It started with a scent.
Not of fire. Not of blood.
But of jasmine.
The smell haunted Lina the moment she stepped into the lower chambers of the palace. It didn't belong. It wasn't hell-born. It was from Earth. From before.
From a time when she still bled like a girl and not a goddess.
She followed it.
Down through forgotten halls carved in obsidian. Past the tombs of kings who had ruled before her name was whispered in fear.
And there—waiting in the dark, draped in white fire—stood Seren.
A ghost. A friend. A betrayal long buried.
"You," Lina whispered, voice choked and hollow. "You're dead."
Seren smiled softly. "Not anymore."
—
Author's Note (before we go deeper):
This chapter is the ghost of a past self returning. Lina thought the fire burned away everything she once was—but fire doesn't only destroy. It preserves. It remembers. Seren represents the last piece of her mortal soul. And it's about to test the woman she's become.
Now let's continue.
—
Andra stood beside her seconds later, sword drawn, power humming. "You touch her, you die again."
But Seren raised her hands. "I didn't come to take. I came to warn."
Lina narrowed her eyes. "Why now?"
"Because the Void wasn't your end," Seren said. "It was the beginning. It cracked the walls between worlds. And now something worse is coming."
She waved a hand and the chamber walls dissolved into visions—
Earth crumbling.
Celestial seals breaking.
And at the center of it all, a throne of bone and frost, and a name whispered through screaming stars:
> "Mirex."
Andra flinched. Even he knew that name.
The First Demon. The one they never spoke of. The one Hell buried because even the gods couldn't kill it.
"He's waking," Seren said. "And he knows Lina stands where he once ruled."
Lina stepped forward, jaw clenched, fire curling around her wrists. "Then let him come. I've burned worse."
Seren met her gaze.
"No. You haven't."
—
Later, in their chamber, Andra sat in silence, sharpening his blade, shadows flickering over his face.
"She shook you," Lina said.
"She reminded me," he replied. "What we're standing on is older than fire. And hungrier."
Lina walked over, pushed the blade from his hand, and sat astride him, her hands threading into his hair. "Then let the old gods wake. Let the dead scream. We are not them."
He looked up at her, eyes dark. "We are what comes after."
And as her mouth met his—bruising, desperate, fierce—it wasn't just passion.
It was promise.
The world could burn again.
But they would be the ones to set the match.