***********
She found him kneeling in a pool of blood, rain falling like penance.
"You killed them all."
"They deserved worse."
He looked up at her—eyes shattered, voice empty.
"I wanted to be good. I really did."
She could have lied.
Could have told him he was still worth saving.
But her silence was honest.
He wasn't hers to save.
Not anymore.
****************
Dren knelt by the burned altar, the iron tang of dried blood still lingering in the cracks. A thousand unspoken sins hung in the air like incense.
He didn't flinch when the cathedral door creaked open.
"You came," he said without looking up.
"I always do," Lysara replied. But this time, her voice cracked.
The shattered stained glass above them painted her in crimson and gold, like fire and funeral. Her boots clicked slowly across the stone as she approached, each step louder than the last.
She looked down at him—shoulders broad, bloodied, and bowed.
"You did this?" she asked.
Dren stood. "They called it heresy. I called it remembering."
Lysara's hand hovered over her dagger.
"I told you to stop," she said. "This isn't the path—"
"This is the only path left to me!" he roared, and for a moment, the room trembled.
Silence fell.
She reached for him, but her fingers stopped just short of his cheek.
"They'll come for you, Dren. All of them."
A bitter smile twisted his lips. "Then let them come. I've nothing left to lose—"
Her lips found his.
Not soft. Not sweet. Desperate. Reckless. Wrong.
And yet… it happened.
He froze beneath her touch, like a man clinging to the memory of warmth in a world gone cold.
When they broke apart, the space between them felt wider than ever.
"You still love me," he whispered.
"No," she lied.
But her trembling hands told another story.
Outside, the crows screamed.