Calibrated.

Optimized.

Stabilizing…

Unable to stabilize.

Warning: Eighty-four hours until maximum destabilization.

Nox was not a man worth saving. Nor worth loving. It burned Rayne alive inside to let him touch her. But as she took his nacre from him, she recalled the horror on his face as Celindria suggested Rayne remain still. The sadness in his eyes, bleeding out, as he dictated her fate as a Weapon. His fate. She imagined all the loneliness in his isolation, the horrors he must have committed, and the trauma he suffered to become the man not worth saving and not worth loving.

But maybe in his chaotic attempts to save his species, Nox was a man worth pitying.

Rayne let him have her sorrow in the end. Elden knew she had plenty to share. When she retrieved his nacre and retreated from the kiss, the Weapon inside Nox reverted the destabilization within itself. The King of Cinder’s heart ceased to beat. He disintegrated before her eyes in particles of light mixed with shadow. They surrounded her like fireflies, nowhere to dissipate to and no wind to carry them. The soft smile on his lips dragged a tear from her. Then another.

Trapped inside the overwhelming emptiness of his kin’s tomb, Rayne’s heart broke. A sob wrenched from her soul. She let her knees take her weight when she fell. Her hands took her head as she wept. Years of her life poured into this moment. The lives of her friends and family lost to it. For what?! For this?! She peered at his nacre in her hand, so tempted to close her fist and crush it forever. “Why did you make us into this?”

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Nox would never answer.

The last Weapon.

No matter how much Rayne battered Nox, her fuse never increased beyond three and a half days. She never knew his actual age. Icari with nacre might live forever for all she knew. But she knew from Primary Rem that Elden lived a fraction of an eon. Meaning Nox was likely millions of years old when she took his life. How long would she last like this? With her fuse even shorter than his? Unable to touch. Unable to love.

Rayne stared at his nacre nestled safely in her palm. “Consume the stone. Take the warrior you fell to victory with you.”

Xelan.

Nox.

Cupping it with both hands, she flattened her palms to her lips, swallowing the nano computer down. She hung her head as the new nanites introduced themselves. It tingled, electric and sharp, along her skin. Her heart rate fluttered and flattened in a rough pulse. She waited. For anything. Desperate for some sign the legend held any weight.

Nothing. A sniffle. A shudder. A tear. And then another. She shed tears for the man who trained and protected her until the very last. She shed tears for the man who risked the worlds to love her back, misguided as it was. And she shed tears for the broken girl with nothing left. Trapped.

Beyond the nacre-made glass, clouds blossomed and darkened, buffering the harsh light of Li. Her heart shattered into a million pieces, and the shards cut on the way down. What a fucked up end to her story.

A sudden flash of light brought her head up. She peered round the room. The light came again from the nacre beside her on the central pillar. The color of smoky quartz. She stood and gazed at it.

“Elden?” Rayne reached out, and white light blanketed her vision.

An ethereal voice of impossible depth answered, “Daughter.”