The sky above Hell split open.
Not with light, but with power—raw, ancient, and screaming.
Lina stood on the obsidian cliffs at the edge of her kingdom, cloak billowing like wildfire around her, hair crowned in flickering gold. The court of demons gathered behind her—silent, tense. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
She wasn't just a queen anymore.
She was a god returned.
And the realms knew it.
The Heart pulsed wildly in the distance, sensing her shift. It had kept her caged for eons—reincarnated, manipulated, controlled—but no longer.
Now she was hunting it.
And beside her, unwavering, stood Andra—the demon who once took her against her will, now the only one she trusted with her soul.
"This is suicide," growled one of the high lords. "You'll bring the wrath of the bigger realms. They'll strike us all down."
Lina turned slowly. Her gaze silenced him. "Let them come. Let them burn. I was fire before any of them were breath."
She raised her hand, and from the cracked earth beneath, pillars of flame burst upward—blazing sigils of war forming in the air.
Andra stepped forward, his voice like velvet wrapped in blades. "Any who fear her wrath may flee. But know this—when she rises, she'll remember who stood beside her. And who ran."
None moved. None dared.
Because this wasn't just rebellion.
It was divine retribution.
That night, as the army prepared, Lina stood alone in the infernal gardens—where flowers only bloomed from bones and ash. Andra found her there, silent, radiant, unraveling.
She didn't turn when he approached. "Do you think I'll survive it?"
He came behind her, arms circling her waist. "You've survived everything else. Even me."
She leaned back into him, the fire between them flaring low, intimate. "What if I lose control? What if the god inside me burns through the queen?"
He kissed the skin behind her ear, slow and reverent. "Then let me be the one who burns with you."
Lina turned in his arms, mouth brushing his. "One more night. Before the war. No thrones. No gods. Just you and me."
He didn't answer. He claimed.
Their mouths met in a slow, consuming kiss, bodies pressed in shadowed firelight. He laid her down among the ruins of the bone-blossoms, their skin glowing, their moans echoing like hymns through Hell's air.
Andra worshiped every scar, every secret place of her, with hands rough from war and lips soft from devotion.
And when she cried his name—gasping, grasping, fire flooding from her core—it wasn't as queen or goddess.
It was Lina.
And he was hers.
As the first light of the infernal sun rose, Lina stood once more in armor lined with flame.
Tomorrow, she would tear the Heart from the belly of creation itself.
But tonight—she had tasted love without chains.