The city slept under a cloudless sky, but the moon seemed to weep silently. Its silvery reflection melted off the tall windows of the buildings in the political district, illuminating a story that should never have been written... but still sought closure.
Zane walked with his hands in his pockets, his face wounded by more than one loss. For years he lived with the weight of "what if?", searching for Ana like someone looking for a promise in a cemetery. And when he found her, he did not recognize her. She was no longer the girl he dreamed of saving. She was a woman with scars that could not be closed with kisses from the past.
And Viktoria... Viktoria was fire. She was ice. She was an open wound that bled in the form of power. But at that moment, on that silent balcony where decisions had no witnesses, she was just a woman sitting, looking at the moon.
-I never thought we'd end up here," Zane said in a deep voice, stopping beside her.
Viktoria didn't look at him. She just ran her fingers along the rim of her empty glass.
-And where did you think we'd end up? -he asked with a hint of sarcasm. But it wasn't poison. It was defense.
-On opposite sides of the abyss," he replied. But here we are. Halfway across.
She let out a dry laugh.
-Are you coming to judge me?
Zane shook his head. He sat down next to her. For an instant, the distance between light and shadow seemed to disappear.
-No. I've come to say goodbye. And to thank you.
Viktoria arched an eyebrow in disbelief.
-Thank me? I used you. I manipulated you. I dragged you into my games.
-And yet, thanks to you, I understood something I had trouble accepting: that not all mistakes are born of hate. Some are born of loneliness.
She lowered her gaze. For the first time, without masks.
-I was my family's shadow all my life. They wouldn't let me feel. Only to command. And when I did feel something... it was for someone who couldn't love me.
Zane didn't need me to say his name. I knew he was talking about Lucian. He knew he had loved his brother in a sick, idealized way that was never reciprocated.
-You fell in love with a ghost," Zane murmured. Just like me.
They were both silent. Only the moon, eternal and mute, witnessed their truth.
-What will you do now? -she asked in a tired voice.
Zane looked at her.
-Go on. Not for Ana. Not for the past. For me. And for someone who... without expecting it, taught me to look past the pain.
Viktoria looked at him for the first time with more than coldness. There was tenderness in her eyes. Tears she didn't know she could cry.
-Anyone? -she whispered.
Zane took her hand. Not as a lover. As an equal. As someone who understood her broken soul.
-Maybe it's you," he said. Or maybe it's someone we don't know yet. But tonight... I wish we weren't alone.
Viktoria pressed her lips together, swallowing back tears. And then, only then, she leaned her head on his shoulder.
And the moon, silent, wept with them. Not of sadness. But of redemption.
For even the darkest hearts can find a glimmer of light.