The hourglass between them was vast, a monument of silver and amber, and Lukas and Styx could watch the seconds tick away. Time pooled at the base in slow, glittering layers; each falling grain of sand gave Lukas both joy and sadness. The two of them watched watched in the same silence they had learned to be grateful for—soft, steady, and full of a thousand memories made together within this castle of Kronos' creation.

On Styx's finger gleamed the wedding band Lukas had wrought with his own Divinity: a ring of impossible blue that seemed to breathe, threaded with the motion of tides and the quiet roar of deep water. It pulsed with the magic of the seas and with the love that had made it—an intimate, deliberate thing, born from everything Lukas Drakos felt for the Goddess of Unbreakable Oaths.

On Lukas's own finger was its counterpart, a ring that had been forged by Styx from the River that bore her name. She had drawn water from her own current and rendered it solid, a ring that fit like a promise, cold and sure and somehow warm when he thought of her. The water had hardened into an unyielding circle that wrapped around his finger, a bond Lukas hoped to wear for all his days.

The two had already said all the words that mattered most, offered confessions, blessings and truths until there was nothing else left to say. What remained now was only acceptance—an acceptance that sat between them like a hand on the small of the back, like the last light through stained glass.

Kronos had given them a single month; Lukas had filled it with hours that tasted like salt and smoke and laughter, loving Styx in the way a husband loves his wife, with a devotion that was patient and fierce all at once.

Every time Lukas glanced down towards Styx to meet her eyes, he could not believe how lucky a soul he was that she stood by his side—this woman who moved like river-dark silk, this woman whose eyes could unmake and remake him in a single look, this woman who would one day be the mother of his children. Every glance from her felt like a small benediction. He believed, without question, that she would stand with him not just now but for the rest of his days, whatever that might mean.

As the final grain hit the bottom of the hourglass, a subtle, inexorable tug began in his chest as the chains of reality pulling his soul back toward the Land of the Living. Lukas felt it like a cold thread at the base of his spine. Styx squeezed his hand—a small, steady pressure that told them that she understood it as well as he did.

It was time.

Before Lukas could find the right words to say, it was Styx who closed the distance between them and kissed him. It was not the soft, ceremonial and gentle kiss of farewell but a strong, deliberate one that caught him off guard and rooted him to the spot. Rough and sure, it tasted faintly of river-spray and of the salt from his own tears.

When she drew back, her gaze bored into him as she held his face in her hands. And she spoke, slow and certain, words that were for him and him alone. "You are my lawfully wedded husband now, Lukas Drakos. That is an oath that I will never allow you to break. Do you understand that? You are mine. Now and forever."

Lukas bent his head and kissed the inside of her palm, grinning despite the ache he felt in his heart. He felt the pull again, stronger, and his soul flickered as he realized that Kronos' magic was fading fast.

"I am yours, my love. Now and forever." Lukas whispered.

There was no sadness in Styx's eyes now, not like the last time they had stood here and witnessed the Trials of Kairos Castle finally coming to an end. Back then, her gaze had carried the weight of inevitability, of loss she could not fight. Now, there was only certainty. Because this time Styx knew, with the full conviction of the river that bore her name, that Lukas would return to her.

Whatever trials awaited him beyond these walls did not matter for he was hers.

If the goddess had her way, Lukas knew she would have bound his soul to hers and never allowed him to leave this place for the second time. A small part of Lukas wished it could be that way. But the world would not allow it. The chains of life itself coiled tighter now around his spirit, pulling him away from the Underworld and towards the Land of the Living. The goddess held on tight to his hand as Lukas rose an inch from the floor, weightless in Styx's grasp. But she could not hold on forever because she knew as well as he did that Lukas would never be at peace here until he had set things right.

There were still so many people who he felt responsible for, who he knew still needed him to live on:

There was Jesse Sterling, the youngling he had watched grow from a boy to a man, who still needed his guidance. Lukas saw in him a future for Linemall, and he would not abandon the promise he had made to himself that he would see to it that Jesse grew to become someone greater than Lukas could have ever hoped to be.

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There was Rosalia Elarion, the girl who would one day wear the crown of Easthaven, who Lukas had sworn to her grandfather that he would keep her safe, and his word bound him more tightly than any magic.

Even his mother, Selene of Dawn, whom he loved more deeply than life itself, was still waiting on the other side for her son to return to her.

Then there were the duties that were his alone to carry.

The vow to free his people from their chains.

The oath he had made to Varian, to finish what the Archmage had never been able to bring himself to do and put an end to Daerion's cruelty once and for all.

The debt he owed to Kronos himself, the God of Time who had gifted him this second chance; to play his role in this prophecy that had already bound Hiraeth's fate in its words.

And the quiet, burning promise to himself—that Lukas would live to see a world remade, where dragons and humans no longer walked in division but in peace, where the future was not shackled to the mistakes of the past.

His time had not come yet.

That truth sang through him even as the pull grew stronger, tugging him away from Styx, away from the Underworld and away from the hourglass that had marked the measure of their love and their parting. Lukas could not stay in Kairos Castle, not when duty, love, and destiny all demanded his return to the Land of the Living.

But one truth burned brighter than the rest, steady and undeniable: Lukas would return.

He would return to Styx, to the life he dreamed of, to the peace he longed for. Yet that peace could not be claimed until the work was done. Not until every promise was fulfilled, every bond honored. Not until his people were free, his enemies undone, and the balance of the world restored.

Because that was what it meant to be a Dragon Lord of Linemall. It was not just power, but burden. Not just love, but duty. And Lukas Drakos bore it willingly. Because he was the Lord of the Seas.

Lukas felt his fingers slipping from Styx's hand, her cool touch leaving him with a lingering ache. She did not reach to hold him back—though Lukas knew she could have—but only stood tall, her gaze never faltering.

The Goddess of Unbreakable Oaths watched as her husband ascended, her expression both resolute and tender, and Lukas did not once look away from her. Just before he broke through the veil that separated the realms of life and death, her voice reached him, low and steady but edged with warning.

"Take caution," Styx whispered, her tone carrying the weight of inevitability. "On the other side awaits the strongest foe you have faced thus far. One stronger even than the Dragon Lord of the Flames, my love."

Lukas' heart clenched at the gravity of her words.

Styx did not offer warnings lightly. If she was giving him one now, Lukas would have to be cautious. This would not be an enemy he could underestimate. Her warning even made Lukas wonder if Valkari's wounds, still fresh upon his body, might cripple his strength when he needed it most. He even thought of the oath he had sworn in the Ancestral Lands, the promise still binding him, and he knew that the odds were stacked cruelly against him.

Logic said Lukas should fear what waited for him on the other side. But that fear never came.

Because Lukas had a monster of his own.

A monster they called the Kraken.

He had no doubt that it was his familiar—the ancient, unfathomable Cthulhu that remained tethered to where his right arm should have been—that had kept him live again. It was the second time Lukas owed his survival to that gorydamn amazing mass of tentacles.

Lukas trusted him more than the breath in his lungs.

While the rest of them were bound by the oath never to wield their Divinity, the Kraken had never sworn such a vow when hey had entered the Ancestral Lands. The Cthulhu's power remained vast, unbroken, and fully his to call upon. Against a foe even Styx deemed formidable, Lukas's confidence rested in that truth.

As the Goddess of Unbreakable Oaths watched him ascend, she saw that same confidence burning in Lukas' eyes. It was illogical, reckless even, but that confidence was one of the reasons why she had fallen for him in the first place—the refusal to yield, that audacity to face overwhelming odds without a tremor of doubt. Styx would never admit it but it was the part of him she had come to love most; the unshakable belief that no matter what stood in his way, Lukas would prevail through it all.

A small smile curved her lips, serene and certain. She had nothing to worry about, not when that look was in his eyes.

"I'll be back soon," Lukas promised her, his voice clear even as light gathered around him. "And it'll be like I never left."

In that instant, brilliance consumed the chamber. A flare of light brighter than fire and sharper than steel engulfed his form, and in the span of a breath, he was gone.

On the other side, Styx's warning waited to be fulfilled.

On the other side, a foe greater than any he had yet faced awaited him. But Lukas carried no fear—only the determination to end Valkari Ishtar's plans for vengeance once and for all, and to carve the future he had sworn to protect.

Just like that, Lukas Drakos returned once more to the Land of the Living.

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