Ash coated the floor like snowfall.
The once-sacred chamber groaned under the weight of ruptured magic. Relics that had lasted centuries now lay in fragments—cracked stones, flickering glyphs, and burned-out soul cages. The pulse of the sanctum was gone. Dead. Drained.
And Callux's body… remained still.
Liora knelt beside him, her fingers trembling as they hovered over his chest. Her breaths came in short, sharp bursts. The air around her crackled with an unnatural cold. Magic surged beneath her skin, angry and aimless.
But she didn't cry.
Not yet.
The mask on her chest vibrated, syncing with her heartbeat—faster, louder, insistent.
He's not gone. He's waiting.
But she knew better.
She had felt the soul leave his body. She had watched the light in his eyes flicker out like a candle. The man who had stood beside her, bled for her, defied death with her—was gone.
"You said you didn't want to break me," she whispered. "But here I am."
A whisper of movement echoed around the chamber.
Liora didn't flinch. The dead had already begun to gather.
They came from the cracks in the stone, from the half-sunk cages in the wall, from the very floor beneath her knees. Ghosts. Echoes. Remnants. A dozen at first, then dozens more. A silent congregation of souls pulled toward her like iron filings to a magnet.
They watched.
Waiting.
She looked at her hands—stained in ritual ink and Callux's blood.
And then, finally, she did what she had been afraid to try.
Soul Fusion.
Not with herself.
With him.
The ritual began before she could question it. Instinct guided her—the way a child knows how to scream before learning language. The mask lit up with veins of green fire, burning outward into the stone in runes of bloodlight.
She bent over Callux's body and placed her palm over his heart.
"By the right of the Echo Rites…"
Her voice cracked. The ghosts leaned closer.
"…by the law of the Black Root, the Bound Veil, and the One That Danced…"
The chamber shook. The runes lifted from the floor like smoke, coiling around her arms, wrapping her in sacred thread.
"Return to me. Even if just for a moment."
She pushed down with both hands.
And then—screaming.
From him.
Callux's body arched violently, his mouth gaping open. Not breathing. Not gasping. Roaring—as if his soul had been forcefully pulled from whatever rest it had found.
The temperature in the sanctum dropped like a falling blade.
Liora screamed with him.
The mask bled into her skin, and for one heartbeat, they were the same.
Same body.
Same memories.
Same pain.
And then—he opened his eyes.
But they weren't his eyes anymore.
Callux stared up at her, blank and colorless, as if trying to remember what it meant to be alive.
Liora's voice was a whisper. "Can you hear me?"
His mouth moved.
No sound.
And then his hands reached up, gently, one palm brushing against her cheek.
"Why… did you bring me back?"
Tears finally fell.
"Because I couldn't lose you."
He blinked slowly. "You didn't bring me back. You brought something else with me."
His body shuddered, and the shadows behind him twisted unnaturally.
"I wasn't alone… on the other side."
The ghosts around them scattered. Fled. Even the relics left untouched began to weep trails of black smoke.
Liora stepped back, breath caught in her throat.
"Callux?"
But something in his voice changed.
Deeper. Other.
"You've opened the door, Liora."
He sat up slowly, spine cracking with unnatural stiffness. His head tilted.
"And the Gravedancer isn't done with you."
Outside the sanctum, high above ground in a spire of dead trees and whispering winds, Mavrek stood watching the storm clouds gather over Virellos. His hood was down. The skin beneath was pale, stretched taut over hollow bone.
A figure approached behind him—cloaked in silver and red.
"You were right," the figure said. "She fused with him."
Mavrek smiled, just barely. "Good. Now the pieces will start to move."
"The others are waking. The White Circle's inner chambers have begun to fracture."
"And she's still blind to what Alric left behind."
He turned, eyes glowing faintly.
"Soon, she'll have to choose which of her dead to let go… and which to become."
Down below, Liora held Callux's trembling frame, the ritual scars glowing beneath his skin. His heart beat once. Twice. But each beat echoed with something else riding along inside.
She didn't care.
She'd brought him back.
Even if it cost her soul.
Even if she'd cursed them both.
Because in this world, love had to be fought for. Even if it bled. Even if it burned.
Especially if it refused to stay dead.