War was inescapable.

The air was filled with anguished screams, and smoke twisted its way through the sky, clinging to feathers and flesh alike. Elia inhaled deeply—the acrid scent of blood and burnt wings filling her lungs. It was always the same story: us against them. Good versus evil. Heaven battling Hell.

She hovered just above the chaos, her wings heavy with fatigue as she scanned the battlefield below. Every time she witnessed one of her own fall, her heart ached. Yet it ached even more when she saw one of them go down, too. She was desperately searching for a familiar figure, eyes darting across faces twisted in rage and violence.

And then—there he was.

She felt his presence before she saw him. The shadow of his wings cast darkness over the fire below. He descended like a wisp of smoke, cloaked in the night that birthed him. Her heart skipped a beat.

Relief washed over her—as if the war had stopped for just a moment.

A younger Elia would have been horrified at herself for feeling that way—for being relieved to see the demon who had taken her father’s life. But grief, over time, had woven itself into something else. Something heavier. Something she could never name.

She landed as he did, folding her wings tight against her back.

As she moved toward him, the air around him felt charged—guilt, rage, sorrow—so thick she could nearly taste it. Anyone else would have called it evil. She had learned to call it him.

“We need to get out of here—” she began, reaching out.

But his hand snapped forward—not to take hers, but to stop her.

“Don’t be a fool.”

His voice, once velvet-smooth, now scraped raw. Sharp. Cold.

He grabbed the back of her head, fingers curling into her auburn curls—not tenderly. Not like the nights he’d held her as if she were made of glass. Precious. Fragile.

She didn’t flinch. She looked up into his face, searching for the starlit blue of his eyes—but they were black now. Burning. Endless.

“Stol—”

“Hush, Elia.” His voice cracked. “For fuck’s sake, look around you.”

She didn’t.

Her eyes stayed locked on his. As if she could will him back into softness. As if memory alone could drag him away from what he was about to do.

“We can still—”

“This will never end!” he snapped. “We weren’t meant to live like this. We weren’t meant to want each other. Do you really think we’re above this war? That we’re exceptions?”

His hand trembled as he drew a blade—her blade, the one she had gifted him only nights ago. Golden. Angelic. Still humming with the light of her love.

Her heart broke at the sight of it. And hatred filled the spaces fear didn’t reach—hatred for the part of her that feared him, of all people.

“Our species aren’t who we are,” she said softly, ignoring the cold blade at her throat.

He laughed—a bitter, hollow thing. “Do you hear yourself?”

He gestured between them with the knife. “This? This is inevitable. While we pretend we’re living in some fairytale, our families are tearing each other to pieces.”

The blade edged closer to her skin. Not yet cutting—but mocking her with its patience.

His voice rose with every word, every wound he couldn’t name. “We can’t escape. We can’t. This is what we were born for.”

His grip tightened. His nails dug into her scalp, drawing blood. She whimpered—but didn’t move.

She understood this rage. She’d held it. Kissed it. Loved it. He used it like a shield when his heart felt like it might crack open.

And it was cracking now.

“It’s okay to be scared,” she whispered.

His expression hardened. The knife kissed skin. His eyes were burning dark as hell itself, set against the blazing daybreak of war. But still—she saw it.

She’d reached him.

And she knew that when he felt vulnerability, he always doubled down.

The blade between them was cold, glimmering like it was laughing at her. At her hope. He claimed her, the way he always had—with his eyes, with his silence, with the ache he never admitted.

“I trust you,” she said. It wasn’t a plea. It was an invocation. A truth so deep it didn’t need permission.

“You shouldn’t.” His voice was quieter now. Not cruel—just empty. “I’ll kill you.”

“Then why haven’t you?”

She leaned forward, throat grazing the blade.

And in her eyes, he saw everything—those nights they swore they’d stop. The wine. The ruins. Her hands in his hair. The nights they returned to each other like it was a compulsion, not a choice.

He faltered.

She remembered the desert nights. The kisses they didn’t speak about. The way he once traced her wings like constellations. The way he breathed like he was praying.

She craved the gentleness of his hands—the same ones now holding a weapon at her throat.

“We should have left it,” he whispered.

Then:

“This has to end.”

“You can’t,” she said.

And she smiled. Because she knew him. Because she loved him.

And then—

Too quick to stop.

The blade’s edge slid through her skin.

Blood bloomed warm between them.

Her knees gave out.

Their foreheads touched. His tears met hers as they fell.

He kissed her temple, trembling. A breath. A whisper, broken in two:

“I wish you never loved me… so I could never know that this was so wrong…”

She sank slowly. Too slowly. He held her like he could hold time still.

Her blood was on his hands, and he still couldn’t let go.

She looked up at him—and saw both. The monster her father warned her about, and the man she had loved anyway.

Was her father right?

When he looked into Stolas’s eyes on the battlefield—was this what he saw?

Or was she just a fool, too drunk on the beauty of a demon to see what was always inevitable?

She smiled. One last time.

A shaking hand lifted to his tear-streaked face as realization crashed into him like thunder.

“Maybe we will share time again… another life… one where I won’t be born into a world that tried to force me to hate you… one where the desire to love isn’t a fairytale.”

His eyes filled with tears. Panic bloomed behind them.

“My love… my love… what have I done…”

Her vision faded. His voice became noise. Muted. Distant.

She faded like starlight with a dreaded sunrise.

Her fingers slipped cold from his cheek, and he kissed them frantically. Over and over.

As if this were a fairytale.

As if a kiss could bring her back.

As if she might open her eyes, smile, forgive him. Let him feel light again.

But she didn’t.

She was gone.

And the war went on.

And the only thing worth fighting for was dead by his hands.