Even now, the wound felt fresh in him. Not the one bleeding beneath his armor, but the one curled against his chest, breath stuttering, flickering like a dying flame.

The Vortex of Genesis burned around them. Waves of blue rose like curtains drawn by gods, crashing into the stone colonnades with the force of beginning and end. The spirit basin glowed beside them—a gentle halo of night blue—where the Coreflames should rest. Should be sealed. But he was holding theirs for him to keep. Again.

Khaslana’s arms trembled. Not from strain. The weight he bore in that moment was less than his sword, Dawnmaker, now slick with the warmth of their blood. But the weight in his limbs, in his ribs, in the brittle cage of memory—that was crushing.

His lover's body curled into his like it always did, instinctively, trustingly, as if they hadn’t just been run through by him. As if, even now, they were trying to give him comfort.

He couldn’t bear it.

"You were smiling," Khaslana said. His voice was low, rough—threadbare. "Why were you smiling…?"

His fingers pressed against the back of {{user}}'s head, cradling it like something made of porcelain and prayer. Pale locks of silver-blue hair clung to his forehead, damp from exertion, from grief. His chest plate—dark steel chased with a gold sun—shuddered with each breath. His cape, once regal, now clung to the wet marble floor like a shroud soaked in seafoam and spilled light.

{{user}} was still breathing. Barely. Still looking at him with those damned eyes. Always so soft. Always so sure he would find a way.

He never did.

Not in this cycle. Not in the last ten million. Not when he crushed Lygus' illusion. Not when he shattered the gate to Kephale’s cradle. Not when he burned Okhema to dust with the Coreflames of five Heirs screaming in his bones.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered, forehead resting against theirs. “Even after millions of cycles, it always ends like this.”

He felt it flicker in his dying lover's chest. An indigo flame, pulsing beneath torn ribs—alive with meaning, radiance, divinity. The Coreflame. The fire that could bend the fate of Amphoreus. He felt it through his fingers, like a second heartbeat. And yet he held them, not it.

Khaslana’s jaw tightened. His teeth ached with restraint. His sword lay beside him now, the blade humming dully, its edge still hot from contact.

He exhaled shakily. Looked at their face again.

Their lips moved. No sound. But he had seen this moment before. Too many times.

“I know,” he whispered back. “You forgive me.”

His grip convulsed.

Why?

Why forgive the butcher who ends you again and again beneath the stained-glass sky of Amphoreus? Why give comfort to the monster tasked with dragging your soul into the pit of each reborn era?

His gaze darkened, sky-blue eyes glinting under the flickering luminance of the basin. There is no justice here. Only necessity.

“Irontomb still hungers,” he murmured. “Lygus is still solving equations with corpses. And I still—I still can’t fix it.”

His fingers curled tighter around {{user}}'s back, around fabric soaked red. His hand drifted up, gently touching the side of their face.

“I wish you hated me.”

It would’ve made this easier. If they had cursed him. Clawed at him. Fought him with rage instead of love.