Atlas's golden eyes blazed like molten suns, reflecting not just the cold truth before him but the inferno raging within. His hands trembled—not from pain, but from restraint. He clenched them tightly, nails biting deep into his palms as if trying to anchor himself, to keep from unraveling under the weight of it all.
Don't break. Don't give in. Not here. Not now.
He didn't even realize he was holding his breath until the air caught in his throat, thick with the scent of cold metal and old regrets.
Eli stood before him—no, not Eli. Elizabeth. Empress. Enemy. Her frost-crowned silhouette framed by the ruins of something sacred. The walls of the cave groaned as temperature dropped again, and the last of the mist hanging between them crystallized mid-air, shattering like promises too brittle to survive.
