His sin could not coexist with the throne.
That was the conviction now anchoring him in place, not law, not morality—conviction.
A man who once believed in conquering for order now stood naked in his guilt, realizing that forbidden love and righteous rule could never share the sa crown.
He had held the reins of Netherre’s fate in a single, iron-clad fist. The assembly had knelt. The nations had bowed. But no number of victories could make this right.
Because incest—this—was a chasm no crown could cross.
And it wasn’t just his sha. It wasn’t just his damnation. It was hers too.
Morgan Le Fay—the Original Saint. The world’s purest light.
Tarnished. Tied to him.
“I am not worthy of the world,” he said, and this ti, he ant every word. “Not of my ambition. Not of myself. Not of you.”
“But…”
He took her hand like it was the last relic of a dying god, letting her read everything in his mind.
“Please choose over the world you love. And if you do, I will make it all happen.”
Because nothing mattered to him anymore. Not the throne. Not legacy. Not the universe itself.
Just her.
Her love. Her forgiveness. Her acceptance.
This woman had his whole, fractured heart cradled in her hands—and if she dropped it in disgust, he would gladly bleed out where he stood.
He was sincere. He was utterly broken.
Even if she said yes, it would never erase the fact that this was his fault. He had done this. He had destroyed her divinity and dragged it into his ruin. So in the darkest corner of his mind, he prayed she would say no.
Because God damned him. And Morgan—should never be wrong.
“Please,” he whispered. “Marry , Morgan Le Fay.”
Say no. Say no and let him die. Let the heavens pass sentence.
Say no—and he would take up his sword one final ti. Not for himself, not for vengeance, not even for redemption.
He would charge the sky itself, burn the Alliance from the stars down to the Seven Heavens.
To protect her. To protect the world she loved.
And to ensure she would never have to look at him again.
Devastation.
She was still so beautiful in his eyes, and the brutality of it made him question himself. To strip their characters—especially himself—to the rawest, most fragile state. It was apocalyptic, not because the world was ending, but because his world already had.
He was no longer a god, a king, a conqueror. Just a man begging the one person he loved not to leave him to rot in his own sin.
He was torn between love and damnation. He knew he didn’t deserve her. He knew she shouldn’t say yes. And yet he asked anyway, because beneath every halo of power, he was still flesh. And flesh, when grieving, is always selfish.
If she said yes, it would not be triumph. It would be a tragedy masquerading as hope.
If she said yes, he would try to live gently. Build peace. Find a way to grow old in the woods beside her. But he would never believe he earned it. Never trust the quiet. He would try to be a husband, a father—but always feel like a thief in a life that wasn’t his to have. Never quite forgiving himself, even if she did.
He would carry guilt like marrow.
She would carry the sha the world put on her na.
Morgan, saint of light, would be questioned for the rest of her life. Not by him—never by him—but by the world she once swore to save. Because she chose him, her light shadowed by her love for a sinner and a child born from sin.
They would live a quiet life on the surface—a cabin, a family—but beneath it, they would be haunted. The peace would be tender but fragile. And if ever the world ca knocking, or if their child were judged for the blood they bore, Burn would once again beco the monster the world made of him.
But if she said no…
He would burn.
Not in rage, but in purpose. A purpose sharper than grief, cleaner than guilt. If she rejects him, it was confirmation: he was irredeemable. It gave him the permission to beco what the world feared. To beco only the sword.
No more hesitation. No more pretending at humanity.
Because she would have proven him right. That he was the aberration. The mistake. The divine error never ant to exist. And that—that—would give him clarity.
He would beco what the world always feared he was: a force. A weapon. A god of death wearing mortal skin. He would wipe out the Alliance. Dismantle every threat. Reduce the heavens to rubble if that was what it took to secure her peace—just to ensure that she never had to fear anything else again.
But he would never let her see him again.
She, his saint, would live untouched.
And he, her curse, would disappear into myth.
Never again to speak her na. Only to worship it.
Either choice would end the sa way: with heartbreak.
The only question was the shape of the silence that followed. A quiet forest… Or a sky set ablaze by a god who lost his reason to stay human.
So when she opened her mouth—
“I will marry you.”
Her eyes trembled. Her smile did too. But no tears. Not a single one. And in that mont, when she uttered those impossible words, he felt the last vestige of righteousness disintegrate from his being.
Honor gone. Dignity dead. Justice, ha… a laughable corpse. If there had ever been a line between light and shadow, he had just crossed it—and this ti, there would be no return.
“My love, did you think I would’ve said no?” she asked.
Of course he did. That was the problem. He had already prepared his descent, his exile, his self-destruction. He had made peace with being alone in damnation.
But she was listening. She had always been listening. Her fingers against his skin read him like scripture—the grief, the fracture, the void he tried to swallow. And still, she smiled.
She felt it.
Felt him disintegrating, piece by cursed piece, his world collapsing faster than he could rebuild it. And so she whispered—soft, sacrificial, terrifying, “Even if you destroyed this world, I would’ve helped you—”
“Don’t tempt , woman.”
His voice was low, biting, panicked. He gripped her hand too tightly, as if his strength could silence her. His eyes lit up with warning, not because she frightened him, but because she knew exactly how to.
And then ca her wrath.
Her voice cracked, but her rage was undiluted. And sohow, in that mont, she beca the dangerous one.
“Even if you are my blood brother,” she seethed, “who do you think I am to not dare stand by you shalessly?”
“I am your wife,” she hissed. “I am Caliburn Pendragon’s wife.”
“Morgan Le Fay!” He roared her na like thunder cracking the heavens, and the world outside obeyed—went still, went silent. As if even the trees feared what ca next.
But she did not flinch. Not this ti.
“Did you leave when I told you my sins?” her voice shattered. And then turned to iron. “Did you leave when you found out I was the one who fractured the sky? The one who sloppily sealed the corruption?”
Her body shook, but she sat firm. “Did you?! Did you leave when you learned I’m the reason those Overlords are still hunting, and this world is still dying from filth?!”
She didn’t wait for his answer.
“Caliburn, you didn’t,” she said, not gently, but coldly. Deeply. With a clarity that could cut through bone. “So how dare you think I would?”
He looked at her as if she’d killed him. And maybe she had.
“Didn’t you understand what I’m saying?”
His hands went to her face again, not tenderly, but desperately. As if gripping her could stop her from seeing the truth he loathed. “I am your brother!”
“You are not my blood brother!” she scread.
“Even if rlin was the father I had the longest—in countless lives and deaths—it was never out of love. It was debt. It was duty. He was the one who taught how to escape the prison of reincarnation, yes. And then he stole five hundred years of my soul.”
Her voice was a blade now. “From that mont on, he was no longer my father. He was dead!”
.
.
.
.
Silence.
A clean, rciless rupture in reality.
Burn’s mouth parted, but no sound ca. His eyes fixed on her, hollow with the weight of too many truths swallowed at once. It was disbelief, yes—but not denial. He was watching everything he thought he knew rot and collapse behind her words.
His hands began to tremble.
He touched her then, hesitantly, reverently, like she was sothing fragile and fading. A ghost of what he hoped for, a promise he feared to believe. As if the mont he blinked, she would vanish with the breath that carried her truth.
And then he whispered, like prayer clawing its way out of a broken cathedral:
“…Say it again.”
There was no triumph in his voice. No relief. Just disbelief thickened with dread.
“Say it again, please, Morgan…” The plea was raw now, unraveling. “Say that again!”
She stared back at him with fire in her eyes, fury carved into the lines of her face. Accusation in every breath she took. Tears finally broke through. And in those eyes were betrayal. “Is that what matters to you?” she spat, voice cracking beneath the weight of her grief. “That we are not blood?”
It should have shad him. It didn’t. Because even now, Burn clung to hope like a dying man clings to air.
“God still loves ,” he said, as if it were a declaration of absolution. He stepped forward and folded her into his arms, burying his face in her neck like a sinner seeking sanctuary.
“Are you really not my blood sister?”
“You—!” she shoved him, slapped him, cursed him with a scream that cut clean. “Is that what matters to you, you bastard?!” Her sobs ca violently now, breaking out of her like the flood that follows a shattered dam. “Don’t touch , son of rlin!”
And then—he laughed.
A cry twisted into a laugh, uncontainable, unhinged. Laughed while the tears slid down his cheeks, holding her even as she raged against his touch.
“Are you really not my blood sister?” he repeated, again and again—clinging to her answer like a lifeline tossed in a sea of self-loathing.
“No.”
Her voice was no longer trembling. It was an explosion. She glared at him with the wrath of a thousand suns behind her eyes. “But if we were, I’d still—”
“Sssh! No!” he snapped, voice sharp as the crack of thunder. “Shut. Shut your fucking mouth—don’t say a word about being my sister anymore!”
Her fury froze. She stared at him like he had betrayed her again, and maybe he had. But then—then, the sadness ca. Like a wave too strong to fight, it dragged her under, until her feet could no longer stand.
Her voice was quieter now, not defeated but hollowed out. A wound turned question.
“Why do you love so?”
He didn’t answer with logic. He didn’t try to explain. He simply pulled her closer, held her like she was all he had left—because she was.
“Why do you?” he asked in return.
The world was still ending.
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