My arms are fire. My chest a furnace. My throat a clawing void. I’m crying, I think. Or maybe it’s just the burn in my eyes as his magic pours into me in uneven pulses, his strength hemorrhaging straight into my marrow.
He looks at me with that same unflinching devotion that’s never once wavered.
There is no rage in his face.
No betrayal.
Just heartbreak.
The kind you can’t scream through. The kind you can’t fix. The kind that’s always been coming.
His lips part. A name, maybe. A prayer. Maybe a final breath.
My hands convulse. More screams tear from my throat, warped and feral, the sound of a soul splitting down the center.
I’m killing him.
I’m healing from the fire with every breath I steal, but he’s unraveling under it.
And still I can’t let go.
Because this is the last time I’ll ever touch him.
I want to say his name.
I want to tell him I’m sorry.
But we don’t need words. We never have.
Even in our worst moments, our eyes said what our mouths never could.
Every time I was with someone else, I found his eyes. Letting him know, silently,I wished it was you. It was always you.
Throughout our days together I looked at him like I loved him, because I did. And he returned that look with such intensity I felt it burrow under my chest where his love took permanent residence. Even if we couldn’t touch. Even if I had to keep sleeping with other people. We loved each other more than most people were capable of and even in our last, tortured moments, in the culmination of our worst fears, we still loved each other more than anything in this world or heaven above.
And he’d look back.
With that same fierce, steady love that split me open every damn time. No jealousy. No resentment. Just that quiet, endless promise:I’m here. I’ll always be here.
We spoke with glances. With silence. With everything we couldn’t afford to say out loud.
And now, as I kill him with the very power that cursed me, we speak again.
I’m sorry.
I love you.
I didn’t want this.
It was always you.
As if knowing there is no stopping the end for us both now, his hands find my waist, bringing me closer. Even as the fire climbs higher, devouring me inch by inch. His scales flash once more before flickering out.
Let the fire take me.
Let it take us both.
My lips meet his, and flames consume me as I finish devouring him.
