Even with the added space Era remains as she is; immobile and stiff, fists clutched tightly to her chest. She has already chosen to stamp down on all the anger-frustration-grief welling up inside of her, and she stubbornly persists in doing so. The faint echoes of a scream ring out pointedly from the abyss but she ignores them, clenching her eyes shut and gritting her teeth and focusing on crushing these unwanted feelings beneath her heel.

"You've never been enough," Era tells him, fingers still crackling with aether. It whips at the skin of her hands, leaving faint marks behind as it's quickly reabsorbed. "You've always been too much."

With Hades there had been a deeply rooted yearning that was fulfilled in his presence. With Ardbert there has always been this desperate need.

However unfathomable the depths of her love for her dearest Architect, it is different from the love she has for her soulmate.

Hades had been her heart, but Ardbert is her soul. It is like comparing the ocean to the sun—with one she drowns and with the other she burns.