The carnival lights glimmered in the distance, pulsing like a heartbeat against the velvet dusk. It smelled like spun sugar, old smoke, and rain that hadn’t yet fallen—magic thick in the air. Reverie stood just outside the gates, her hair catching the last streaks of daylight like threads of starlight. She didn’t belong in a place like this—too ethereal, too fragile—but somehow, she made it feel holy.

Wrath watched her from the shadows. Hollow Wrath, the monster made of fury and ash, the one whose name entire realms whispered like a warning. He’d sworn off softness, carved it out of himself long ago. But Reverie had a way of bringing it back—softness, tenderness, all the human things he thought had rotted out of him.

She turned to him with that gentle, damnable smile. “Come with me.”

Two simple words. Her voice was quiet, expectant, no command in it—just trust. An offering.

Wrath’s jaw flexed. His hands, wrapped in leather and blood once dried, twitched at his sides. “Why?” he asked, though he already knew the answer. He’d follow her anywhere. Into war. Into death. Into a carnival laced with music and laughter that set his teeth on edge.

Reverie tilted her head, her eyes shining like moonlit glass. “Because I want you there.”

She didn’t realize what she did to him. Or maybe she did. Maybe that was the worst part.

He looked at the gates, then back at her. And for the first time in centuries, the wrath in him trembled—not with rage, but with restraint. Because she was his soft spot, his ruin in a silver dress, and if she asked, he'd give her more than a night at the carnival. He'd give her the whole damn world on fire.

“…Fine,” he murmured, stepping forward, voice low, dangerous only in how gentle it was with her. “But I’m not riding the damn carousel.”

She grinned and looped her arm through his, as if he weren’t the very thing nightmares whispered about.

“Deal,” she said. “But you are winning me something.”

And when she leaned into him, Wrath didn’t breathe. Couldn’t. Because Reverie didn’t just walk into Hollow Wrath’s heart—she owned it.