The shuddering vibration of the dead star's collapse finally bled into the frozen crust of the Nether-Spire. Where the gaping siphon had yawned only moments before, a sheer expanse of polished obsidian glass now sealed the abyss—black, flawless, and cold enough to burn bare flesh.
Aurelia remained in Malakor’s unyielding embrace, her boots dangling inches above the glass floor. The exhaustion that had clawed at her marrow began to recede, chased away by the steady, resonant warmth bleeding from his core into hers. The Bound Shards inside her chest hummed a slow, contented cadence, soothed by his proximity.
"I can walk, Malakor," she said softly, though she made no move to pull away from his grip. Her fingers remained curled into the rough leather at his collar, feeling the rapid hammer of his pulse beneath his throat.
Malakor’s crimson-ringed eyes narrowed, scanning the shadowed horizon before dipping back to study her face with uncompromising intensity. "You drained three-quarters of your astral reserve in ten seconds, Aurelia. Forgive me if I am disinclined to take your word for it."
"I did what was necessary to close the rift," she countered, a faint, defiant spark flickering in her hazel eyes. "Unless you preferred being devoured by a dead star’s maw?"
A low rumble vibrated in his chest—half a growl, half an amused rumble that resonated straight through her breastplate. He slowly lowered her, his hands sliding down from her shoulders to clasp firmly around her waist, refusing to release her until he was certain her boots had found sure purchase on the slick, mirrored surface.
Even then, his hands lingered. His heavy palms rested against her hips, thumb pads pressing through the reinforced battle-leather, asserting a grounded, protective tether that dared the shadows to approach her.
"I prefer you alive and whole," he murmured, his voice dropping into that dark, velvety register that always made a traitorous heat bloom beneath her collarbones. He stepped half a pace closer, eclipsing the chill northern wind behind his broad shoulders. "Broken thrones and ancient legacies mean nothing to me if you bleed out upon their thresholds."
Aurelia swallowed against the sudden constriction in her throat. The brutal warlord who had brought entire empires to their knees across the continent now looked down at her as if she were the only axis upon which the cosmos turned. The contrast between his lethal cruelty on the battlefield and the possessive reverence in his touch was intoxicating, pulling her toward him like an inescapable tide.
She laid a palm flat over the center of his chest, feeling the heavy, rhythmic beat of his heart beneath the cold black steel. "I am not fragile, my dread lord. We have walked through the fire of the Ashen Wastes and the depths of the Sunken Marches. I am not going to break here."
"Never fragile," Malakor corrected in a raspy murmur, his fingers tightening minutely against her hips. "Lethal. Magnificent. But reckless."
His gaze dropped to her mouth, the raw intensity in his eyes making her breath hitch. The freezing air around them seemed to ignite with a suffocating friction. For a fleeting instant, the ruined towers and the looming gates faded into meaningless dust; there was only the searing gravity of his gaze, the rough friction of his gauntlets, and the violent cadence of their conjoined breath.
Then, a low, crystalline harmonic chimed beneath their boots.
Aurelia pulled her gaze from his with an effort, looking down. Radiating outward from the spot where they stood, faint silver runes were bleeding through the obsidian glass. The light traveled toward the far end of the platform, where a pair of cyclopean doors carved from star-metal rose against the cliffside.
Above the monolithic lintel sat an inscription in the First Tongue of the Primordials, glowing with long-dormant luminescence.
"The resonance of the Shards activated the inner wards," Aurelia whispered, her voice tightening as her analytical focus snapped back into place. She gently broke his hold, taking a deliberate step toward the monolithic gates, her boots crunching softly on the frost-dusted rim of the glass floor.
Malakor moved beside her, his great sword sheathed at his back, his presence a towering wall of shadow. "What does the inscription say?"
Aurelia traced the ancient runes with her eyes, a chill unrelated to the winter gale trickling down her spine.
"'Only those who bear the marrow of the void and the blood of the dawn may turn the key,'" she translated, her gaze lingering on the twin indentations hollowed into the center of the gate. She looked up at Malakor, the fire returning to her eyes. "It requires two sovereigns to break the seal. Neither light nor shadow alone."
A slow, predatory smile touched Malakor’s lips as he reached out, his bare, scarred fingers intertwining tightly with hers.
"Then let us take what is ours," he said.