Amelia's eyes were heavy, sealed with grit and blood, and it took effort to peel them open. Each blink tugged at the clotted lashes, and the world bled slowly, colorless and fractured. She was being carried.

  A hand cradled her like something fragile, a delicate bird. She felt the warmth of Jason's hand. She didn't have to look to know. He laid her gently behind a half-collapsed console, shielding her with the reverence of someone burying a broken thing they loved. Beneath her cheek, cold metal met skin, but it wasn't armor. Her head turned slightly, and her breath caught. It was Jason. The fool had almost no skin showing now, just his hands.

  Pain bloomed in her ribs as if her lungs were made of glass. She tried to speak, to scold him, demand an answer, but the shifting of broken bone stole that defiance. So she watched. That was all she could do.

  She saw Dane beyond the shimmer of a force field, his fists clenched at his sides. Watching the war of duty and power behind his eyes. She wanted him to break through. To do something. To stop this.

  She saw the tattered robes of Mara. She couldn't see her fully, but the silhouette was enough.

  In an instant, she recalled their first meeting, the Earthbound spat in her face. Saying that she would never bow to another elf, the day that Ada and her freed the woman. Amelia wanted to cut her tongue out for the insolence, but held back. She had hated her even more when she learned that the woman had touched Dane. The women even offered to share him. She knew that the love she had for her was misplaced and a transference from Ada. But she couldn't help but see the similarities.

  She felt the holy affinity permeate her body, and she was flooded with warmth, and the pain stopped.

  It poured through her bones, curling into the breaks and bruises with soothing heat. Her HUD flickered to life, numbers and buffs rolling in like waves and mending what the battle had shattered. Her limbs trembled as she pushed to one knee.

  And that's when she saw it, Mara's eyes. The opalescence was gone. In its place: brown. Shining with a wild, desperate light. Cracks still ran along her skin, pulsing faintly with Khronos' fading power, but her soul was hers again.

  Amelia felt her skill activate.

  She hadn't drawn her bow and hadn't even moved. Why now? Then the sounds faded. The ragged wheeze of breath, the whir of Jason's servos, the hum and clank of metal moving against stone—all of it cut out.

  Jason's hand shifted. Fingers elongated into a blade. There was something wrong with the transformation. And something worse in what followed.

  Amelia watched, powerlessly, as the blade drove forward through Mara. It ripped and Tore. Metal through flesh

  Mara's mouth moved. Blood bubbled at the corner of her lips. Her voice came like wind through a cracked door. "I tried… Amelia. I… really…”

  Jason's other hand landed gently between Mara's shoulder blades. A burst of raw light that was merciless and fired from his palm. The energy beam slammed through what the blade had already broken. The light of Mara's return blinked out like a candle in a hurricane.

  "Jason…" Amelia whispered. Her voice was a breath against the storm. Her eyes were glass, catching everything.

  "She came back."

  Jason didn't respond. Didn't even see her. His gaze was far off, buried deep in something she couldn't touch. Couldn't understand.

  "I couldn't take the risk," he said.

  His voice was too calm.

  "There's no telling if Khronos was laying a trap."

  There was no rage in her. Just the swell of something vast and unbearable rising in her chest. She stared at him, her friend, her protector, and all she saw was a stranger. And then she folded.

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  Everything buckled. She curled in on herself, knees drawn tight, shoulders shaking in silence. She couldn't scream. There was no air left to cry with.

  A hush fell over the battlefield. No wind and no footsteps. Only the low hum of scorched energy still fading from Jason's palm. And then she heard applause. It was slow and deliberate, echoing like a theater in a ruined hall. From the other side of the broken platform, light twisted. It did not illuminate so much as bend the shadows into the shape of a man. Khronos stepped forward, smiling.

  "Wonderful," he said, his voice a syrupy drawl. "Utterly ruthless. Efficient. I didn't expect that from you, engineer."

  Jason didn't respond. The cyborg remained unblinking, and his hand continued to smoke. Dane turned slowly. His pulse roared in his ears, but he said nothing. Khronos's clockwork eyes swept across the room, taking in the ruin, the silence, the blood.

  "Oh, don't look so sour, Dane," Khronos said. "You won, and now have one less corrupted vessel to worry about. One friend was spared from a fate worse than death. All thanks to your quiet little companion and his charming sense of timing." He paused, then raised a brow. "…Unless you're trying to tell me you wanted to risk it? That you would've gambled Amelia's life, your momentum, your leadership—on the slim hope that Mara was back for good?"

  Dane's eyes narrowed. "She was back."

  "Briefly. Maybe," Khronos chuckled. "A flicker of consciousness? A puppet blinking twice before the strings are pulled tight again? You hoped she was back. Jason knew better, and he acted."

  Dane's jaw tightened, but he still didn't speak. Khronos drifted past Jason, peering at him with mock admiration. "You see, this, this is what I tried to teach you. There is strength in clarity. In cold logic. The world doesn't reward sentiment. It devours it."

  He looked back at Dane. "That's why you're still struggling. You hesitate. You dream of justice and clean victories, but this world doesn't care what you want. Jason understands that now."

  "Jason isn't the one I'm worried about," Dane said quietly.

  Khronos tilted his head.

  Dane stepped forward, slow and measured, his boots cracking broken tile. "You talk a lot about strength. About clarity. About surviving at any cost. But that's not leadership." His voice dropped to a rasp. "It's cowardice."

  Khronos smiled wider. "Is that so?"

  "You keep treating me like a pupil. Pretending you're my mentor." Dane's gaze was hard now, fixed and unwavering. "But all I've learned from you is what not to become."

  The laughter faded from Khronos's expression. "Oh, Dane. You're still clinging to your illusions. You think grief makes you human? That pain is proof of virtue?"

  Dane didn't answer. He turned his back on him.

  "Where are you going?" Khronos asked.

  "Back to my people."

  "To bury them?" Khronos sneered.

  Dane stopped, then looked over his shoulder. "To remember them." He walked past Jason without a glance, and for the first time, Jason turned his head to watch him go. Dane's footsteps faltered but did not stop. "To remember them."

  His back was to Khronos. The Dungeon core's smile twisted. The charm slipped away like a mask. The air around them sharpened, chilling to the bone. Khronos's voice dropped to a dark whisper, no longer amused, but cold and commanding. "You think this is over?"

  Dane paused, his shoulders tense. "You passed your trial of self. You killed your shadow. You thought that was the end." Khronos stepped forward, each motion deliberate, heavy with inevitability. "But because you failed your true trial...your trial of conviction...I will take what is mine."

  Dane turned sharply, eyes blazing.

  Khronos continued, voice ironclad. "Your soul is the prize now. Your body, your mind...they belong to me."

  He raised a hand, fingers curling like claws. "You will become my vessel."

  The ground trembled beneath their feet, lights flickering and warping in Dane's vision.

  "I had hoped to work with you; you would have been my champion. It's a shame that in the end, you were a defiant dog."

  Jason's gaze flicked toward Dane, unsettled but silent. Amelia's sobs softened, caught in the weight of the moment.

  Dane could no longer feel the presence of Khronos; instead, a burning erupted from his belly. A brand that he couldn't shake off, where his soul space should have been.