The sanctuary was a tomb of silence as the three survivors joined hands around Seraphina's unconscious form. At first, as they slipped into her mind, Alaric and Eveline felt a strange sense of confusion. They weren't in a nightmare of fire or monsters; they were in a place of cold, clinical stillness.
They stood in a long, vaulted corridor of the Imperial Dungeons. It felt ancient and heavy. Through a shimmering, translucent barrier that acted like a window into the past, they watched Seraphina.
For what felt like an eternity, they were forced to witness the systematic destruction of the woman they loved. They saw the masked Inquisitors break her limbs with a sickening, rhythmic precision. They saw her hair matted with filth and her eyes go hollow as the High Priest's lies were whispered into her ears for months.
"Why is it so quiet?" Eveline whispered, her eyes wide with horror as she watched a masked man strike Seraphina. "Why isn't she fighting back?"
"Because she thinks we're dead," Alaric said, his voice thick with a dawning, terrible realization. "She thinks she's the last one left."
Then, the heavy iron door at the end of the hall shrieked open.
Alaric and Eveline froze. They watched a man stumble into the torchlight—a year older and a more desperate version of Killian. His armor was caked in the blood of a lost battle, his eyes wild with a grief that looked like madness.
It was only then, seeing the past version of their Commander, that the weight of the truth hit them like a physical blow.
"This isn't a nightmare," Alaric breathed, his knees buckling. "This is how it actually ended. This is the memory she died with."
The past-Killian fell to his knees beside the iron chair, his hands shaking so violently he could barely touch her. He gathered Seraphina's broken, frail body into his arms. He was weeping, his tears washing the grime from her pale cheeks.
"Seraphina," the past-Killian sobbed, pressing his forehead to hers. "I'm here. I'm so sorry... I'm so sorry I was too late. I love you. I have always loved you. Can you hear me? Please, just one more breath..."
The real Killian, standing behind the barrier, let out a sound that wasn't human—a low, guttural howl of agony. He watched as his past self screamed his love into the ears of a woman who could no longer hear him.
Seraphina's eyes were open, fixed on the face of the man she had waited for, but the light had already vanished. She had died in the silence, believing the lies, never knowing that he had made it to her side. She had died thinking she was a failure, never hearing the words that would have saved her soul.
"NO!"
The real Killian didn't just break the barrier; he obliterated it. The shimmering wall of trauma exploded into a million shards of light.
He lunged forward, stepping through the ghost of his past self. He didn't reach for a memory—he reached for the spirit of the Seraphina who was still trapped in that final, frozen second of despair.
"I am saying it now!" Killian roared, his voice shaking the very foundations of her mind. He grabbed her hands, pulling her up from the chair of her torment. "Seraphina, look at me! I am the man who survived! I am the man who lived to tell you the truth! I love you! I love you in this life, and the last, and every life that follows!"
Eveline and Alaric rushed in, their golden light flooding the dark cell and dissolving the masked torturers into ash.
"He's saying it, Sera!" Eveline cried, her own light turning the dungeon into a cathedral of gold. "The silence is over! Listen to him!"
Inside the memory, the dead Seraphina's eyes flickered. The grey film of death began to clear, replaced by a spark of amber light. She looked at the ghost of the man who was too late, then she turned her head toward the real Killian, whose grip was warm and whose heart was thundering against her own.
"You... you're here," she whispered, her voice finally breaking the silence of two lifetimes. "I can hear you. You really... you really loved me."
"I never stopped," Killian promised, pulling her into a crushing embrace as the dungeon walls dissolved into the blinding radiance of the morning.