'' The Rift Between Us..........''

. The Silence After the Shatter

For a heartbeat, the mountain slept.

The runes stopped bleeding light. The echoes of stone grinding against stone faded into a hush so absolute that Elanora thought, absurdly, she had gone deaf. She pressed a palm to the fractured circle beneath her warmth still pulsed, but the seal was gone. She was free. He was free.

Somewhere below, her soul told her, Aryan's heartbeat fluttered like a trapped bird but alive.

She whispered, "Aryan. I'm coming."

She tried to stand. Her legs betrayed her numb from too long kneeling in penance to shadows. Her vision doubled. Every inch of her skin burned with the ghost of her other self still nesting inside her bones.

Then the silence broke.

A crack like thunder, not from the seal, but from deep in the mountain's gut. The stones themselves keened, a sound older than any word for grief.

2. Aryan's Stand

Far below, Aryan lurched from the broken pool, each step ripping skin where power had torn through him. The air smelled of scorched metal and old blood. He tasted iron on his tongue, and something else the promise of her.

He pressed a hand to the wall. "Elanora..."

Her warmth flickered through him like a candle struggling against wind.

Then the mountain growled. Veins of darkness burst from the walls, crawling toward him in jagged roots.

Aryan hissed through his teeth,  "Not now. Not now, damn you."

He drew his blade rusted at the edge from passing through so many nightmares. He had one thought: Reach her. Even if I have to cut the world apart.

The shadows slammed into him. He vanished beneath a tide of living stone.

3. A Voice Long Dead

High above, Elanora crawled to her feet. Every stone under her palm hummed a warning the final seal had not been merely a door. It was a lock on something that had waited far too long.

She stumbled toward the exit tunnel. Broken mirrors fell from the ceiling, clattering like teeth.

Then a voice she knew like her own heartbeat echoed from the splintered glass.

"Beloved ruin."

She turned so fast her neck cracked. There reflected in a shard, a face she thought she had buried a hundred lifetimes ago.

A man crowned in flame and frost. Her first mistake. Her first love. The origin of the curse that bound her and Aryan through so many deaths.

He smiled with Aryan's mouth, but the eyes were older. Hungrier.

"I waited beneath every seal you broke. Did you think you could love him free and forget me?"

Her throat closed. "You are dead. I buried you with my own hands."

His laughter rattled the mirrors. "And yet, you fed me every betrayal, every shadow. You and your precious Aryan made me again."

The mountain quaked. Elanora fell to her knees, shards slicing her palms.

4. Aryan Hears the Lie

Through the crushing shadows, Aryan heard a whisper that made his bones ache. It wasn't Elanora but it wore her voice.

A lie spoken sweet as honey.A vow whispered when you lay dying at my feet.I never loved you, Aryan. You were always my chain.

"NO!" he roared into the dark. His blade sang, cutting roots, cutting stone. But the shadows grew thicker, binding him in a cocoon of old fear.

A phantom image flickered before him: Elanora standing beside the crowned figure, their hands entwined.

We choose him, the phantom mocked. Not you.

He clutched the pendant at his throat so hard it sliced his palm open. Blood dripped on the shadows they recoiled, hissing like snakes.

"Lies," he rasped. "I know her. She is mine — and I am hers."

The shadows struck again.

5. Elanora's Defiance

On the fractured altar, Elanora crawled forward. The crowned specter rose from every shard until he was a halo of fire around her.

"Look at what you did," he crooned. "All your mercy. All your forgiveness. And for what? He is weak. He will break as he always does. Take my hand, Elanora. Let him drown. We can be gods again."

Her eyes burned with tears that steam could not swallow.

"He is not weak. He is better than gods."

She closed her fist around a broken piece of the rune circle light flickered at its edge.

"Go back to the pit you crawled from," she said, voice shaking with power she barely controlled.

She drove the shard through the specter's chest.

The mountain screamed.

6. The Rift Widens

Aryan staggered as the shadows dissolved in a roar of flame and wind. He dropped to all fours, gasping, staring up at a ceiling that trembled like thin ice.

He felt her triumph like a spear in his heart. He felt her fear immediately after.

A single stone, slick with blood, fell from the ceiling then a crack split the cavern from floor to roof.

Between him and Elanora, the mountain tore itself open a black wound plunging into endless depths.

7. The Almost Reunion

Through swirling dust and broken rock, they saw each other.

Elanora a smear of light in the ruin. Aryan a silhouette battered but unbowed.

She lifted a hand. He mirrored it. No words reached across the roar.

Then the stone beneath Aryan's feet gave way. He fell.

"ASH!" her scream split the air.

He caught the edge with one hand, blade clattering into the chasm. His pendant glowed like a star against the dark.

"GRAY EYES," he called, voice hoarse but sure, "hold to me. Hold to us."

She slammed her palms to the crumbling ledge, trying to reach him but the gap widened. Rock splintered under her grip.

She locked eyes with him across the darkness.

"I will find you," she promised. "I swear it — I will find you."

His smile was a promise returned. Then the stone gave way and he vanished into the abyss.