Beneath the Stone
The cell was cold.
Not from magic, or punishment—but from the silence of stone and memory.
Ayira sat in the center, upright.
She had not slept.
Not because she could not.
But because dreams were too gentle for what she carried.
Beyond the heavy door, Jalen sat on the floor, back against the wall, armor set beside him.
He had been there for three days.
He hadn't moved.
He hadn't asked for her crimes to be excused.
He only waited.
"You're quiet," Ayira said, finally.
Her voice barely echoed in the dim corridor.
Still, it reached him.
Jalen didn't speak immediately. Then:
"I wanted to hear your voice before anything else."
Ayira closed her eyes.
"I kept thinking about you. Not in the battlefield. But here. Alone.
I knew what I did. But I didn't know how you'd see me afterward."
He leaned his head against the wall, still not looking through the bars.
"Ayira, you are my storm.
I didn't marry a shadow.
I knew who you were long before you made that choice.
What I fear… is the day I no longer understand your silence."
For the first time in days, her shoulders shook.
Not with shame.
But with longing.
Zion Came at Dusk
He entered with no guards.
Only a scroll in one hand. His cloak pulled back.
He stood in front of the cell and said nothing for a long while.
Then:
"Seventy to one hundred years. That is my estimate.
Before the Hive finds our line again.
Before the front we built is tested."
Ayira looked up.
Earlier that day, Zion had been speaking with his five wives—deep in the inner garden beneath the moonlight—when he mentioned the arrival of the first Hive Queen. A silence had fallen over them then, the kind that only came before storms. The memory followed him even now, heavy in his step.
Zion unrolled the scroll. On it were lists—of the executed families, of incidents from the early collapse, and records long buried in redacted ink.
"The families you executed had once betrayed Zantrayel.
Not recently. Not during the firefall.
They were traitors in the First Beast Gods War."
He lowered the scroll.
"They aligned themselves with the foreign pantheons who tried to tear our roots out from the inside.
Their legacy was supposed to be erased."
Ayira nodded once.
"They burned homes. Took children.
Then lived as nobles in the outer walls and thought we'd forgotten.
But I didn't kill them out of rage. I killed them because they were rot.
And rot spreads if left unchecked."
Zion looked at her carefully. Then to Jalen. Then back again.
"You should have waited for judgment."
"Judgment was late," she said. "But justice was on time."
The Cell Opened
Zion stepped forward. Unlocked the gate with his own hand.
"Then justice has already been served."
He reached out and placed his hand on Ayira's shoulder.
"I pardon all your crimes.
But know this—Zantrayel is not just power. It is law, and breath, and memory.
If you spill blood again without trial, I will not shield you."
She met his gaze, unwavering.
"Then I will spill it where law has no reach."
Zion almost smiled.
"Then perhaps you are exactly what we need… for what's coming."
As he walked away, Ayira stepped from the cell.
Jalen rose.
They didn't embrace.
They only stood a breath apart.
And after all the battles,
after all the fire,
after silence and pain and betrayal—
They took each other's hands