Chapter 7: The Girl Who Burned for Us
Selene didn't sleep.
She watched Aria instead.
The girl curled up in a paint-stained blanket on the gallery floor, too tired to ask more questions. Too innocent to know the cost of the silence Selene kept.
She looked the same.
Exactly the same.
Even after death.
Even after everything.
⸻
Selene closed her eyes and saw it again.
That final night.
Aria—standing in front of them all, arms trembling, blood in her hair, the broken sky above them pouring fire. The enemy had found them. There was no escape. No miracle left.
But Aria smiled.
And she stepped forward.
And she gave everything.
⸻
Selene had screamed.
Fought.
Begged her not to.
But Aria didn't turn around. She looked ahead—toward the monsters, the storm, the end—and whispered something that cracked Selene's soul into pieces:
"You were all worth it."
⸻
The power had bloomed from her chest like light exploding from a seed. The enemy was consumed. The world reset.
Selene woke up in a body that shouldn't have existed anymore.
Alive.
And Aria was a stranger again.
⸻
Now, in the dim candlelight, Aria stirred.
Selene stiffened.
"Are you watching me?" Aria mumbled, sleep-heavy.
Selene looked away. "No."
A beat of silence.
Then, very softly:
"Do you think we'll survive this?"
Selene closed her eyes.
"I don't think," she said. "I remember."
Aria didn't answer. She was already asleep again.
Selene stayed awake the whole night, guarding a girl who once died to save her.
And wondering how long she could keep pretending she didn't still love her.