BOOM.
The air exploded as if something ancient had been rudely awakened from deep slumber. The entire ceiling of the clinic trembled violently, and the lights went out in perfect unison.
A low, pulsing hum seeped up from beneath the floor—an eerie resonance, like forbidden power quietly rising.
The four suited guards were thrown into the air by an unseen force, tossed like rag dolls against the walls. Their bodies hit the ground with dull thuds, one after another—none of them stirred again.
The whole building seemed to freeze. Only the wind remained.
It began as a breeze at her feet, ruffling the hem of her dress.
Then, in a heartbeat, it rose—sharp as blades.
Allison slowly straightened her back.
Her hair lifted in the dark, weightless, moving as if underwater. The fabric of her dress swirled around her like a battle standard finally unfurling. The shawl slid from her shoulders, shredded by the wind, revealing a pale golden sigil etched along her collarbone—an ancient mark glowing faintly, as if a long-sealed power had just been broken open.
Beneath her skin, silver-blue light shimmered to the surface.
Runes began circling her feet, rotating like constellations.
Dust in the air dissolved into flecks of light.
Sebastian stood frozen. His voice broke as it escaped his throat.
"What… what are you?"
Allison lifted her head.
Her expression was calm—like still waters at night.
But in her eyes, there shimmered the fury of a thousand winters, the kind of silence that had survived centuries.
"Take a guess."
Her voice was low, no longer quite of this world.
Sebastian stumbled back a step, whispering as if to himself, "Who… who are you really…"
She didn't answer at first.
She simply looked at him—long and steady.
Then, slowly, her lips curved into a cold, deliberate smile.
Her voice fell like a blade:
"Cassian Verno."
His pupils contracted violently, as if something had been ripped straight out of his soul.
He stepped back, faltering, blood draining from his face.
He didn't know why the name terrified him.
But something in his bones remembered.
Something ancient stirred.
Allison looked at him, then spoke—soft, deliberate, like the final sentence of a death sentence:
"Five hundred years have passed, and you're still just as untrustworthy."
There was no fury in her voice, yet it cut deeper than any scream.
It was the voice of a wound torn open again, of love finally turned cold.
She didn't strike immediately.
She simply looked at him, with an ache that had been sharpened by lifetimes.
"Do you remember, Cassian?" she asked, her voice almost gentle.
"You were the youngest priest in the Church. The most devout of the Watchers.
And I… I was the nameless girl you rescued in the woods."
Her voice was as soft as a dream, and just as distant.
"You planted roses for me.
Copied blank pages of scripture to write poems in my name.
You gave me the church's silver bell, saying my laughter sounded just like it."
Sebastian stared at her, wide-eyed, unable to speak.
"You swore before the altar that you would never fall in love—
Yet you whispered under my window each night, telling me that God would forgive us."
Tears welled in her eyes—but instead of falling, they froze into frost.
"Then you found out I was a witch.
And without hesitation, you turned me in.
You led the Crusaders to my door.
You watched them drag me to the pyre."
She smiled, but the curve of her lips was bitter, cruel.
"Even as I ran, broken and betrayed—I still believed maybe…
just maybe, you were forced to do it."
"In this life—" her voice trembled, but her resolve did not,
"The moment I saw you at the gallery, I recognized you.
I lied to myself.
Told myself that maybe… this time, fate had offered us a second chance."
"You were so kind.
Said I smiled like sunlight.
Said my art moved you.
Said you wanted to get to know me."
She closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, all warmth was gone.
"But I was wrong.
You changed your name.
You changed your story.
But you're still the same man—
selfish, cold, and faithless."
"You never loved me.
You only ever loved yourself."
She raised her right hand.
Blue light swirled at her fingertips, forming a radiant sigil—
a star rotating slowly in the air.
Behind her, space itself split open.
A deep blue vortex unfolded, like the eye of the universe.
Low, ancient voices began to whisper in the air, as if the dead were singing from far away.
She stepped forward. Her gaze was as sharp as blades.
"Didn't you say you wanted to have me?"
"Then go."
"Go and fall in love."
"Go and taste what it's like to be betrayed. To love… and never be loved in return."
"I want you to fall, again and again—
each time deeper, each time crueler."
"I want you to learn what it means to beg and break,
to kneel and never be forgiven."
The blue light surged, encircling him like a tidal wave.
The vortex roared, space itself beginning to shatter.
"Allison… no… Allie—please…"
He stumbled forward, trying to breach her circle of light,
but it repelled him like dust against flame.
"I do love you—I just—"
"You don't even know what comes after 'just.'"
She cut him off, her voice colder than the night.
"The wheel has begun to turn," she whispered.
"When you wake in the next life,
maybe then you'll know what true love means."
She flicked her wrist.
And in the next instant, the light devoured him.
He vanished into the rift—into its terrifying depth—his cries swallowed by fate itself.
The room grew quiet.
Only faint magic glimmered under her feet,
like the last star fading from a moonless sky.
She stood in the wind, and whispered his name.
"You should never have broken my heart again… Cassian."
The night was dark—ink-dark.
She walked out of the building.
The wind swept across her shoulders,
and she never looked back.
The gates of the Twelve Realms had opened.
One soul would wander through love and punishment.
And another—would wait.
Or finally, let go.