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The need to spill his blood became overwhelming, and I pushed up from the throne, only for Helion to wrap his arm around me waist.

“Don’t,” he warned close to my ear, whispering so only I could hear.

“Let go of me,” I hissed, throwing an elbow into his side.

I needed to get to him. Needed to⁠—

Rythos groaned, dragging himself onto his hands and knees as the black veins of rot across his chest thickened beneath his skin, branching violently towards his throat and stomach.

A roar tore from him, raw enough to shake through my bones, and the rot threaded through the marble beneath us pulsed in answer.

A fractured crack split through the throne as another piece of marble broke free from its side and crashed against the floor, scattering shards across the steps while the darkness beneath Rythos’ skin surged again. It was as though the throne were breaking apart with him.

“Rythos!” I screamed, Helion’s grip on me tightening.

“Interesting,” Astaroth said, crouching down and running his hand along a streak of pulsating rot. He seemed to piece together that they were connected, and his eyes rose to me, heavy with disappointment. “Fix this, vicious one. Or we all die.”

Rythos’ eyes met mine as darkness bled slowly across them, swallowing the whites until there was almost nothing left of the man staring back at me.

My chest tightened so violently I could barely breathe.

I had seen those eyes filled with rage, lust, grief, and every terrible thing the world had carved into him, but this was different. This felt like watching him disappear beneath something neither of us could fight, the throne reaching through his veins and dragging him further away from me with every pulse of rot beneath our feet.

I wanted to go to him, to wrap my arms around him and somehow hold every broken piece in place, but the truth sat cold and immovable inside my chest.

Loving him had done this, and the cruellest truth of all was that loving him would not be enough to save him now.

“Return what was stolen from the throne, Commander, and balance will restore itself. The dead will return to death. The gods will return to their seats, and those responsible for breaking the natural order...” His colourless gaze drifted between Cerilla and me. “They will answer to me.”

Rythos dragged himself to stand, hands gripping the marble pillar Astaroth had thrown him at.

He stumbled towards Solas beneath Astaroth’s curious stare, every step looking as though it cost him more than the last.

Rythos held out his arm, and Solas clasped his forearm without hesitation, their hands locking together in the same familiar grip they must have shared a thousand times across a lifetime of battles, and everything they had survived side by side.

“Thank you,” Rythos murmured, his voice roughened by pain as his fingers tightened around Solas’s arm, “for being my brother.”

“Always,” Solas said, his voice breaking as his grip tightened around Rythos’ arm. “Until the fucking end.”

Something inside me shattered.

Tears streamed unchecked down my face as I sagged against Helion, shock stealing the strength from my limbs while I watched Solas’s expression crumble beneath the weight of those words.

Rythos was saying goodbye.

Not the kind spoken before a battle with the promise of finding each other when it was over, but the final kind, offered by a man who had already accepted that there would be no coming back this time.

Solas wrapped an arm around Rythos’ waist and took most of his weight as they made their way towards Cerilla, who watched them approach with horror already gathering across her face.

Bryony and Ziola looked to me as if asking for permission. Whatever they saw on my face was enough for them to release her and retreat towards the pillars at the temple entrance. “Little sister,” Rythos whispered, the words fraying at the edges as though saying them hurt more than he could bear.

A heart-wrenching sob tore from her as she surged to her feet and threw her arms around his neck, burying her face against his chest as though she could hold him here through sheer force alone.

Helion’s thumb moved in slow circles against my waist, grounding me against the grief swelling so violently inside my chest that I could barely draw breath.

“This is how it was meant to be,” Rythos murmured, pausing to hush Cerilla as one trembling hand smoothed over the back of her jet-black hair. “Despite this mess you have made of things, I love you, Cerilla. I have always loved you, and I need you to remember that when I am gone.”

Her sobs grew louder, shaking through both of them.