, her throat tight. Adrian didn’