Chapter 68: Fractures and faith
The ground was still smoldering.
Faint embers floated in the air like fireflies, soft against the night, but they couldn't warm the hollow ache left behind. Selene lay still in Cain's arms—unconscious, but breathing.
Cain crouched low, his wings folded tightly around her like a shield. His jaw clenched, eyes rimmed red with exhaustion and something deeper: fear.
"She overexerted herself," Aelira said softly, kneeling beside them. Her hands glowed faintly as she checked Selene's pulse. "Her body isn't meant to channel that much raw power... not yet."
Cain looked at his mother. "She did it to protect us."
"She loves you," Aelira whispered, brushing a strand of hair from Selene's face. "That's what makes her stronger than any of us."
Behind them, Leo kicked a scorched tree stump, frustration radiating off him like heat. "This is a mess. We almost had him. He was right there."
"And yet we didn't," Eren added, arms crossed, his voice calmer than usual but tense. "He's stalling. He wants something."
Cain nodded. "Us."
They all fell silent for a moment.
The Devil's words had been haunting—soft, manipulative, and strangely filled with a twisted sense of sincerity. But that didn't erase what he had done. What he had let happen.