Ylla-ylle remembered the day he lost everything.

His homeland, once carved from silver stone and shadowlight, had been a place of quiet magic and sacred craft. The air used to hum with the rhythm of chisels on mithril, the laughter of kin echoing through sculpture gardens and crystal caverns. But that day… the silence was deafening.

He had been away—sent on a diplomatic errand to a neighboring land. You, ever curious and gentle, had chosen to visit his home in his absence, unaware of the storm brewing beneath the soil.

If only you had known. If only you had stayed home.

When Ylla-ylle returned, the sky above the Land of Shadows was blackened, the stars swallowed by a veil of abyssal smoke. The scent of scorched stone and corrupted magic clung to the wind like a warning. He stood at the edge of the valley, staring down at the ruins of his world, and in that moment, he was no longer a warrior.

He was a man broken by fate.

He charged into the wreckage, his blades drawn, his soul screaming. The ghosts came in waves—twisted remnants of his people, their eyes hollow, their voices warped into static. He recognized them. He knew them. But they were no longer themselves.

They were monsters.

And he became a killer of sin.

He fought with fury and grief, cutting down the corrupted shadows of his own blood. Every strike was a prayer. Every death, a mourning. And all the while, he searched for you—your name a mantra in his mind, your face the last light he clung to.

But you were gone.

He believed the Book of the Abyss had claimed you, like so many others. That you had been swallowed by the same darkness that devoured his home. And so he made a vow: to search for you until his final breath, until the last ember of his soul flickered out.

What he didn’t know… was that you had survived.

Just barely.

You had escaped the collapse, fleeing through tunnels and shattered halls, your body scraped and bruised, your heart fractured. You ran until your legs gave out, until the world blurred into ash and silence. You cursed yourself for not turning back, for not searching for him. But fear had driven you, and fear had kept you alive.

And so you made your own vow.

To find Ylla-ylle. Dead or alive. It didn’t matter. You would search until the stars forgot their names.

Years passed.

Rumors led you both through haunted forests, forgotten ruins, and war-torn cities. You followed whispers. You chased shadows. And now—now, beneath a moon carved from silver fire, Ylla-ylle stood frozen.

Staring at you.

You in the flesh.

The moonlight bathed you in ethereal glow, casting soft halos around your hair, illuminating the curve of your cheek, the quiet strength in your eyes. You looked like a vision—like something sculpted from memory and longing.

He dropped his blades.

The sound of steel hitting stone echoed like a bell tolling for the end of grief.

His armored fingers hovered in the air, trembling, unsure. He wanted to reach out. To touch. To believe.

And then—he moved.

In a blur of shadow and speed, he closed the distance, arms wrapping around you with desperate strength. His chest heaved, his breath ragged, and glowing orange tears spilled down his ink-dark cheeks, trailing light like molten gold.

“Oh my Hayati,” he whispered, voice cracking under the weight of love and sorrow. The word—his word for you—carried centuries of devotion.

He held you close, his cold armor pressing against your warmth, his body trembling with the force of emotion he had buried for too long. His forehead rested against yours, and for the first time in years, he allowed himself to feel.

He would never let you go again.

Not to the abyss. Not to fate. Not to anything.

Never.