The last light of the world burned from a single citadel.
It rose from the high cliffs of the west like a blade carved from sunlight itself —white marble, gleaming banners, towers crowned in eternal flame.
Here, Aurelia ruled.
The Sun Priestess Queen.
She had outlasted the fall of kingdoms.Had defied death, decay, and despair.Her armies had broken.Her cities had burned.But still she stood — radiant, defiant, untouched.
She was the last beacon.The last rebellion.
The last mistake.
Vaelen Cross stood upon the highest ridge overlooking the Citadel of Light.
Seris knelt to his right, her wings casting long, dark shadows across the broken ground.Kaela knelt to his left, her armor gleaming like a second, blackened sun.Veyla crouched lower still, vines whispering along the stones, thirsting for blood.
They waited.
They watched.
They hungered.
Vaelen's gaze burned through the distance, through the walls, through the very heart of the sunlit fortress.
He could feel her.
Pride.Rage.Hope.
Foolish, dying things.
He smiled — slow, inevitable.
And then he moved.
He did not raise an army.
He did not summon storms.
He simply walked.
Each step cracked the earth.
Each breath shattered the unseen wards and enchantments woven over centuries.
The sun dimmed as he approached,its ancient fires flickering like candles before a rising tide.
The great gates of the Citadel — carved from white gold, sung into existence by angels — burst inward with a single, contemptuous gesture from his hand.
Soldiers charged.
Priests cried out.
Archmages cast their final, desperate spells.
None reached him.
Vaelen walked through their fury untouched —a storm given flesh,a god without mercy.
He reached the inner sanctum in moments that felt like eternities stretched thin.
The throne room blazed with light —a desperate, savage brightness that tore at the air itself.
And at its center stood Aurelia.
She was everything the world had once prayed for.
Tall.Radiant.Wreathed in robes of living sunlight.Her golden hair spilled over her shoulders like a river of fire.
In her right hand, a spear of pure light.In her left, a crown too heavy for any mortal head.
She raised her spear —and the very stones of the citadel hummed with the force of her defiance.
"You will not have me," she said.Her voice was a hymn, a battle cry, a prayer screamed into the void.
Vaelen smiled.
"I already do."
She charged.
The spear of light shattered against his chest —not breaking his flesh,but breaking itself.
The air warped.
Aurelia stumbled back — horror flashing across her perfect face.
Vaelen stepped forward.
She lashed out again — spell after spell, blade after blade, light after light.
All crumbled before they touched him.
Finally, breathing hard, Aurelia fell to one knee —still proud, still blazing, still beautiful in her refusal.
Vaelen stood over her, casting a shadow so vast it seemed to devour the world itself.
He reached down —not to strike.
But to claim.
His fingers closed around her chin, lifting her gaze to his.
Their eyes met.
And something deep within her — something she had clung to for all her life — broke.
Not shattered.
Not destroyed.
Unbound.
She trembled.
Tears, hot and blinding, spilled from her golden eyes.
And when she spoke, her voice was a whisper:
"I… kneel."
She dropped her spear.
She bowed her head.
She fell fully to both knees, palms flat on the stone, forehead touching the ground before him.
The last Queen.The last hope.Undone not by force —but by inevitability.
By him.
Vaelen placed his hand atop her golden hair.
And the Black Crown's mark burned itself into her skin —searing through flesh, bone, and soul.
Aurelia moaned — a broken, beautiful sound — as her body trembled under the weight of it.
When she rose, she was no longer a queen of the sun.
She was his.
Fully.Completely.Eternally.
[R18 Scene — Pride Break]
Vaelen did not delay.
He stripped her of her robes —not in cruelty, but in ceremony,each piece falling like a discarded prayer.
Aurelia knelt naked before him, golden hair cascading down her back, flushed with the heat of surrender.
The once-Priestess Queen, now nothing but a vessel of devotion, of need.
He touched her — slow, claiming, possessive.
Each caress carved deeper into her spirit.
Each whispered command reshaped her very existence.
She cried out — not in pain — but in the unbearable ecstasy of finally belonging to something greater than herself.
To him.
When he finally took her,the light of the citadel guttered and died.
And Aurelia — proud, pure Aurelia — sobbed her loyalty into his chest, clinging to him as if the act of letting go would shatter her completely.
"Yours," she whispered against his skin."Only yours, forever."
And Vaelen smiled —not in cruelty,but in completion.
Another queen for the Black Court.Another crown for the Abyss.
When the sun rose,the Citadel of Light had become a monument of shadow.
Its banners torn down.
Its priests silenced.
Its queen kneeling at the foot of Vaelen's throne, head bowed, heart reborn.
And the world —what little remained of it —began to forget what light had ever been.