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KAIA

T he chamber pulses around us, the air thick and choking with magic. Broken pillars lean toward the heart of the room where the altar waits, carved with ancient runes that glow a sickly gold, bleeding into the cracks of the stone.

The Veil is dying.

I feel it in my bones.

I clutch the Veil Heart crystal tighter against my chest, every nerve screaming at me to move , to finish this before it’s too late.

Elias is right behind me, his hand ghosting my lower back like he’s afraid if he lets go, I’ll disappear.

Maybe I will.

I glance over my shoulder at him. His eyes, those impossible molten gold eyes turned with her shifter side—are wild, desperate.

"We have to do this," I whisper, voice shaking even though I try like hell to keep it steady. "We have to heal it before it tears apart."

He doesn’t answer.

Instead, he grabs my wrist.

Hard.

"Elias—what the hell?—"

He shakes his head, jaw clenched so tight I can see the muscle ticking in his cheek. His grip isn’t cruel, but it’s unmovable. Like iron.

"You’re not finishing this alone," he says, voice low and ragged. "You’re not dying for them. For any of this."

I yank against his hold, furious and terrified all at once. "We don’t have time to argue?—"

"I’m not fucking arguing, Kaia!" His voice cracks the air like a whip. "I’m saving you. "

And then he moves, too fast, too strong—pinning me down against the cold stone floor.

I thrash under him, shoving, cursing, fighting like hell, but he’s already started the chant, ancient Fae words that slice through the air and burn against my skin.

"No! Elias, don’t?—"

He leans down, forehead pressed to mine, breath shaking as he murmurs, "I love you. That’s why I’m doing this. That’s why I have to ."

Tears blur my vision, rage and terror and heartbreak mixing into one endless scream in my chest.

Not like this. Please, not like this.

The magic coils tighter around us, luminous and cruel, and that’s when I feel what he’s about to do. He’s about to bind our souls.

No.

I feel the ritual begin to latch on, to pull at the tether between us.

When a voice cuts through the air like a gunshot.

"Traitor."

I freeze.

Jareth stands at the shattered doorway, his armor smeared with blood, his sword gleaming with the wrong kind of light. His face—the face I loved, the face I trusted—is twisted into something monstrous.

"You," Jareth hisses, his boots slamming the ground, closing the space between us with terrifying finality. "You were supposed to be the future. You were supposed to save us. Save humanity. You were everything."

I claw myself up from under Elias, my ribs screaming, my legs like jelly. But rage, hot and cutting, keeps me standing. I shove myself between them, my whole body trembling but unyielding.

Elias growls low behind me, a brutal, broken sound. I feel his energy coil, ready to strike, but I whip a hand back— not yet. This is mine to finish.

"You made me into this," I say, my voice ragged, fury boiling under every syllable. "You lied. You used me. You turned me into a weapon and called it love ."

Jareth’s lips curl back from his teeth. "You’re an abomination," he snarls. "You should’ve done the right thing. Taken the knife yourself instead of shaming everything I built. I thought after the last time I saw you, you’d have the decency to do it."

A fresh, sharp pain knifes through my chest—but it’s not physical. Not yet.

Elias moves then, lunging for Jareth, but Jareth is faster, faster than he should be—and he rams into Elias, slamming him back so hard it echoes off the stone. Elias grunts, dazed but trying to scramble up, fury in his every breath.

Jareth whirls on me again.

The knife flashes, silver and cruel in the dim light.

I summon everything inside me—the crackling golden energy, the heartbeat of the Veil thrumming through my blood—and it surges outward in a blinding flare. Magic wraps around my hands, a living, snarling thing.

I could end this.

I could .

But then I see him, this broken, bitter man who once kissed scraped knees and taught me how to braid leather into my boots.

And for one devastating heartbeat, the past claws its way into the present.

I hesitate .

Not because I'm weak.

Not because I'm afraid.

Because deep down, some ruined, bleeding piece of me still hoped he might see me—not as a weapon, not as a failure—but as his daughter .

A mistake that costs everything.

Jareth lunges, faster than thought, seizing my hesitation. He grabs my wrist, twisting brutally, wrenching the magic from my grasp. I cry out, staggering.

"Still soft," he sneers, twisting harder, driving me to my knees.

Elias roars again behind me, fighting against whatever trap Jareth slammed him with. I see him, struggling, bleeding , trying to reach me.

I shove magic outward, trying to break free, but Jareth’s already moving, brutal and clinical, the way he taught me to be. He knows every counter to my instincts because he put them there .

In a vicious move, he forces the blade upward, driving it between my ribs.

A wet, sharp gasp shreds my lungs.

The world tilts sideways.

I feel the metal punch through skin and bone, feel the warmth blossom down my front.

My knees buckle, but I don't fall alone.

Jareth shoves me away like garbage.

Like I’m nothing .

And this time, Elias is there, catching me, pulling me tight against him as I collapse.

The dagger is still lodged deep in my chest, but the worst pain is the look in Elias’s eyes.

Shattered.

Wild.

Devastated.

He cradles me like I'm made of spun glass, rocking me, whispering broken words I can't quite hear anymore.

"I tried," I want to tell him. "I tried so fucking hard."

But no words come.

Only blood.

Only silence.

Elias presses his forehead to mine, his tears hot against my skin.

"You don't get to do this," he rasps. "You don't get to leave me, Kaia. You don't. "

But my body is already so heavy.

So cold.

In the end, it wasn’t because I wasn’t strong enough.

It was because, just for one second, I let myself believe there was something left to save in the man who made me.

And that's a mistake you only get to make once.

"I love you," I whisper, because it’s all I have left, all I am .

He sobs, a broken, raw sound I didn’t know he could make—and cradles me tighter like he can somehow hold me here through sheer force of will.

But I’m slipping.

The Veil Heart slips from my fingers, clattering to the floor.

I try to reach for it. Try to finish what we started.

But my body won't listen anymore.

Everything fades.

Elias’s face, the sound of the battle, the world itself—all of it dims into a long, aching silence.

My last thought is him.

Always him.