The heat kept rising. A living, breathing thing—pressing, suffocating, alive.
Seleyena's vision trembled. Her lashes fluttered, blurred with tears that refused to fall. They burned instead, vaporizing before they could even streak her cheeks. Her throat clenched—tight as a noose. She tried to speak, but her lips only quivered.
Then she saw it again—his skin. The skin along his shoulder.
It was blackening. Peeling.
Bits of him were sloughing away—raw, red, and cracked like earth in drought. His chest heaved with restraint, but she could feel it. The tremble in him. The shake in his grip. The heat licking over her like an omen, but she knew it wasn't hers.
It was his.
The burning smell—it wasn't from the villa. Not entirely.
It was him.
Her Cruxius.
Her voice broke.
"N-No... no... no, no please—!" A sob ripped from her throat, jagged and high.
"P-Please… j-just—just leave me! Leave me here!"
She screamed it.
Not because she wanted to die.
