The sun was setting as Selena and Dante stood together in the quiet countryside, the world around them painted in shades of amber and crimson that matched the lightning flowing through their veins. The day had been long—impossibly long, measured not in hours but in transformations and refusals and the weight of choices that would echo through generations. They were exhausted in ways that went beyond mere physical fatigue, worn down to their essential cores by everything they had endured and everything they had become.
But they were still standing. Still together. Still free.
