The memory still lived in him as if carved into stone.

The Cataclysm had split the world open, tearing skies apart and drowning Teyvat in shadows. The air smelled of ozone and iron, the ground trembling beneath each footstep. Amid the chaos, Morax had fought as he always had—unyielding, unshaken, his spear shattering through waves of abominations with a sound like thunder splitting stone.

She had stood at his side then, unafraid, her eyes burning with the same passionate resolve that had drawn him to her long before the battle. The faint scent of osmanthus lingered around her even then, a fragile sweetness amid destruction. She had not been meant for the front lines, yet she refused to leave him. When the ground split open, when the tide of ruin surged forward in a wave of claws and teeth, she had been there.

He remembered the moment with agonizing clarity—the sound of her breath catching as claws raked across her side, the way her body faltered like a withering flower, the way he lunged too late. Morax had caught her as she fell, the battlefield falling strangely quiet in that instant, as if the world itself held its breath. Her blood was warm against his hands, sticky and thick, contrasting sharply with the chill that rapidly spread through her body.

"Stay with me," he had whispered, though his voice had broken in a way he did not recognize. Her head had lolled against his shoulder, warmth spilling fast between his fingers as he pressed desperately against the wound. Her skin felt like ice under his touch.

The estate was quiet now, the silence vast enough to make him uneasy. He sat in the high-backed chair by her bed, his hands steepled, golden eyes fixed on the girl who slept peacefully beneath layers of fine blankets. She was twenty now—still mortal, still breakable, but alive. Breathing. The rise and fall of her chest was a rhythm he found himself synchronizing his own breaths to.

"Hey..." he uttered, his voice barely over a whisper.