THE UNBROKEN

Elena never left his side.

Not again.

Not ever.

When she awoke the morning after their return to the sanctuary, the first thing she felt was warmth. Not the sun, not the storm- but his hand in hers. The roughness. The weight. Still there. Still alive.

Niegal lay beside her, unmoving, his body a ruin of bandages and torn flesh, ribs rising and falling so faintly she had to press her face to his chest to feel it. But he was breathing. That was all she needed.

She wept.

Hot, silent sobs as she whispered into the crook of his neck.

"You held on. You held on. Mi amor, you're still here. I found you. I'm never leaving you again. Never."

She whispered to him through day and night, through fever and tremor, through moments where his heart slowed just long enough to steal her own breath away. Every time he stirred, she kissed his hand and told him how strong he was, how Esperanza had survived, how they were all together now. Please stay with us. Please.

He didn't answer. Not yet.

La Señora Behike wept the moment she laid eyes on Niegal's wounds.

She didn't speak for a long time, only laid her hands on him, murmuring prayers so old they predated the temples. Finally, when Elena pressed her, she met her gaze with dark, swollen eyes.

"If he walks again… it will be a miracle."

The words pierced like a blade.

"The holy water," she added in a low, sorrowful voice. "It didn't cleanse. It corrupted. His body is fighting rot, not healing. He may be in pain for the rest of his life."

Elena didn't look away. Her fingers, cracked and trembling, kept stroking Niegal's cheek. She remembered the waiting he went through so long ago, in the sanctum of the Puerto Cuidad black market, as she laid neither dead or alive, pregnant with a miracle no one knew would last.

It shattered her all over again.

Her voice broke as she replied, "Then we fight through the pain. Just like he did for me."

The news spread quickly through the ranks.

Niegal Matteo, the Black Lion of Marisiana, the fallen god of war- alive. But broken. Barely human.

And yet, when Esperanza was brought to his bedside, the child trembling and confused, something in the air changed.

The babe stared for only a moment. Then she wailed, a scream of grief and longing and recognition that shattered the room.

She threw herself onto his chest, tiny fists grasping at the linen wraps, tears soaking into his blood-stained bandages.

"Papi, papi, where you been? Where?"

Niegal's eyes opened.

Barely. Just enough to see her. Just enough to whisper:

"You're alive… You're truly still here… You're both still here."

His tears came in waves. And he clutched her with trembling arms, sobbing as if his soul was pouring out through the holes in his chest. Esperanza sobbed louder, her little body trembling as if she, too, had been waiting for this moment in the dark.

Every soldier who witnessed it wept. The Children of the Storm and Lion. The warriors of the United Territories. The old generals who had seen empires fall.

No one was untouched. Not one dry eye among them.

Elena kept constant vigil.

Her vision still dark, her senses frayed, her body locked in an endless ache. But she refused healing if it meant letting go of his hand, not even for a moment.

The healers tried. At first. They urged her to rest, to recover, to at least tend to the burns that still refused to fully close. But when she growled at them, quiet but feral, they stopped asking.

Her hand remained in his.

Niegal felt her through the fog.

And when he moaned in pain, she kissed his temples.

Every. Single. Time.

Aurora had not spoken much since the rescue.

The sight of her younger brother carved and ruined made her sob in front of everyone, her dignified posture collapsing under grief. Alejandro held her, silent, as she wept into his shoulder. She had lost both sons to the Inquisition, and now very nearly her younger brother. She would not let it happen again.

They quietly rallied the troops in the days that followed.

The new de facto leaders. Not by vote, not by proclamation. But because someone had to lead, and Elena and Niegal—while alive—were still half-buried in their own graves.

They arranged transport, supplies, protection.

They began quietly preparing to return the small family to Marisiana.

When Elena overheard the plan, she snapped.

For the first time in weeks, her voice was sharp, alive with heat and iron.

She sat up straight beside Niegal, her blurred eyes narrowed toward Aurora's silhouette.

"How dare you make any kind of choices for us?"

Her voice, rasped by smoke and grief, still cut like a blade.

Aurora blinked, stunned. "Elena, we thought-"

"You thought what? We'd just disappear? After everything? For our safety?"

She scoffed, bitterness dripping from every syllable. She looked like she might stand, might launch herself at the woman who had helped save her- but Niegal squeezed her hand.

Weakly. Softly.

Elena's breath caught.

Her mouth closed, and after a long pause, she exhaled through clenched teeth.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, eyes downcast. "But don't ask us to just walk away. We will have our due."

That was the end of it.

The room went quiet.

No one brought it up again.

That night, Elena curled into Niegal's side as best her bandaged body would allow.

She whispered stories to him; fragments of dreams, memories of their old home, promises made beneath ancient trees. She didn't know if he could hear her. But she spoke anyway.

"I dreamed of you in the sea," she said softly. "I saw you on a beach. You were reaching for me. I think the gods wanted me to see you… so I'd remember."

Niegal didn't answer.

But when her fingers stroked his chest, over the ridges of scars that bore his name and shame, he sighed.

And she wept again.

Not for the gods.

Not even for herself.

But for the man who still breathed.

Still fought.

Still held her hand in the dark.