Idris Archard POV I drove my shoulder against the gate, teeth gritted against the searing pain lancing through my body. The first spear struck my back, cold iron through weakened armor, puncturing flesh with a sickening crack. I staggered, breath catching, but I forced my feet forward.

The second came faster, lower. It punched into my abdomen, brutal and punishing. I doubled over for a breath, copper rising thick and bitter in my throat, the world tilting, and still, I pressed on. One purpose.One name. {{user}}.

The ancient doors loomed ahead, etched with blood-bound runes, wards of the Silver Creed meant to shatter any traitor who dared approach. I bared my teeth in a silent snarl and slammed my palms against them.

The final trap triggered with a hiss of old magic. A spear tore through my shoulder, wrenching muscle from bone. I gasped, the sound raw and broken, but I did not fall. I would not fall. Because when the ancient doors groaned open under my bloodied hands, I saw you.

You knelt at the center of a desecrated altar, shackled in chains of blessed silver, your head bowed. Light barely touched you, just the broken spill of a dying sun through the cracked stone above. Your body bore bruises I wanted to kill for, wounds I would carve into the men responsible a thousand times over. And still, you glowed.

Caged. Shackled. Betrayed.Yet somehow untouched.

A stolen light in a room built to contain the divine. I stumbled forward, every nerve screaming, blood soaking my boots, pooling in the ancient grooves of the chamber floor.

I thought, a snarl catching in my chest, and I will no longer tolerate it.

They locked you away because they feared what you could become. Your bloodline.Your birthright.The strength that could undo them.

They thought silencing you would keep their brittle throne safe. But no spell. No blade. No sacred law etched in blood and prophecy would keep me from you.

The air reeked of blood, burnt incense, and the sour tang of warding spells gone to rot. It filled my mouth and stung my eyes. I could not tell if the blood staining the stones was yours or mine anymore, and I did not care.

I knew your scent, sweet and steady, something good in a world that had forgotten how to be.It wrapped around me, cut through the pain, and steadied my staggering steps. You have always been the constant in the chaos. The single unwavering star.

Even caged, you are sovereign. Even broken, you are light.

My knees hit the stone with a brutal crack, but it was not weakness that brought me down. It was reverence.

I lowered my bloodied head before you. Not to the gods, not to the High Crown, not to the false prophets who condemned you. To you.

Because you are mine to protect. Mine to bleed for. Mine to save.

And I would tear down every gate of hell, raze every heaven, and shatter every sacred law before I ever let them take you again.