One by one, they fell.  

The Sunborne Enforcers, who rose to pursue in them up the Sun Spire in metal chariots. The defenses of the ancestor architects next, set to deter anyone who wasn't a Sunborne like Fiona, because for what reason would any Sunborne seek to harm their glorious Sun? And last, the vampires that flew from the transparent heights of the ivory tower to impede them, overnourished on the eternal flame, yet cocky after decades on their parasitic throne, reaped by the Moonborne scythes cutting through the air by Thea 's command, for while the bonded flames within them could reignite a doused heart, none would kindle again when she snuffed them out all at once. 

The air grew quiet, and they crested the tower, Fiona touching down, Thea releasing from her back. And Fiona looked down below. 

The Solar Fortress perched haughtily above the decadent, marble sea of Hearthshire, snug within the shields of Emerald Dome. And just outside, the slums grew immediately sparse, buildings and people well-apart, in hopes that when a freak firestorm struck, it would touch nothing they cared for. And yet it still had, the flames burning around her in her infancy, a newborn miraculously gifted with Sunborne blood the only one left when her family hadn't been able to make it underearth.  

She narrowed her eyes at the city for the last time in her life, and turned. Thea was already quarterway to the Cradle, the dais still looming before them despite the elevations they'd surmounted on the way up. Fiona moved swift and joined her, watching her shield flicker even more in the face of heat than it had on the ride up.  

"This is it."

Thea remained quiet, striding firmly. Something was bothering her. Fiona took her last deep breath. 

"What are you going to do to get away safely, when I become the sun?" 

They were still walking, Thea's pace spurring Fiona forward. Reinforcements from the castle or even their classmates in the military academy could still reach them, sure. But they had time, surely, at least. 

"Thea?" 

They were reaching the bottom of the steps now. Thea stopped. She wouldn't make eye contact. Down and away, she stared. 

"Fiona." The breath she let out was shaky. The cold, acerbic wit of the disowned princess was gone. 

In the feverous heat of the Cradle, Fiona's motivations hazed through her mind. The unfairness of the two towns below, only reflected even more in the decade and a half she spent inside. 

"In what world could the royalty trust a Moonborne to lead?" 

Fiona's nails dug into her palms. As above, so below. It all had to go. 

In the world we're going to create. 

Thea was done collecting herself. She took a single step up the dais. "Long ago, the Moonborne and the Sunborne were not called the Moonborne and the Sunborne." 

Fiona jolted into a pause. She turned to face Thea, the pricked palms dribbling heat down her wrists. 

"I did some digging into the time before the Great Fires. Just to find out who I really am, at first. How was a Moonborne born into the royal family, when we've always been Sunborne?" 

Thea took a second step. It brought her to head level with Fiona. Her back stayed to her. Thea looked up to the sun, held for the day in this spire's cradle. 

"But they lied, Sunny. They lied. There is no Sunborne, no Moonborne." Thea shifted again. Eyes straight ahead, level, at the stairs. 

"Thea?" 

This wasn't the farewell Fiona was expecting on the tower - they hadn't even reached the Cradle yet. A pit grew inside her stomach. Thea turned to her, but looked above her to the sky. Her look was solemn, yet columns of tears betrayed it. 

"They were the Flareborne, Fiona, and they were lucky enough to have a Starborne in their midst." 

The amethyst scythe was deft. It was quick. Thea summoned and cut the magic down both of her own arms, the blood starting to flow. Something in the air shifted, the Cradle reacting to her presence, shaking. 

Fiona 's mind raced. The sun shrank in the sky. Flareborne, Starborne, connections forming and reforming in her mind, a bloodied Thea reaching forward to her, perfect, purple pained eyes filling her vision, "I'm sorry," Thea's palms grabbing hers, her pain finally hidden as she closed her eyes. 

"I love you." Thea leaned forward and kissed her for the first time. Fiona finally froze. The kiss was firm, soft, and an eternity too short. For the first time in her life, she burned. 

Thea pulled back, full of bittersweet grief. 

"Goodbye." 

Thea pushed Fiona down, and the platform finally gave way. 

She fell, and Thea faded into that beautiful, amethyst hue. 

She fell, and the sun finally faded, a body taking its place in the dying light, beginning its own descent. 

She fell, and the chunks of the ivory tower and its platforms crumbled around her. 

She fell, and not a sun, but twinkling, purple stars sprang into the sky. 

She fell, and the sun came with her. 

And for ten years, chaos descended upon the land.