The Crimson Gate was a neutral sect, located between Moonveil and the northern territories.
Liriel felt the presence the moment they crossed the threshold—a presence so vast and certain and fundamentally other that it made her bones ache. It was like standing too close to a bonfire.
They found him in the sect's central training ground, a vast circular arena carved into living stone.
He was waiting for them with the certainty of someone who had always known exactly where the future was leading.
Kessian stood at the center of the arena, surrounded by an entourage of followers—perhaps thirty of them, all radiating Void Resonance. These were true believers, people who would die for him without hesitation.
Kessian himself was stunning in a way that had nothing to do with conventional beauty.
He was tall—taller than Kael by half a head—with angular features and silver-threaded black hair. His eyes were purple, glowing with Void Resonance that mirrored Liriel's own transformation.
But where Liriel's power felt like an expansion of self, like growth and becoming, Kessian's felt like a contraction. His Resonance was so condensed, so tightly controlled, that it created a pressure around him. The air around him seemed thinner. Breathing near him felt like breathing at the top of a mountain.
He smiled when he saw her.
"Liriel Ashenbrand," he said, and his voice was beautiful the way a knife is beautiful. "I've been waiting for you. I wondered when you would come. I wondered how long it would take for you to understand what you are."
Liriel approached him slowly. "I know," she said. "Yun told me about you."
"Yun," Kessian said, and there was something bitter in his smile. "The great manipulator. The man who has spent three centuries playing god with other people's lives. Did he tell you that he wanted to turn me into you? That he kept sending me instructors, trying to teach me balance and mercy, even as I was clearly choosing a different path?"
"He was trying to give you options," Liriel said carefully.
"He was trying to control me," Kessian said flatly. "The same way he controlled you. The same way he's controlled every person who's ever gotten close enough to him."
He took a step toward her, and she could feel the pressure of his Resonance intensifying.
"But I'm not angry about it anymore," he continued, his voice dropping to something almost intimate. "Because I understand now what Yun was actually doing. He was playing both sides. He was setting us up for this moment, knowing that we would meet and have to choose."
"Choose what?" Liriel asked.
"Choose whether to work together or destroy each other," Kessian said. He reached out and ran his fingers along a strand of her hair. His touch was cold, so cold it burned. "Because we're not enemies, Liriel. We're something much more interesting than that. We're partners in a cosmic balance. You carry mercy. I carry power."
His fingers trailed down her cheek, and there was genuine warmth in him. Genuine affection. She could see how easy it would be to say yes.
But she pulled away.
"I won't help you destroy the world," she said. "And I won't accept your vision of balance, because it's not balance. It's just a different kind of tyranny."
Something flickered across Kessian's face—hurt, maybe, or disappointment. Or perhaps the brief moment when he'd allowed himself to hope.
"Is it because of him?" He gestured toward Kael. "Because you're bound to someone, you think you can't be bound to me as well?"
"It's not about Kael," Liriel said. "It's about me. I don't want to reshape the world. I want to help it find its own shape. I want to teach people that power doesn't require the sacrifice of self."
Kessian's expression hardened. The warmth vanished like a blown-out candle.
"Then you're against me," he said simply.
"I'm inviting you to join me," Liriel said. "To choose a different path. To be human. To choose limitation. To choose love."
For a moment—just a moment—she could see it in his eyes. The desire to accept. The longing to say yes.
Then he smiled, and the moment shattered like glass.
"No," he said simply. "You've already made your choice, and it's not the same as mine. That's what makes us mirrors, Liriel. I'm going to break the seal completely, unleash the Void Resonance fully, and let the world transform through chaos and fire. And you're going to try to stop me." He stepped back. "I'll give you one month to prepare. Find allies. Learn new techniques. Strengthen your connection with your lover. Because when we meet again, I want this to mean something."
He turned and walked away, his followers flowing around him like water.
Liriel stood alone, trembling with the weight of what she'd just encountered.
"He loves you," Kael said quietly, moving to stand beside her. "That's what's really terrifying about him. He's not evil in the way the Council was evil. He actually cares about you. He's just broken in a way that mercy can't fix."
"Can anything fix him?" Liriel asked.
"I don't know," Kael said. "But we're going to have to try. Because if we don't, if we simply destroy him without attempting to save him, then what makes us better than the Council?"