Rebirth: Necromancer's Ascenscion

The air felt like it froze.

She hadn't lit the sconces further. Hadn't drawn the curtain or shifted her posture. And yet—everything had changed.

Velrosa stepped back from him only long enough to draw the heavy curtain of dark velvet across the chamber door. The soft hush of it closing sounded almost like a blade sheathing. Not an end. A beginning.

When she turned, the edges of her dress shimmered faintly in the light. Simple fabric, yes—but to Ian, it looked like moonlight folded.

She said nothing more.

Her fingers reached for him—slowly, without hesitation. The movement wasn't urgent. It was deliberate. Like someone tracing the edge of a memory long denied. Her hand rose to the blood-stained collar of his coat.

She didn't remove it gently, but she wasn't cruel either. She peeled it away from his frame like it was a second skin that no longer belonged. It hit the floor with a soft weight.

Then came the armor straps, stiff from ash and wear. She unfastened them with care, her knuckles brushing the planes of his chest as each piece dropped—leather, steel, old sigils, undone one by one.

He let her. Not because he was passive. But because he didn't want to rush the moment. This wasn't conquest. It wasn't claiming.

But Understanding.

Her fingers trembled slightly as they found the long scar across his ribs. He couldn't tell which of the many battles it was from. She knew this. Ian's hand found hers, resting atop it—not to stop her, but to say: I'm still here.

Her gaze flicked up to meet his.

Still no mask. Still only Velrosa.

And when she leaned forward—when her lips brushed the edge of the scar as if in apology—he exhaled. Rough. Quiet. Like a held breath leaving after too long.

"I don't want this to be war," she murmured against his skin.

"It isn't," he said. "Not this."

He lifted her then—not with brute strength, but with a gentleness she hadn't expected. As if her weight was sacred. She didn't resist. Her arms looped around his shoulders, forehead pressed to his temple. Her heartbeat was thunder in his ear. Not frantic. Not afraid. Just alive.

He carried her to the edge of the long divan beneath the high arched alcove, half-shadowed and softened by cushions and pale wool throws. It wasn't a bed. But it would do.

He set her down as if she were made of something rare—like glass, or myth. But when his hands touched the hem of her gown, she shook her head.

"No," she whispered, fingers lifting instead to the brooch at her collar. "Let me."

So he waited.

Watched.

She unpinned the fastening and pulled the white silk over her head in a single motion, the fabric spilling around her like a ripple of moonlit water.

Beneath it, her skin gleamed bronze and pale, the rise of demon marks faint beneath her collarbone. She was lean, elegant—perfect. A woman who had chosen too many hard paths. Who had survived with ash beneath her nails and frost in her voice.

But here—she was not the Lady of Corpses.

She was simply Velrosa.

She met his eyes as she lay back against the cushions. She didn't smile. There was no coyness. Only the faint tilt of her head, the rise of her breath, the vulnerability of one who had nothing to prove but everything to feel.

Ian lowered himself over her with the same reverence he brought to battle. Not fear. Just precision. Weight. Focus. Intention.

His mouth found her collarbone first. Then the hollow of her throat. Her fingers threaded into his hair—sharp, possessive, but never pulling. Just grounding. Reminding them both that this was real.

There were no rushed hands, no impatient fumbles. Just skin meeting skin, gradually, reverently—like fire warming old stone.

When he finally moved within her, they both stilled.

Not from pain.

From awe.

She arched into him like a prayer if it had shape, like the moment between lightning and thunder. And he—he trembled once, his breath breaking against her shoulder. As if her body was a truth he had nearly forgotten.

Their rhythm was unhurried. Not slow out of caution, but out of purpose. He moved as if memorizing her. She met him like someone refusing to be anything but present. There was no speaking now. Only breath. Only the sounds of skin and silence folding into something unnamed.

His hands found her hips. Her nails grazed the scars along his back. They pressed closer, impossibly close, until there was no line between them, no title, no past.

Only warmth.

Only need.

Only a shared breaking.

At one point, her mouth found his again—not a kiss, not really. More like a vow sealed without words. When he gasped against her, she didn't flinch. She only held him tighter, her legs locking around his waist, the arch of her spine a quiet offering.

And when they finished—together, staggered, quiet but complete—it was not a collapse.

It was a surrender.

A sacred, deliberate unraveling.

After, they didn't speak for a long time.

He lay beside her, one hand on the curve of her waist, the other threaded between her fingers. Her eyes were half-closed, breath steady. Her hair fanned across the cushions like silver drawn through dusk.

It wasn't the silence of regret.

It was the silence of stillness.

Of survival.

Of something that had waited too long, finally allowed to be.

Velrosa spoke first.

"Will we survive?"

Ian turned his head toward her. He didn't answer immediately. He didn't have to.

He just lifted her hand to his lips, kissed the back of her knuckles, and held it there.

She nodded faintly.

Then she turned toward him, curling against his chest, cheek resting against the faint thrum of his heart. It beat steady, despite everything. Despite war. Despite death. Despite what waited beyond the city walls.

"I don't know what happens after this," she murmured, barely audible.

He brushed his fingers through her hair. "We build it anyway."

The chamber didn't answer.

But the air had changed. Still lavender. Still ash.

But now… now there was something new.

Something fragile.

Something real.

They lay like that—tangled, silent, breathing together.

And for the first time in a long, long while…

…they slept.