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Eve

Sanctum Core

1 Hour, 52 Minutes to Midnight

The seam widened with a wet, tearing sound.

Flesh peeled back in slow, deliberate layers—like a mouth unhinging or a chrysalis resisting its own rebirth. Steam poured into the chamber, curling around my ankles like mourning veils as something ancient and angry forced its way into the open.

The silhouette that stepped from the cocoon wasn't Hades.

Not yet.

It was Vassir.

And he remembered what love had tasted like when it bled.

He emerged barefoot, naked but cloaked in shadow, obsidian tendrils snaking along his arms, ribs, and spine.

His flesh was half-man, half-scar—a latticework of wounds that had never healed and power that had never settled.

His eyes weren't Hades'—they were starless and endless, pits of longing that never blinked.

But his voice… his voice was familiar.

Too familiar.

"I thought I would hate you more."

He looked at me like a hunger never fed.

"But you still wear her face. Her scent. Her sadness."

He took a step forward, and the altar responded—glowing, humming, the runes flaring like breath catching in a throat. The magic knew him too.

"You came all this way," he murmured. "Not to kill me. But to tempt me."

"I want Hades."

He tilted his head, amused. "And you think I am not him?"

I didn't answer.

Because that was the trick.

He was. And he wasn't.

The Flux had twisted him, yes. But this thing… this version of Vassir was still built on Hades' bones—his memories, his grief, his unbearable love. The Rite could only work if there was something left of the man inside. And I had to coax it out, not by force…

But by memory.

By Elysia.

"Do you remember our last morning?" I said, my voice gentle now, threading into the space between us like silk. "Before the battle at Blackmere?"

His jaw tightened. He didn't respond—but his shadow limbs twitched.

"You made me tea with honey. Said your hand still shook from the night before."

"You were scared. You wouldn't admit it—but I saw it."

"And you asked me if gods were allowed to fear."

His lip curled. Not in rage. In pain.

"I said yes," I continued. "Because even gods can lose what they love."

The air between us throbbed.

"And then you left," he said bitterly. "You stood with the wolves. You stood with them."

"I stood for the balance. And you shattered it."

"I loved you!"

His voice cracked across the chamber, splitting the mist like thunder. The columns around us shook, stones flaring with pulsing heat. The burial ground trembled beneath our feet, runes reacting to the tension of fate being rewritten.

Vassir is not willing to give up Hades, but instead tries to bind himself permanently to Eve in a dark, sacrilegious ritual.

He is obsessed—twisted by love, rage, and abandonment—but doesn't know the Fenrir marker's full effect.

Eve must continue baiting him emotionally, drawing him out completely before midnight, where the Rite will begin and the marker will purge.

The tension escalates as he moves toward her, convinced she is surrendering, unaware of the trap she's walking him into.

---

Eve

Sanctum Core

1 Hour, 44 Minutes to Midnight

The air rippled between us, heavy with heat and memory. Vassir's form shimmered at the edges, like a flame too wild to hold shape. Shadows coiled and uncoiled around his limbs, twitching like leeches tasting blood.

"You loved me," I said softly. "But only on your terms."

He sneered. "You think I care for balance now? For redemption? I want eternity, Elysia. I want you."

His hand lifted—not to strike, but to offer.

"Let the boy rot in his grief. Let this body rot in its ruin. Come to me now, and we will bind in ways that no Rite can sever. You and I—one vessel, one soul. No gods. No wolves. No death."

I didn't move.

The shadows around his hand reached for mine, writhing tendrils poised to tether.

"You said once you'd rather die than be without me," he murmured, stepping closer, his voice low and trembling. "Then die with me now—into something eternal."

I held his gaze.

And stepped forward.

His smile grew.

I let the scent of jasmine—Elysia's scent—bleed from my skin. Let my eyes soften with the ache of a past I didn't want, but had lived. Let every part of me say yes.

Even as every part of me prepared for no.

"Would you really have me?" I whispered. "Even now?"

"Even now," he said. "Especially now."

He reached out—flesh against air, memory against marrow—and I let our fingers touch.

Just for a moment.

The shadows surged.

And I felt it—his soul reaching. Twisting. Binding. Not just to my skin, but to the very threads of who I was. The air sang with it—dark, sacrilegious, the beginning of something unholy.

A vow older than death.

"Say it," he breathed. "Say the words. Say the bond."

But I didn't.

Not yet.

I let him taste the moment. Let him believe. Let him sink deeper into the illusion of her—of us. Let him draw so close that the tendrils of his corruption began curling around my heart.

Because the closer he came…

The closer the marker burned.

"And when we are bound?" I asked. "What then?"

"Then I will be whole," he said. "And nothing will be able to unmake us again."

"Not even him?"

A twitch—barely perceptible.

He hesitated.

Good.

"There's barely anything left of him," he muttered. "Just fragments. Regret. Love like a splinter in the brain. I carry it. I am it."

"Then you're afraid."

His eyes snapped to mine.

"You think I don't see it?" I pressed, gently, dangerously. "You're clinging to what's left of him because deep down, you know… without him, you are not real. Just ruin."

He recoiled like I'd slapped him.

Then his expression twisted—wounded, then wrathful.

"You'd use that voice," he hissed. "That face. Pretend to forgive me. Pretend to come back—just to rip me apart again."

"I'm not pretending," I said. "I came here to offer you a choice. Love… or annihilation."

"Then choose me!" he roared.

The ground split beneath us. Runes blazed white-hot. The altar cracked down the center, bleeding steam and magic and ash. The wings behind him unfurled fully now—massive, veined with glowing flux. He towered like a god unmade, a tragedy wrapped in divinity.

He stepped forward.

"Bind to me now, and I will let the boy live," he said. "I will give you what the gods denied you. A kingdom. A world where we are the only law."

"And if I refuse?"

He smiled. Broken. Beautiful. Insane.

"Then I'll wear Hades' skin while I tear it from your bones."

The cocoon behind him twitched—like a heartbeat trying to remember itself. Like Hades was still there, still fighting.

Still alive.

I closed my eyes, steadying myself.

"Then we begin," I said.

And from within my chest, the Fenrir's Marker surged.

It didn't flare.

It howled.

----

Eve

Sanctum Core

1 Hour to Midnight

He believed me.

That was the irony.

He believed every word I fed him—not because I was a good liar, but because I wasn't lying. Not entirely. I had loved him once. Or at least… the man he used to be. The one whose soul now dangled like a marionette from the ribs of a monster.

I knew Vassir wouldn't relinquish Hades.

I knew he'd never surrender what he saw as his resurrection.

So I offered him what he wanted most.

Me.

Or rather, the ghost of who I used to be.

"Say the vow," he murmured, reaching out again.

And I let him.

I let his shadows brush my collarbone, let his voice fill the hollow between us like a promise written in rot. I touched his face—the face that was not quite Hades', not quite his—and whispered names only Elysia would know. Places only we had seen. A kind of intimacy only gods could remember.

And all the while… the marker in my blood stirred. Waiting. Coiled. Listening for the strike of the hour.

He didn't see it.

He couldn't.

Because obsession is blind.

Because love, when twisted, becomes the perfect veil.

He was so focused on the illusion of Elysia—the fantasy of our eternal reunion—that he missed the warnings blooming around us.

He didn't see how I never stepped fully into the circle.

Didn't question why I hadn't drawn the binding rune with my blood yet.

Didn't notice how I kept glancing—almost imperceptibly.

He didn't know this was a tomb and a trap.

Because in his madness… he thought it was a wedding.

"You always did feel like home," he whispered.

"And you always mistook possession for love," I whispered back.

Then it happened.

The tomb sighed.

A deep, low resonance filled the sanctum. The earth beneath us seemed to shift—not crumble, not quake, but breathe. The temperature plummeted and soared in the same second. My breath steamed in the air.

And the runes along the cave walls ignited—not in red, but in crystal blue.

The color of purging.

The color of truth.

The walls behind the columns shimmered—and moved—unfurling like ancient curtains made of light and bone.

A vast crystal surface emerged, brushing vines out of the way as it formed a dome above us.

Brambles bloomed with frostbitten roses.

The air shimmered with spectral pollen, like moonlit ash drifting through a dream.

Midnight had come.

Montegue had warned me:

"When the clock strikes true, the inner sanctum awakens. It will know your intent. It will reveal its heart."

And it had.

This was no longer a place of death.

This was the womb of rebirth.

And it would accept only one soul when the Rite was done.

"What is this?" Vassir asked, blinking at the sudden bloom of blue. His voice turned wary. "This isn't… this wasn't—"

He looked at me.

Really looked.

And finally, he saw it.

Not Elysia.

Not a goddess.

Not a broken lover returned to him.

He saw Eve.

And for the first time since he emerged from the cocoon, he faltered.

"What have you done?" he whispered.

I stepped back—just one pace.

The Fenrir marker in my veins responded to the tomb's call, flaring to life beneath my skin like fire laced in silver. My eyes gleamed with its glow.

"I baited you," I said.

"I needed you whole. I needed you close."

He growled. The shadows surged, limbs coiling like serpents, preparing to lash.

"You tricked me."

"No," I said softly. "I remembered you. That's not a trick."

"You think this Rite will save him?" he snarled. "You think you can tear me out like rot from a root?"

"I don't just think it," I said. "I know it."

The sanctum flared. The vines behind the altar burst into bloom—glass petals unfolding with the sound of cracking stars.

The circle beneath our feet began to spin.

I stepped forward one last time and placed my palm on his chest—directly over Hades' heart.

"This isn't vengeance," I whispered. "It's release."

His eyes widened.

Too late.

The marker surged.