The blade came down like judgment.Zayn’s bloodfire screamed as it split the darkness, its crimson blaze carving a line through the abyss itself. His strike was aimed not at Sera, but at the tether, the invisible bond that glowed faintly between her chest and Adrien’s.Adrien’s roar cracked his lungs raw. His body writhed against the crown’s control, pinned against the stone, blood dripping from his mouth in burning rivulets.“Dont!”Too late, Steel met fire. The moment Zayn’s blade struck the tether, the abyss convulsed. The crown shrieked, Sera’s body convulsing violently midair, her screams twisted between hers and something far older.The tether flared so bright it blinded them all, a streak of molten light between two souls being torn apart. Adrien’s hands clawed at the ground, his fire surging to meet Zayn’s strike, refusing, refusing to be severed.“No!” Adrien bellowed, his power ripping loose in a storm of flame. “She is mine!”The tether howled in response, feeding on his re
The abyss screamed.Black stone split under the force of the three powers colliding, flame, void, and bloodfire, Adrien’s descent cracked reality itself. His flames seared the air, burning back the shadows as though he had brought the sun into the underworld.He didn’t hesitate, not for a heartbeat. His eyes locked on her, on Sera, and the tether between them strained to reconnect, to rebuild what had been broken.Sera staggered, her body convulsing under the weight of three forces that had no right to coexist inside mortal flesh. The crown’s void tried to swallow her, Adrien’s tether tried to anchor her, and the remnants of her own fire fought to breathe beneath the weight of it all.Zayn, bruised and bleeding, spat on the cracked earth. His flames licked higher around him, his weapon clutched with white-knuckled fury. His gaze flicked between Adrien and Sera, his expression a storm of rage and… fear.“She’s going to tear herself apart,” he growled.Adrien’s head turned, his voice lo
Adrien woke choking.The glass of his study windows shattered, every mirror fracturing inward as if some invisible force had punched straight through the estate. His chest burned, not from fire, but from a sudden, jagged pull that tore through his tether with Sera.He staggered, gripping the edge of his desk. His breath came in ragged gasps.“No…”For days the tether had been silent, cold. He’d thought it meant she was gone. Dead, maybe. He’d cursed himself for believing in it at all. But now, Now it screamed.A thread yanked at his ribs, sharp enough to cut, alive and poisoned. It wasn’t just her flame he felt, it was something else riding inside it. Something that wasn’t her.His knees buckled, From the doorway, Liora cried out, her little voice piercing the storm. “Papa!”He turned just in time to see her small hands reach for him, her face pale, frightened. The lights around them flickered, sparks snapping from the chandeliers as though the entire house bent under Sera’s rage acro
The abyss roared like a living thing.Stone dissolved beneath them, the ruins collapsing into nothingness, swallowed by fire and shadow. The world was no longer the same, it bent around Sera, pulled toward her like she was gravity itself, like she was the wound in reality.The crown of nothing pulsed on her head, tightening until every breath tasted like ash, Zayn’s voice cut through the chaos, harsh and raw.“SERA!”He charged, blade ablaze, every ounce of his strength condensed into that single strike. Not for vengeance. Not for victory. But to break through to her, to stop whatever was swallowing her whole. Her hand lifted, unbidden. “No, don’t”The crown flared. Her flames erupted outward, void-laced fire lashing into a storm that turned the air into molten glass. Zayn’s strike collided with it, the clash sending a shockwave that split the sky above them.Stone burst apart. The abyss widened, Zayn was hurled back, blood spraying from his mouth as he slammed into the crumbling grou
The void was silent. Not the silence of absence, but of suffocation. Of a scream trapped in stone.Sera floated weightless, her body both there and not there, her flames extinguished, yet burning hotter than ever inside her bones. The tether to Adrien was gone.The whisper of her daughter’s voice was gone. Every anchor she had known was stripped from her. Yet something else coiled around her. A crown.It wasn’t forged of fire. It wasn’t made of light or shadow. It was emptiness itself, circling her head, dripping with fragments of broken stars. Her breath shuddered.“What… what is this?” she whispered.The void trembled as though her words themselves had weight, A voice answered, Not Adrien. Not Kael. Not the Sovereign.Her own voice, but layered, infinite, echoing across endless versions of herself that had never been born, never lived, never loved.“This is what remains when you refuse the choice. This is the crown of nothing. You are no longer flame, nor shadow. You are the collaps
The cage howled.Every pillar screamed as runes split and silver fire poured upward, tearing at the sky. The ground beneath Sera cracked like glass, the twin paths of light and shadow spiraling further apart. The tether binding her to Adrien quivered like a string on the edge of snapping.Her entire body shook, fire coursing erratically through her veins, burning, freezing, collapsing all at once. She could not move. She could not breathe.Adrien’s voice echoed again, weak, broken: “Sera…”Her knees buckled. She pressed her palms against the cracked mirror-ground, her flames bleeding into it. The fire bent, distorted, as if even her power no longer obeyed her.The Hollow Sovereign loomed above, still wearing Kael’s face, his shadow falling long and merciless across her trembling body.“You cannot save both,” he whispered. “Love always demands a sacrifice. Will it be him, or everything else?”Sera’s throat constricted, Her mind reeled.Adrien, the man who had walked into her storm, who