The throne room split open, The sword’s stroke had cut more than flesh, it had cut reality itself. Light and shadow spilled across the floor, sizzling where they met, devouring everything they touched.Both Adrians collapsed to their knees. One bled flame, his hands clawing at the air. The other bled shadow, his grin cracked but not broken. Their cries overlapped until Selene couldn’t tell which belonged to the man she loved.Selene staggered forward, her sword slipping from her grip. “No, no, no, no” Her knees struck the fractured glass, her palms slapping into blood and fire. “I didn’t mean, Adrian, I didn’t”The fire-Adrian lifted his head, his eyes burning with pain. “Selene… why?”Her breath hitched, guilt choking her throat. “I wasn’t sure, I couldn’t”The shadow-Adrian laughed, clutching his bleeding chest. “Perfect. You tried to save him, and you broke him instead. Now neither of us is whole.”The room convulsed, and chains lashed from the ceiling, wrapping around both Adrians

The first thing Adrian tasted was iron, The second was silence.No time. No weight. No sky, Only the endless pulse of the Eye.He’d been counting the heartbeats for what felt like centuries. Not his, it didn’t have one anymore, but hers. The Eye’s. The thing he’d been fighting long before Selene ever knew his name.Every beat sent fire through his spine, reminding him that he was chained to its will, a general stripped of command, a man reduced to a weapon.Then, through the stillness, a crack, A scream, Her scream.Adrian’s head snapped up. “Selene?”The darkness around him rippled. Chains groaned. The Eye’s laughter slithered through the void.Ah. The queen has come to claim her king.Adrian yanked at the shackles binding his wrists, the metal searing his skin. “Don’t touch her!”The Eye didn’t answer. It didn’t need to, Light exploded across the chamber, blinding, violent, and a body fell from above, striking the ground with a sound that made his heart stop, Selene.Adrian straine

The storm hadn’t ended, It had only learned to whisper.Wind hissed through the fractured plain as the first night after the Eye’s collapse settled in. The glass wasteland glowed faintly from within, like embers refusing to die. Every few seconds the light shifted, pulsing, alive.Adrian knelt beside the sword again. The ground throbbed beneath his knees.Vivienne paced behind him, arms wrapped tight around herself. “We should move. Radiation, heat, whatever this is, it’s getting worse.”“It’s not radiation.” Adrian’s voice was quiet, controlled. “It’s resonance. The Eye’s energy is adapting.”Vivienne stopped pacing. “Adapting to what?”He looked up. “To her.”A low hum rolled through the air, and for an instant, the glass surface rippled like water. Vivienne flinched backward. “Please tell me that’s just aftershock.”“It’s communication.” Adrian rose, drawing his blade. “It’s calling to what’s left of her.”They followed the pulse across the ruins, through streets that no longer had

The fall had no direction, Vivienne clawed at nothing, light streaming past her in ribbons that bent like liquid glass. Her scream broke apart before it reached her ears.Every second stretched and folded, the brightness compressing until she couldn’t tell if she was still falling or if gravity itself had been rewritten.Then, impact, but there was no pain. She was standing.A plain of pale water stretched to every horizon, reflecting a colorless sky. Each step sent ripples across the surface, yet she left no reflection, only distortions that lagged behind like ghosts trying to remember their shape.Vivienne swallowed hard. “Adrian?” Her voice didn’t echo. It just… dissolved.She spun slowly. In the distance, shapes floated, archways, fragments of walls, furniture suspended mid-air like half-remembered dreams. A chair. A cracked mug. A uniform jacket that looked burned through one sleeve.Her heartbeat quickened. “Adrian!”A sound answered, soft, familiar, a footstep breaking the wate

The world ended quietly, no explosion, no light too bright to see. Only a single breath, drawn in disbelief, released into silence.Adrian Kane opened his eyes to find himself standing on a field of fractured glass. Each shard reflected a different moment of his life, his mother’s hands on a broken heirloom, Selene’s voice trembling with fury, Vivienne’s eyes the instant before she vanished.The air shimmered, rippling like heat rising off metal, the Eye was no longer hiding.Its voice surrounded him, vast and intimate at once. She disobeyed the laws of balance. You should be grateful, her end gave you stability.He flexed his fingers. Vivienne’s light still clung to them like dust that refused to fade. “You call that stability?”She freed you from conflict. “You killed her.”We do not kill. We repurpose.His jaw tightened. “Then I’ll learn to break what you build.”He took a step forward, and the ground rippled, shattering the reflections beneath his boots. The shards flared, showing