The taste of blood was the first thing he knew.
It clung to his lips, coppery and warm, like a kiss from something ancient. Alex opened his eyes slowly, lids heavy as stone, the world around him blurred in the grey light. Pain echoed through him—not the sharp kind, but deep and drowning like he was sinking beneath the weight of something larger than himself.
Her arms were tight around his body, trembling. She knelt in ash, knees stained crimson, rocking slightly as if trying to comfort a child. Her face was streaked with dirt and tears. Her voice had long since gone raw from screaming.
"Don't," she whispered. "Please, don't leave me."
Alex tried to speak. His lips moved, but no words came. Only blood.
His hands were limp. His body was broken, not by the celestial storm only, but by the choices he had made without knowing—actions whispered from the power that stirred in his bones.
Yet in its wake came silence. An ending, not a victory.
Ciara bent forward and pressed her lips to his.
The kiss was desperate—fragile and feral all at once. Something passed between them. A thread. A pulse. A spark.
Her body jolted.
She pulled back, eyes wide. Her breath caught in her throat.
"Alex…?"
Then she screamed.
Her back arched, muscles locking tight. Her veins darkened beneath her skin, webbing up her neck like roots searching for light. Her heartbeat—he could feel it even now—stopped.
And then returned, slower. Louder.
Changed.
Alex's final breath left his lungs. His head slumped to the side, lips parted, fangs bared. His body went still.
But Ciara—she kept breathing.
CIARA!"
Jack's voice rang out as he stumbled across the broken ground. His armour hung in pieces. Blood caked his arms. One eye was nearly swollen shut. But he ran to her, to Alex—until he froze.
And suddenly he felt it too—a sharp pain in his neck. He reached up, fingers brushing the puncture.
He had been bitten by the beast.
And he, too, began to change.
Alex's final breath left his lungs. His head slumped to the side, lips parted, fangs bared. His body went still.
________________________________________________________________________________
In an unknown location
In a hall of black stone and silver fire, two figures watched.
Sia, Goddess of Death, stood before the Mirror of Worlds.
Hades, pale as bone, stood beside her.
"They break," Sia said softly. "Cracked by echoes they cannot carry."
Hades nodded.
"They were never meant to touch the divine. Not truly. Even a whisper unravels them."
The mirror showed the battlefield—Alex dying, Ciara reborn, Jack howling.
Sia's lips curled into something close to a smile.
"One of ours already suffers below," she said. "And the War God breathes yet."
We could cleanse it," Hades said. "A few gods. A small fire to burn away the rot."
"No," Sia answered.
Her voice was quiet. Certain. Inevitable.
"Every death, every change, every fall—they all belong to me in the end."
She turned from the mirror, her shadow stretching long behind her.
"Let them fight. Let them rise. Let them fall."
Her smile deepened, cruel and beautiful.
"In the end, death always wins."