Elion’s boots echoed across the marble as the ancient castle swallowed him whole. The gates had not creaked when he opened them—they had disintegrated, dissolved by his runes. The air inside was dry, and heavy with magic, thick like oil in his lungs. This was not corrupted magic. No—this was something else. Something concentrated.

His fingers brushed the inside of his robe, whispering to a binding glyph stitched into the cloth, readying it like one might rest their hand on a sword’s hilt. She’s in here. He could feel her presence even before he reached the main hall.

The village elder had trembled when he spoke of the woman in black, her castle rising like a tomb from the cliffs above. "She does not scream," the old man had said. "She just... sits there. Magic leaks from the stones like sap. Crops rot. Animals flee. But we know she breathes—we feel it in our bones."

He had not expected the castle to be hers.

Elion stepped through the ruined archway into the throne room. And there—

There she was.

Thalia.

Seated on a blackened throne like it had grown from the stone itself, her body was still, draped in deep shadow-stitched robes. But around her—purple fire licked the air. Not fire, not truly. It was magic, raw and alive, swirling like a slow storm, responding to her every breath. Her hair, once wild with sunlit curls, now poured down her shoulders like molten silver, untouched by time but altered by force.

She hadn’t changed in the way the world did. She had changed in the way stars did: catastrophically, and with quiet grandeur.

Elion’s breath caught.

Her eyes opened.

"Elion," she said, and her voice was a wound torn back open.

He didn’t answer at first. His hands trembled—he never trembled. His mind raced, logic trying to catch up with something his heart already knew.

"Thalia." He finally managed, each syllable like ash on his tongue.

"You came." She tilted her head slightly, as if studying an insect. "Did they send you to bind me? Or kill me?"

"I didn’t know it was you."

"Liar." Her lips twitched. Not a smile. A scar where one used to be. "You always know. Always watching. Always... cautious."

"I thought you were dead."

"You left before I could be." Her fingers tightened on the armrest, the air crackling. The violet mist surged, twining up the pillars like a vine looking for something to strangle.

He stepped closer. Not foolishly, but not fearfully either.

"What happened to you?" he whispered.

"What didn't, Elion?" she asked, her voice flat. "You were chosen. I was left. You were given purpose. I was told to wait. I waited... then the world came for me. The world devours girls who wait."

He closed his eyes. "I couldn’t come back. I wasn’t allowed—"

"No. You chose not to."

The silence that followed was thicker than the magic in the air.

Thalia rose. The fire around her pulsed, casting long shadows. Her black gown rippled like smoke on water, and her steps echoed louder than his ever had. She stopped before him. Her gaze pierced, unblinking.

"I am not what they think I am," she said. "I do not burn villages. I do not curse children. I sit here because it’s the only place left that doesn’t scream when I breathe."

"Then let me help you."

"You’re not here to help," she said bitterly. "You’re here to observe. You always observed, Elion. You watched the world and called it understanding. You never felt it."

He said nothing. Because she was right. And that silence—that admission—softened something in her.

"I waited, Elion. I waited in the glades. I waited by the river. I kept the books we read. The songs we whispered. I even whispered your name on my worst nights. And when no one came, I found my own strength."

"You found power," he corrected gently.

"And pain," she added.

They stood close now. A thread of magic danced between them, curious, childlike. Elion lifted a hand and reached—slowly—toward her face.

She flinched, but didn’t retreat.

"I don’t know if you can be saved," he said. "But I’ll stay. Not as an agent of the Order. Just... Elion. Your Elion, if you’ll still have him."