The Song That Broke Heaven

The world split open where Claude touched him.

Gold veins ruptured across Claude's skin, molten light bleeding through the cracks of something no longer pretending to be human. His wings snapped wide in warning—each feather hardening into a blade's edge. Embers peeled from his silhouette like falling stars, screaming as they struck the earth and set the very air aflame.

Ru could barely breathe. The air was thick—not just with heat, but with something ancient. It carried the weight of forgotten wars and long-dead gods. It smelled like a battlefield after the fire had gone out.

The world held its breath.

The flowers beneath Ru were corpses now, petals blackened and curled like dead spiders. The ivy that had once cradled him with a lover's tenderness had become a nest of barbed wire, its thorns biting deep enough to draw blood. He was a sacrifice laid upon an altar of ruin—pinned, vulnerable, betrayed.