The truth never arrives gently.
It crashes—loud, merciless, and holy.
And as Lina stood at the edge of the Heart's chamber, flames trembling beneath her feet, she saw it all. Not in pieces. Not as fragments of memory. But as one endless, burning truth:
She had once been a goddess.
Not of love.
Not of light.
But of creation through fire.
Before Hell, before demons, before thrones and kings and mortal breath—she was. A divine force of balance and chaos, one half of a celestial whole. The other half? That shadow. That god. The one who had once whispered love into her flame and later betrayed her to the void.
And to stop herself from destroying the realms beyond reckoning, she had sealed her own soul in the Heart. Over and over.
Reborn. Rewritten.
Until now.
"She's remembering," came a voice—smoky and ancient.
Lilak, the last flame priestess, stepped from the dark, her skin marked with ash-script, her eyes blind but glowing with embers.
"You were never meant to live long in one form," Lilak said softly. "Each time your body could not hold the godfire… you perished. But now—your love anchors you. He anchors you."
Lina turned, her voice iron. "Andra."
The demon king stepped forward from the shadows, eyes locked on hers. "Say it."
She hesitated. "I remember who I was."
His voice didn't break—but his soul did. "Do you still love me, even knowing what you were?"
She walked toward him slowly, fire bleeding from her steps. "I loved you before I knew your name. I loved you even when I hated you. And I'll love you still when there's nothing left of this world but ash."
He caught her in his arms, their lips crashing with a hunger forged across lifetimes.
But this kiss wasn't like the others. It wasn't survival.
It was sacrifice.
Because they both knew what was coming.
The Heart could not allow a goddess to rise again. It would destroy her—or everything else to stop her.
And Lina had made her decision.
"Gather the court," she whispered against his lips. "We go to war."
Andra's eyes burned like twin suns. "Against Hell?"
She pulled away, turning toward the altar of her past.
"No," she said, her voice like thunder.
"Against the gods who buried me in flame."