She hovered close, yet touched him not,
Her breath a song the world forgot.
No light revealed her veiled descent—
She walked with ghosts where silence went.
In days long drowned in war and stars,
She danced through time with burning scars.
A goddess once, whose name did shine,
Now bound to threads of fate's design.
Zhen Hu lay still, his chest like ash,
His pulse a storm, his zen all clash.
He'd choked on fire too dark to name,
And bore its mark through blood and flame.
He'd fought, possessed, then dropped in place,
With Nytherion laced in every trace.
A power not meant for men to wield,
And yet—he rose and did not yield.
Aelira watched with aching breath,
So close to love, so close to death.
She knew the curse that slept within—
A beast that whispered through his skin.
He did not know the nights she wept,
Or how she watched while others slept.
How in the folds of spirit mist,
She cradled dreams he never kissed.
Each wound he bore she bore anew,
Each scream he hushed she saw straight through.
And in the quiet, when pain would cling,
She hummed a song of vanishing.
His eyes, once dim, began to shine,
And not with light the sect called fine.
But something older, raw and torn—
The kind of glow by devils worn.
And still he knelt. And still he bled.
And still he trained though nearly dead.
Each move he made, a crack, a cry—
But in those breaks, she saw him try.
Aelira's mind returned to when
She ruled beyond the reach of men.
When stars obeyed her soft command,
And oceans knelt to kiss her hand.
Yet none of that remained today—
Just him, and sky, and red-hued clay.
She thought it wrong, this growing care,
This wish to hold what should not dare.
Yet every time he braved the pain,
She found herself near him again.
Not love—not yet. A woven thread.
A whisper clung to words unsaid.
A tethered ghost to dying light,
A fire held too close to night.
And Zhen Hu knew not what she gave,
The silent guide who kept him brave.
He only felt—when breath was low—
A warmth that came when winds would blow.
And if he'd asked, she would have lied.
For gods like her had long since died.
But in her chest, something still stirred—
A quiet ache, a final word.
He stirred beneath the tree's old crown,
His limbs too weak to hold him down.
And through the leaves the starlight poured,
As if to grace a soul ignored.
She brushed his brow, unseen, alone,
A queen now made of root and bone.
And in that touch, though brief and bare,
She left a thread of ancient care.