Silence followed a deep, resonating boom as the large stone door, appearing now as nothing more than a fourth wall of the empty chamber, sealed Aureus and Xiomara in with nothing but each other and dancing candlelight.

Shadows prevailed in the smooth, intricately carved grooves of gray stone, suggestive of the erratically dispersed roots they were meant to represent. Xiomara's fingertips fondly glided over the grooves of the nearest wall while she sauntered alongside it.

"Where are we?" Aureus asked, setting down their meager belongings in the center.

His wonder brought an honest smirk to Xiomara's lips. "There is not a word in your language I can use to accurately translate the name of this place," she said, "but there is always one where Unseelie gather. You can think of it as a sort of meditation room."

"Mediation? Why? And why underground? Why the secrecy?"

"These are not places we fae wish for humans to find, so building one in the heart of the world's largest human city was quite the risk. Taking refuge in these chambers conceals my people just as effectively as it makes us vulnerable."

"Okay... I'm not following," Aureus admitted.

Xiomara's smile broadened. "The fae are always connected to the world, whether or not we will it, and therefore to the magic permeating it. These chambers temporarily cut us off from those connections, which prevents us from using magic or sensing anything beyond these walls. Here, I am as blind as I am without power. Even if I were to actively attempt to draw upon magic as humans must, I would be unable to do so, as would any mage—human or fae."

"But why? Why purposely handicap yourselves down here?"

"Can you not guess?" Xiomara asked, offering Aureus a playful smile as she began her journey along the wall opposite the invisible door. She watched his eyes as they tracked her movement.

"To...meditate?"

Xiomara laughed. A laugh, Xiomara knew, was perfect for disguising agony. She felt a thread of her essence tear away and weave into her partner's. Again, he was passively and unknowingly stealing her magic—her life force. Even here, she wasn't shielded from him. If anything, cut off from all other sources of magic, Aureus was draining her faster.

It was only a matter of time.

"An elementary assessment," Xiomara teased. "Come now, scholar, you can do better than that."

"Well..." Aureus spun slowly on his heels, his gaze tracing the lines engraved into the ceiling, oblivious to the death he was engendering. He raised his left hand in what Xiomara knew to be an absentminded preparation for the summation of supporting evidence. "You said chambers like these are found where Unseelie gather... Does that mean Seelie fae aren't likely to have these?"

"Correct. Highly improbable," Xiomara replied, reaching the halfway mark along the wall.

"Okay," said Aureus, leading his count with an index finger. "So the answer lies in a distinct cultural difference between the two. What about the Courtless? Do they build these?"

"Some might," Xiomara said, shrugging. "Though, I confess I've never asked after one in any place the Courtless have settled."

The floor drew Aureus's gaze, and a second finger slowly unfurled from his fist. "That means it likely has something to do with death as the Unseelie understand it."

"You are getting warmer," Xiomara said, arriving at the next wall. "Go on."

"Are the chambers meant to simulate death?" he asked, half to himself and half to Xiomara. Before she could reply, he continued, "No, that wouldn't make sense. Unseelie believe they become one with all things when they die. So why build this with death in mind?"

Xiomara admired him while she circled, delighting in the sight of his face as it contorted in agonized curiosity. She was unashamedly grateful to see him distracted by an examination of her culture and not preoccupied with their status as fugitives or the harm he'd caused throughout the day, much less how much more he was likely to cause in the future. There was enough suffering to come, Xiomara knew, and good memories would soon be in short supply.

"Does Queen Titania know of these?" Aureus asked.

"She does."

"Does anyone else in the Seelie Court know about them?"

Xiomara shook her head.

Aureus added a third finger to his count. "Is it meant to be a rite of passage for fae transitioning from one court to another?"

"Colder," Xiomara said. "The biggest hint I gave you was meditation."

Aureus's face twisted as he delved further into contemplation and slowly seated himself on the floor. "Right. But what would an Unseelie want to focus on while cut off from their connection to the world?"

Xiomara raised her chin, indicating her next challenge as she passed out of his field of view and walked behind him. "Perhaps you are not asking yourself the right question," she said, her pace slowing. "What remains after all the world has fallen away?"

Silence settled between them as she allowed Aureus time to think, stopping behind him. She enjoyed how easily she could sneak up on him—a feat often made easier when he was deep in thought.

Aureus splayed his hand wide, abandoning the count. "I give up. That seems more like a fae riddle than it does the precursor to a spiritual practice."

Xiomara laughed—genuinely this time. The nearness of her voice alarmed him, as was evidenced by his startled look as she knelt and slid her hands over his shoulders and down his chest. "Is the translucence of riddles not borne to us on the colored wings of philosophy?" she asked.

Gripping her arm gingerly while she moved to sit astride his lap, Aureus chuckled. "I don't know what that means." It was his turn to smile—a tired but happy one. Xiomara captured his affection and held the warmth of it within her even as another bout of pain assailed her. She pushed it aside and brushed Aureus's hair from his eyes. He sighed, demeanor shifting despite a thinly veiled attempt to mask his worries with a dimpled grin. "Well?" he asked, reaching around to hold her, his touch encouraging her to settle. "Are you going to leave me in suspense, or are you going to tell me?"

Only after a few more strokes of his hair did Xiomara speak. "When all the world falls away...only the self remains. That is our focus when we come to this place and those like it—to reflect on ourselves when we are at death's door, and to rekindle the longing from our youth. To connect."

For a moment, she feared Aureus wouldn't understand what she'd said as the next few moments passed in quiet thought, but soon enough, his expression shifted from confusion to understanding. "The Great Cycle..."

"The Great Cycle," Xiomara affirmed, nodding. She bent to kiss him, and he embraced her.

His nearness was akin to encasing herself in burning briars, yet Xiomara managed to maintain her composure despite it. With each passing hour, his power matured. He was a violent vortex. Destructive as he was beautiful.

Their lips parted, but their bodies remained close as Aureus exhaled. It was a more profound sigh than the last, charged with worry. "What're we going to do, Xio? We can't stay here forever..."

Xiomara leaned forward to brace her forehead against his, gently nuzzling his nose with her own. "We stay here for the night, let the Arcanarium overextend their search of the city, and leave before dawn to use darkness to our advantage. Come the morn's twilight, we will have left Alatyr behind."

"How do you know they won't find us?" Aureus countered, unease preventing him from returning the show of affection.

"I do not," Xiomara replied. Delicate fingers clutched at Aureus's tense muscles as she extended her reach over his shoulders and around the back of his neck.

Aureus shook his head and withdrew to look up at her. "Exactly. Once they realize we've fled home, their suspicions about an Unseelie conspiracy could easily lead them here. They'll find the tunnel and us if they're thorough enough. We'll be trapped, Xio."

Instead of responding, she allowed Aureus the space he needed to vent his fears. They weren't unreasonable, but even if they were, she knew the folly of empty assurances and that, if anything, what he needed most at the moment was a chance to be heard and to hear himself. His fears needed to occupy as much room as his happiness.

"Besides," Aureus continued, "how do we know this place is shielding my powers? I've never heard of any binding spells that could prevent the flow of magic. I don't recognize any of these glyphs. What makes you think this will work?"

"It is working," she reassured, not having to force any of the confidence she felt. "The threads of magic on the outside are no longer being drawn to you. I would sense it." It wasn't the whole truth, she knew. Magic was still being drawn to him, but she was the sole source. "In any case, it is the stone that prevents you from absorbing magic outside these walls. What you see are not glyphs. They are purely decorative."

"How can stone protect the outside world from me?"

She frowned, dismayed to hear him villainize himself in such a way and so soon before he was bound to wreak havoc on the world at large.

"This," Xiomara said, gesturing their surroundings with a wave, "is moonstone. It fell to Aetheria long ago, before the courts were formed when Oberon and Titania were among the youngest of my people."

Xiomara watched more questions form in his mind, evidenced by the deepening, confusion-ridden creases populating his face. In a few breaths, she had upended almost everything Aureus thought he knew about the fae and their origins.

"It is of the beyond," she elaborated, undeterred. "It carries the essence of the void—other, and yet belonging in its own right to serve a purpose all its own. By bringing enough moonstone together and enclosing it around us, we fae can isolate and experience ourselves in ways only humans can. Reflection in these chambers ultimately allowed us to understand the tragedy of human mortality and why you feared death so faultily you were willing to fight Erenyx. This is why Oberon insisted we have such a chamber in our embassy—to remind us of human fears."

Aureus relaxed his furrowed brow. "That's...not what I expected to hear..."

Xiomara met his tired, woeful gaze with a smile born of compassion. Even before she'd met Aureus, she had honed her ability to mask emotions—an extremely rare feat among her people and mastered only by a select few. However, her acumen in the subtleties of human interaction had only been part of the reason she'd been handpicked by Oberon himself to represent the Unseelie Court in Alatyr. In her time with Aureus, she'd only become better at navigating the fragile and complex aspects of maintaining healthy relationships with humans.

And so I love the Ender of the Great Cycle, Xiomara thought as she looked upon her lover in fear, pity, and adoration. Thus, I commit myself to fate. "Woe" shall he name himself when he sees the measure of his ruin upon the world.

Despite her efforts, she got the impression she hadn't been entirely successful in masking her disturbed thoughts. One aspect of her relationship with Aureus she'd been constantly reminded of during their time together was how well-attuned he'd become to her. Therefore, she'd come to regard their bond as a great, beautiful, and terrible thing. For a human to understand even the most minor workings of a fae mind was wondrous, given the difficulty her people had in understanding each other—a trait born primarily from displays of wanton emotion. Such a unique form of empathy kept the great wheel of many intimate relationships between humans and fae turning. Aureus and Xiomara were no exception. She liked to think they even exemplified such bonds.

Instead of calling to attention any of her tells, he buried his face in her neck, speaking softly. "We should get some sleep."

She slowly inhaled, taking in the scent of the oils in his hair as she kissed his head. Their breathing synchronized, and he returned a kiss just beneath her chin. Together, they exhaled as his grip tightened around her.

Tonight would be their last, and Xiomara knew full well it was now only a matter of hours before Aureus killed her.

Hours. It was all she had left, if not less.

Xiomara wanted to savor her time with Aureus—to feel and connect, even as she was cut off from all else in the face of death's approach. For a solitary night, Aureus and Xiomara would be a world unto each other—connected, whole, and without the promise of new life.

⊱─━━━━⊱༻●༺⊰━━━━─⊰

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