CHAPTER 26: TRICKSTER
“Will you be okay?” Azriel asked quietly.
He did not raise his voice.
He did not step closer.
The question was delivered the way Azriel delivered all things of consequence, softly and without assumption, as if the answer had already been weighed and only needed confirmation.
Helel nodded.
The movement was shallow, almost automatic.
He was still cradling Suryel against his chest, her weight anchored in the crook of his arms. His face was blotched red, eyes swollen, nose raw from crying.
Her sleeves were damp where his tears had soaked into the fabric, darkened crescents clinging to her wrists and forearms.
He did not wipe them away.
He did not apologize for them either.
The other two brothers noticed and deliberately did not comment.
Silence settled between the four of them, not awkward, not empty. It moved like an agreement none of them wanted to speak aloud. This was not finished.
Whatever had been stopped had only been paused.
It felt like the held breath before impact, the fraction of a second where gravity made itself known but had not yet claimed its due.
None of them said it.
All of them felt the wrongness lingering anyway, a low static crawling beneath skin and bone, the sensation of a rule bent but not yet broken back into place.
Yael was the one who spoke first.
“I’m sorry to break it to you…” He said, voice careful, eyes never leaving Suryel’s face. “But she is still not waking.”
He shifted his stance slightly, adjusting how his weight was distributed on the uneven cavern floor.
There was a faint distant sound, echoes from their movements not fully dispersing. This place did not feel private even before things went wrong.
It certainly wasn’t feeling any better now.
“This environment isn’t exactly the best for humans.” Yael continued, his tone practical, grounding.
“Let’s go to the Star-bearing Tree, Helel?” He reached out as he said it, fingers closing around Helel’s arm, not to pull, but to brace.
A silent offer of support and readiness.
Helel looked at him.
For a heartbeat, he did not move.
His grip around Suryel tightened instead, instinctively, possessively.
Letting go of her felt unthinkable, even now, even knowing she needed something he could not give her here.
He exhaled slowly.
Then with visible reluctance, he shifted her weight and transferred her into Yael’s arms.
The moment her warmth left him, his chest ached.
It felt like his arms emptied too fast, like something essential had been taken before he had finished registering the exchange.
He watched Yael adjust instinctively, one arm sliding securely beneath her knees, the other bracing her shoulders.
There was no hesitation, no fumbling.
Protection coded into muscle memory.
Something twisted sharply in Helel’s chest.
This was what he had endangered.
This quiet competence. Trust.
This version of safety that did not require fire or spectacle.
Yael looked down at Suryel with unmistakable tenderness, shifting his hold again to make her more comfortable, angling her head so it rested better against his shoulder.
Only then did he look up at Helel, meeting his eyes in a moment of grateful silence.
No words.
Just understanding.
Helel swallowed.
His little brother looked so young in that moment. Too young to be carrying this kind of responsibility. And yet… Already so grown.
He felt the weight of apologies he had not yet earned the right to say. The distance he would have to cross to meet Yael where he stood now.
He reached out and ruffled Yael’s hair, fingers lingering just a second longer than necessary.
“You lead.” Helel said quietly.
Yael hesitated.
Only a fraction of a second. Barely noticeable unless you knew him well enough to see the moment where choice met duty.
Then he smiled and nodded.
Leadership did not feel like victory. It never had. It felt like responsibility pressed into his palms without warning, heavy and warm and unavoidable.
But like always, he accepted.
He had taken a vow centuries before this moment, spoken beneath ancient roots while holding the light of a fading sun.
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A promise made not to power or command, but to presence.
Yael always kept his word.
Helel closed his eyes and sighed. When he opened them again, his gaze found Azriel.
Azriel stood apart, silent, staring at the cold, empty pedestal that loomed like a mockery of the Eternal throne at the heart of the Abyss.
His posture was still, but his attention was not.
Something in him looked as if it had gone distant, contemplative, the way it did when he was reading patterns instead of surfaces.
“Azriel.” Helel said, voice sharper now, pulling him back. “Let’s go. You don’t have to defensively check out. Stop dissociating in my hall. My questions will wait.”
As he spoke, Helel muttered the command prompt under his breath, the familiar cadence that opened the Abyss’s door connected to the Dream Realm.
Nothing happened.
The denial was not violent.
It was polite.
Like a door that knew his hand and chose not to recognize it anyway.
Helel frowned, a chill crawling up his spine.
The Abyss Realm had never refused him. Not once.
He tried again.
Then again.
The space shimmered faintly and went still.
Helel turned toward Yael, who had raised an eyebrow, watching him with quiet expectation.
“For some reason…” Helel said, forcing casual into his voice, “I cannot open the door out of the realm.”
The confession landed awkwardly, like admitting he had misplaced his own house keys and needed a locksmith for a place he had built himself.
“Here.” Azriel said, looking over.
He extended an arm.
Power gathered around him with ease, old and practiced.
The portal flickered into existence for a heartbeat under his touch.
Then it snapped shut.
Clean.
Decisive.
Like a book being held closed by an unseen hand.
This was not a malfunction.
This was authorship.
It felt like someone had written a rule while distracted and forgotten to remove it afterward.
Azriel’s expression darkened, only slightly.
Enough for Helel to notice.
Then suddenly—
From deep within the cavern came a sound.
Low.
Rolling.
And wrong.
All three brothers looked up.
The vibration grew stronger, closer, crawling through stone and bone alike.
“What is that?” Yael asked, tightening his hold on Suryel instinctively.
“I don’t… Know.” Helel answered, and for once, it was true.
“Get behind me.” Azriel said sharply. “You two secure Suryel. Quickly.”
Formation happened without discussion.
Azriel moved forward. Helel flanked. Yael shielded.
Muscle memory forged through disasters survived together, sliding them into place as if they had rehearsed this moment.
And yet the air felt wrong.
Too expectant.
There was a pause.
A silence that stretched just long enough to be deliberate.
Then—
RUMBLEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
The cavern wall collapsed with a thunderous roar.
Soil and stone exploded inward as a thick wave of demonic bodies poured through, a stampede of snarling limbs and horns and heat.
The ground shook violently beneath their charge.
Any mortal would have lost balance instantly.
Azriel raised his hands, conjuring a wall of wind and flame that roared to life, shielding them from the initial impact.
Helel moved without thinking, blades flashing as he cut down anything that strayed too close.
Yael turned his body fully, curling protectively around Suryel at the back.
Helel did not understand why he had suddenly lost access to his own kingdom.
But it did not matter.
As long as Suryel lived, she was his priority.
He would get her to safety.
He berated himself even as he fought, guilt coiling tight in his chest.
This was his fault. His failure.
He glanced back at Yael, at the way he held her, and something sharp lodged behind his ribs.
“I will get you both out of here.” Helel promised out loud, though his voice was nearly swallowed by the chaos. “No matter what.”
A bad feeling settled in his head, cold and heavy.
Deep inside, he knew better than to believe in coincidence.
Two random events did not align like this.
His thoughts wandered even as he fought.
He followed the thread backward.
Memory.
Restriction.
Interference.
Deliberate.
Like someone playing chess while pretending to watch the board casually.
Recognition struck too late.
The moment did not wait.
It needed him distracted.
A hand reached through the wall of wind and flame.
The grab was clean. Intentional.
Not the frantic lunge of demons, but the confident precision of someone who knew exactly where she would be.
It snatched Suryel.
Helel saw it and reacted instantly, lunging forward, trying to pull her back.
He was kicked away mid-motion.
The impact sent him flying across the cavern in a violent arc, explosions rippling through stone where he hit.
As he struck the ground, the pattern completed itself.
Memory restored.
Access denied.
Attention diverted.
Bait taken.
A silent, smiling figure flashed through his mind.
“Helel! Are you okay?” Azriel and Yael shouted in unison.
They rushed toward him as the stampede thinned, smoke and dust choking the air.
“I lost her!” Yael said, panic breaking through as he scanned the cavern, arms empty and shaking. “I don’t know where she is—”
Helel raised a hand, stopping Azriel from helping him up.
He stood on his own.
His glare locked onto the far end of the cavern as the haze cleared.
A tall, dark figure emerged, posture relaxed, confident.
Preparation measured in centuries written into the way he stood.
He held Suryel in his arms.
Casually.
Like a shiny toy he had always intended to break.
Summoning his weapon as everything finally fell into place, Helel roared the name at the ancient feathered Fallen Watcher, fury and recognition colliding in his chest.
“SAMAEL YOU DARE!”
Author’s Note:
As I laid awake in the dark one night, I thought to myself: What if there’s a Villain in the Lore ten times hotter than Helel? And also 100 times more evil?
Cause true evil would never be loud and in the open… It would hide like a player moving pieces in Go and Chess. >:D hahaha. Oops? Nah. Mwahahahaha!
