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I pushed to my feet, closing the distance between us and kneeling before the throne. I cradled her face and made a soothing sound.

I had always known there was no way a Mortal could survive a blade through the heart, yet I had blamed my anger for everything that followed, convincing myself I had imagined the stillness beneath my hand, that rage had distorted the moment until I could no longer trust the memory of his blood slowing beneath my fingers or the life draining from his eyes.

But I hadn’t imagined it.

Rythos had died.

And if he had truly died that night, then whatever stood before me now had been brought back by something powerful enough to defy death itself.

“Lyra, what did you do?”

The pieces were already falling into place as my gaze followed the black veins crawling through the fractured throne before sliding over my shoulder to Rythos. They were almost identical pulsating veins, as though whatever had infected one had somehow taken root in the other.

“After you stabbed him in the heart…” She trailed off with wide eyes as if she were peering back into her memory. “I broke your throne and tore its essence from it. Cerilla stole power from the Hells to pour it into Rythos. His eyes changed first, then the tattoos spread over his skin while his teeth sharpened and his ears twisted into points, until the man I loved barely looked Mortal anymore.” Her voice trembled. “But his heart started beating again.”

My gaze shifted back to Lyra, and something heavy sank through my chest as the last fragile hope I had been clinging to started unravelling. I wasn’t going to be able to save her by offering myself in her place, wasn’t going to get the bittersweet mercy of dying so she could remain here with her monster and somehow build a life from everything we had broken.

“Divine magic has consequences,” I breathed, the truth finally arranging itself into something so obvious I couldn’t believe I had failed to see it sooner.

They were connected.

“I think Rythos’ curse is punishment for Lyra cheating death. She got what she wanted. You are alive, but the divine power turned you into her eternal punishment. Forcing her to be killed over and over by the very person she broke the world for.”

“How could you?” Rythos whispered.

There was no anger in his voice, nor even accusation, only the quiet devastation of a heart that had already been broken too many times and somehow still found room to break again.

“I—I…” Lyra’s chest rose and fell in frantic breaths, her fingers trembling in mine. Her eyes moved over the black veins beneath his skin.

A thousand years of her being hunted and killed, of me suffering in the fucking Nether and Rythos becoming more monster with every life he took, all because she had loved him so desperately, she could not survive losing him once.

“You died in my arms.” Her voice cracked. “I broke the world to keep you.”

Rythos’ face crumpled, as if a lifetime of grief and curses had finally decided to swallow him whole.

He shook his head slowly as he came towards us, and I shifted aside, giving him room to kneel at Lyra’s feet.

For a moment, he only looked at her.

Then he reached for her other hand, folding it between both of his as though it were something precious that he knew he would have to give back.

“If love could save people from death,” he said softly, “no one would ever die.” His thumb brushed over her knuckles in a slow caress through the heavy silence that followed. “You have to let me go.”

“No.” The word barely left her, before she sucked in a trembling breath.

Solas stumbled over the top steps of the temple, breathless, one hand braced against the marble pillar as though he had run the whole way from the shores.

“Astaroth is coming,” he panted, placing a hand on his ribs.

Every muscle in my body locked.

Fuck.

Rythos was on his feet before the words had finished echoing through the chamber, shadows already bleeding from beneath his boots.

“How?”

“I don’t know.” Solas dragged in a ragged breath. “A fleet.” He swallowed air. “He's brought a fucking fleet.”