The coven lab smelled faintly of herbs, old parchment, and singed magic.
A soft boom rattled one of the glass shelves - followed by a muffled curse.
"Felix!" Est yelped, ducking behind the nearest table as green smoke curled through the air. "You said it wouldn't explode this time!"
Felix coughed through the mist, waving his spellbook furiously. "I said it shouldn't! There's a vast difference between optimism and a guarantee!"
Est peered over the cauldron, eyes watering. "You're trying to make an antidote, not a love potion gone feral."
"Maybe love's the missing ingredient," Felix muttered darkly, flicking his wrist to seal the fizzing beaker with a charm. "The venom reacts to emotion, after all. Rage, despair... desire. If we can stabilize the balance-"
Another crack of thunder rolled across the ceiling.
Both witch and human froze.
Even through Felix's ward - layered in silver, salt, and moon ash - they felt it.
A wave of dark pressure rippling down from the upper floors, thick as smoke, sharp as ice.
"That," Est whispered, eyes wide, "isn't weather."
"No," Felix said quietly, his humor slipping away. "That's him. The Supreme's aura."
He glanced toward the ceiling, voice dropping lower. "And it's not steady. He's holding something back."
"Or someone," Est murmured.
Felix said nothing, but the thought hung heavy in the lab.
---
Upstairs, the air was heavier - drenched in tension and old power.
The grand hall had thinned out. The other leaders had already departed, their entourages scattering into shadows and silk.
Only two figures remained beneath the flickering chandelier:
The Supreme, and the one rival who never bowed.
Dew stood before him, the faintest of smiles curling his lips, wine glass still untouched in his hand.
"You didn't change, Nani. Still playing the untouchable prince."
Nani's tone was even, almost disinterested. "And you're still overstaying your welcome."
Dew's laugh was low and lazy - but there was iron beneath it. "You've always been good at hiding things. Secrets. Lovers. The truth."
His gaze slid past Nani, to the wolf standing just behind him - quiet, alert, a storm restrained.
"Tell me, though... isn't it cruel to keep a creature like that on a leash?"
Sky didn't flinch, but his eyes darkened, a growl caught deep in his chest.
Nani didn't turn, but his voice dropped a note colder. "Careful, Dew. You're wandering close to trespass."
"I'm just curious," Dew said softly, stepping closer until the two ancient powers nearly shared breath. "You've marked him. Shielded him. Hid him. But you know the old rule, don't you? You can't cage the moon, Prince. It burns whatever tries to hold it."
For the first time, Nani's expression changed - the faintest flicker of something sharp behind his gold eyes.
"And yet," he murmured, "I've spent lifetimes proving otherwise."
Dew smiled - that knowing, dangerous kind.
"You always were a fool for love."
He glanced once more at Sky. "When the fire consumes you again, don't say I didn't warn you. Or better-" he leaned in slightly, voice almost intimate, "-give him to me. I promise I'll make him shine before I destroy him."
The temperature in the room dropped.
Sky stepped forward before he even realized it, shadows coiling at his feet, a pulse of silver flickering behind his eyes.
Nani lifted a hand - a quiet command that froze the air.
"That's enough," he said, his voice so calm it silenced the room.
Dew's smile lingered, but he straightened, bowing ever so slightly - mockery in every movement.
"Then until next time, Supreme. Try not to burn the world again."
And just like that, he vanished - the scent of ash and lilac fading into the cold.
For a long moment, neither Nani nor Sky spoke.
Finally, Sky broke the silence, his voice low. "He knows."
"Yes," Nani replied, eyes still fixed on the empty space where Dew had stood. "And that makes him more dangerous than all the rest combined."
Sky hesitated, glancing at him. "Then why didn't you-"
"Because he wants me to," Nani interrupted softly. "He feeds on conflict. On history."
He turned then, meeting Sky's gaze - ancient sorrow reflected in gold.
"And we have both given him enough of that already."
---
The room was too quiet.
Only the city's faint hum bled through the tall glass windows, washing pale light across the floor where Sky stood - still, guarded, his reflection fractured between glass and shadow.
Behind him, Nani hadn't moved since Dew left. His stillness was carved from stone, but his aura was unraveling - thread by trembling thread.
Sky turned slowly. "You've been... distant," he said softly. "That man - Dew - he said a name. Niran."
The name seemed to tear the air itself. Nani's breath hitched - the kind of sound that didn't belong to someone like him.
He looked up, and the centuries lived behind his eyes.
"Why did he say it?" Sky pressed, voice low. "Who was he talking about?"
For a long, unbearable moment, Nani said nothing.
Then he exhaled, shoulders trembling - like he'd been holding that breath for a thousand years.
"Because Niran isn't someone I can forget," he said quietly. "No matter how many lives pass. Because Niran was you."
Sky froze. The words didn't fit the air. "Me?"
Nani's gaze softened - grief and reverence tangled in his tone. "You carry her flame. His soul. Their light. The same heartbeat that once called my name beneath the moon."
He stepped forward, voice unsteady, unraveling.
"I remember that night. The first guardian - Lira. She bore the Wongravee bloodline, the moonfire itself in her veins. She was everything I was forbidden to touch."
His eyes darkened. "And I - Kieran of the Hirunkit house - was born cursed with a heartbeat. A flaw in my bloodline. To feel, when immortals were never meant to."
Sky's heart thudded painfully. The way Nani said it - not like a history, but a confession - made his chest ache.
Nani's hands shook at his sides. "When I saw her, I knew peace for the first time. I thought love could exist even between night and moonlight."
He laughed then, softly, brokenly. "But love, Sky, is the cruelest form of rebellion."
He turned away, fingers curling against the windowpane. "The clans found out. Blood and Moon - they saw our union as blasphemy. I tried to protect her, but my blood - my cursed heartbeat - tainted her moonfire. I watched the light devour her from within. She burned herself to seal what I had unleashed. Her last words were my name."
His voice cracked. "Since that night, I've been breathing her ashes."
Sky's throat tightened, tears rising unbidden. "And then?"
"Then she returned," Nani whispered, staring at nothing. "Reborn. The second Guardian - Niran. I found him again. Different face, same light. I thought the gods had given me another chance. But the curse does not forgive."
He turned toward Sky, his eyes hollow with ache. "He died in my arms. Burned again - to save me."
Sky's breath stuttered. "And now-"
"And now, here you are," Nani said, voice barely audible. "The third dawn of the same soul. The curse calls to us no matter how far I run. Every life it finds us. Every life it ends the same."
He stepped closer - close enough that Sky could feel the tremor in his breath.
His voice dropped, fragile. "I told myself I would stay away this time. That I would not let it destroy you again. But when you looked at me..." His composure broke, eyes glassy. "Every promise I made to the gods turned to dust."
The silence between them was raw - alive with grief and something that felt too much like love.
Sky took a step closer. His hands trembled as he reached up, brushing his fingertips along Nani's cheek. The vampire flinched - not from pain, but from memory.
"Nani..." Sky whispered, his voice shaking. "If that's true - if I've always been the one to burn - then why keep coming back to me?"
Nani closed his eyes. A tear slipped past his lashes. "Because I don't know how to stop loving you."
The words broke him.
Sky's tears fell freely now, tracing silver lines down his face. "It hurts," he said, choking on it. "It hurts to remember something my heart knows but my mind doesn't. To love you and hate that it's killing you."
Nani's hand found Sky's wrist - trembling, reverent. "It was never supposed to be a curse," he said, voice barely a breath. "It was supposed to be a vow. We made it under the moon - to find each other in every life until one of us learns how to love without ending the world."
Sky's breath hitched. He leaned forward until their foreheads touched - their marks pulsing faintly in unison. Silver met crimson. Moonfire met Blood.
"I'm tired of dying for you," Sky whispered. "And you're tired of watching me burn."
Nani nodded, tears sliding silently down his cheek. "Then this time," he murmured, "let me be the one who burns."
Their marks flared - light and shadow entwining - and for one fragile heartbeat, the curse felt like something holy.
Outside, the moon bled gold.
---
Moonlight spilled across them like liquid silver, softening the edges of grief.
For a long time, neither spoke. They simply stood there—two remnants of the same curse, breathing the same air, trembling for the same reason.
Sky was the first to move. His fingers slid to the collar of Nani's robe, tracing the faint lines of the sigil still glowing on his chest. "It's still burning," he murmured.
"So am I," Nani whispered.
Their eyes met. The space between them closed as if the moon itself had drawn them together. When Nani kissed him, it wasn't hunger—it was recognition. The kind of kiss that happens only after centuries of waiting.
Sky's body tensed, then melted, surrendering not to weakness but to inevitability. His hands found Nani's shoulders, pulling him closer, tasting the sorrow and the longing that had lived too long in silence.
The air shimmered where their marks touched—silver flaring against crimson. A faint hiss, like the sigh of stars, filled the room.
Nani broke the kiss only to rest his lips at Sky's throat, his breath hot against the pulse. "Let me," he whispered. "Just this once."
Sky froze. "If you take my blood, it'll burn you."
"I've burned for less," Nani said, his voice breaking into something tender, reckless. "And I'd rather carry your fire than this emptiness."
Sky's breath hitched. For a heartbeat he thought of every life before, of the flames, of dying in his arms—and still, he tilted his head, exposing his throat to the moonlight.
Nani's fangs grazed his skin, never piercing. He lingered there, trembling, as if the restraint itself was an act of devotion.
When he finally kissed the spot instead of biting, Sky exhaled a soft, shuddering breath—half relief, half despair.
"Then stay," Nani murmured against his skin. "Just tonight. Before the world remembers who we are."
Sky nodded, barely. Their lips met again, slow, desperate, full of everything that could never be said. The moon watched them through the window, pale and bright, as the night wrapped around their joined shadows.
And somewhere between one breath and the next, pain softened into love, and love into something endless.