CHAPTER 28: SHADOW AND BROTHERS

  Suryel was half submerged in the miasma within her mind.

  It did not behave like water.

  It behaved like intent.

  The darkness around her pulsed, expanding and contracting as if it were a living lung, breathing her fear back at her in slow, patient exhales.

  Each pulse pressed inward, testing the seams of her thoughts, probing where she was weakest, where memory thinned and panic could take root.

  The miasma did not drown her all at once.

  It whispered.

  It waited.

  It pressed memories into her ribs and watched what bled out.

  Light.

  Not stolen.

  Not torn away.

  Simply… encouraged to leak.

  Warm recollections thinned into threads.

  Familiar sensations dulled.

  The feeling of being held somewhere safe flickered like a dying ember.

  She saw a place made of stone she did not recognize.

  The walls curved upward, uneven and ancient, marked with fractures that caught faint, cold light. She heard a voice she trusted. The sound came from somewhere behind her, or maybe from inside her chest.

  A name was called.

  Her name.

  She wasn’t sure it belonged to her anymore.

  Her thoughts arrived in pieces, fragmented echoes that collided instead of connecting.

  She tried to move, to reach for something solid, but her body felt borrowed.

  Heavy. Like something else was wearing her skin with more confidence than she ever had, standing straighter in her bones than she knew how to.

  Her eyes fluttered.

  Her mind screamed even as her mouth stayed silent.

  Where am I?

  What’s happening?

  Brother, I’m scared.

  Please save me.

  The thought tore through her like a flare fired into fog.

  Helel stepped into the inner cavern and sucked in a sharp breath.

  The relief hit him so hard it almost dropped him to one knee.

  He exhaled, long and shaking, and let his sword dissolve back into its sheath when he saw her standing there alone.

  Unharmed.

  No blood.

  No visible wounds.

  No restraints.

  Just Suryel.

  “Thank every broken stars that watched.” He muttered under his breath, dragging a hand through his hair as the last of his adrenaline burned off in a bitter aftertaste.

  But the cavern felt wrong.

  Too still.

  The space stretched wider than it should have, the stone walls curved in unnatural symmetry, as if shaped by something that understood pressure better than form.

  The air tasted metallic, sharp against the back of his tongue, thick with old power that had no intention of dispersing.

  It clung to his lungs, stubborn and watchful.

  Every instinct he had screamed that this quiet was a lie.

  He rolled his shoulders, adjusting his stance without thinking, weight shifting onto the balls of his feet.

  His gaze flicked across the cavern, cataloging shadows, angles, fractures in the stone where something could emerge.

  Get her out, a voice in his head urged.

  Now.

  Suryel stood with her back turned to him.

  She looked wrong here.

  Not wounded, not distorted.

  Just… out of place.

  Like a bright thing set carefully on an altar meant for something else.

  She was staring up at a focal point of light reflected across the cavern ceiling.

  Cold moonlight filtered through a break in the stone far above, refracting as it hit lingering miasma, fractals of pale illumination playing across her steady form.

  Too steady.

  Helel lifted an arm as he approached, steps cautious but unhesitating.

  “Suryel.” He called, voice pitched gentle but firm. “Come here.”

  She stilled.

  Her head snapped to the side with abrupt precision.

  Then her body followed.

  Not fluid.

  Not startled.

  Intentional.

  She wasn’t swaying.

  She wasn’t breathing the way people did when fear had hold of them.

  Her chest barely moved.

  Her posture was balanced, centered, ready.

  Waiting.

  And now he had her attention.

  Helel stopped short.

  The weight in his gut dropped like a stone.

  Her eyes met his.

  There was no confusion there.

  No fear.

  Only fury, sharpened and compressed into something purposeful.

  A slow grin tugged at his mouth despite himself.

  “You’re about to fight me again…” He said, forcing levity into his voice as he shifted his stance. “Aren’t you?”

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  The answer came without words.

  In a blur of motion he didn’t fully track, Suryel closed the distance and drove her foot into his chest.

  He didn’t block in time.

  The force launched him across the cavern.

  Stone rang like a struck bell as his body slammed into the wall, bone and rock answering each other in a brutal echo. Copper flooded his mouth before he even hit the ground.

  “Yep,” Helel grunted, rolling onto his side and coughing as he pushed himself up. “We really need to stop meeting like this.”

  He winced, hand braced against the stone as he got his feet under him.

  Shadows along the cavern walls stretched and recoiled in response to his movement.

  He summoned his blade, the familiar weight snapping into place in his grip.

  The cavern groaned.

  Loose stones tumbled as their movements fractured the false silence.

  Sparks leapt where his blade met condensed miasma, violent flashes illuminating their faces in jagged bursts of light and dark.

  Suryel moved like a storm that had learned how to aim.

  Not wild.

  Not erratic.

  Every strike carried intent.

  Precision layered over rage.

  Claws of shadow lashed out, sharp enough to score the stone, grazing his arm as he ducked and rolled beneath her swing.

  “She’s fast.” Helel muttered under his breath, a flicker of impressed disbelief cutting through the pain.

  No.

  Not fast.

  Furious.

  And beneath it, he felt something else.

  Pain layered deep.

  Pain stacked on pain.

  Borrowed rage wrapped around something heartbreakingly familiar.

  Recognition struck him harder than her blows.

  He realized then that he wouldn’t be able to bring her back easily this time.

  His blade hovered at her throat.

  He had the angle.

  The distance.

  The advantage.

  He paused.

  The edge kissed her skin, leaving a thin red line that bloomed slowly, deliberate as ink drawn across parchment.

  The world narrowed to that single line on her neck.

  One breath more and it would open into something irreversible.

  He saw her then.

  Not the enemy in front of him.

  Not the thing wearing her shadow like armor.

  His sister.

  Laughter echoed in his memory.

  Clumsy trust.

  The way she had once looked at him like he was immovable, like nothing in the world could reach her as long as he was there.

  “Suryel…” He said, voice breaking despite himself.

  “Stop. Please. You’ll hurt yourself.”

  His eyes burned.

  His fingers trembled.

  Betrayal cut sharp along the edge of his conscience.

  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Her answer came as a near miss, shadows slicing the air close enough to raise gooseflesh along his neck.

  His heart slammed with every clash of steel and shadow.

  She kicked.

  He pivoted left.

  The miasma twisted between them, iron thick in the air.

  Her leg carried her past him, momentum folding into a controlled spin he barely managed to guide.

  She stumbled.

  Didn’t fall.

  He reached out on instinct, a hand lifting to steady her.

  She kicked him again.

  This time he braced, boots grinding into the stone as the blow rattled his skull.

  He closed his eyes despite himself, teeth clenched as pain flared white-hot behind his eyes.

  Memories surged uninvited.

  Old battles.

  Old sins.

  Old promises broken not in violence, but in quieter, more corrosive ways.

  His head snapped up under pressure and throbbing pain.

  Dread hummed through him, threaded with nostalgia, every note a ghost of victories past.

  Don’t let Samael win, he told himself, forcing the words through clenched teeth.

  She is not your enemy.

  The thought felt fragile against the violence around them.

  When he opened his eyes, he saw it.

  Tears.

  Not on her face.

  In the miasma itself.

  Resolve surged.

  Clarity cut sharper than any blade.

  I will do anything, he thought, grounding himself in the certainty of it. Come what may. I will bring you back. You are still here. I won’t let you go.

  He changed his grip.

  Changed his blade.

  The weapon condensed, reshaping into something smaller, sharper.

  Precision over power.

  A choice that echoed another brother’s style, another way of fighting— Yael’s.

  He braced as Suryel prepared to attack again, muscles screaming in protest.

  Yael’s voice surfaced in his mind, quiet but unyielding.

  Abandon your heart if you want to save her.

  We are fighting an enemy who was just like you.

  The truth of it hurt more than any strike she’d landed.

  Blood ran from the corner of Helel’s mouth as he smiled grimly.

  “I will.” He muttered. “If it meant I can save you.”

  He dashed forward, ignoring every fracture screaming through his body.

  Suryel lunged.

  They collided in the space between breaths.

  He sidestepped left, caught her wrist, and used her momentum to flip her aside.

  She rolled with the force, controlled even as she hit the ground.

  “SURYEL!” He shouted, voice tearing through the cavern, vibrating through stone and shadow alike.

  Her name rang like a bell through fog.

  His hand struck the seed.

  Hard enough to shatter.

  Soft enough not to hurt her.

  The miasma seed cracked.

  But only barely.

  The sound was wrong.

  Too shallow.

  Like a door refusing to open all the way.

  Helel’s eyes widened.

  Something inside Suryel roared.

  The resulting shockwave threw Helel backward, wind ripped from his lungs as he tumbled across the stone.

  He skidded to a halt, gasping, vision swimming.

  A hand caught his arm.

  Calloused.

  Warm.

  Unyielding.

  Michael hauled him upright with practiced ease.

  “Need help, little brother?” Michael asked, golden light flaring around him as he smiled, the teasing edge deliberate, meant to cut tension in half.

  “Don’t call me that.” Helel muttered, though he didn’t pull away as Michael steadied him.

  Michael’s gaze snapped back to the cavern floor, tracking the growing shadows.

  “So,” He called over the din, already moving, “What’s the situation?”

  They split instinctively, scattering in opposite directions.

  Suryel’s shadow expanded in sharp waves across the stone, each pulse carving deeper grooves into the ground.

  Helel dodged a tendril of miasma aimed at his left and shouted back, “It’s bad!”

  Michael didn’t look at him. “You’re injured.”

  “No I’m not,” Helel snapped. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was informed the Abyss has a new queen,” Michael replied calmly, dispatching a mass of shadow with a clean, controlled strike. “An anomaly that needs to be contained and assessed.”

  He glanced between Suryel and Helel.

  The air went cold.

  Helel stared at him, fury flaring bright and dangerous.

  Assess this and die was written plainly across his expression.

  Michael read it instantly.

  This was not a battlefield he could command.

  “… But I won’t.” Michael continued, voice steady as he adjusted course. “I believe you have a plan?”

  “Of course I do.” Helel said, back straightening as he and Michael aligned, back to back.

  An unspoken timer began to tick.

  “Okay.” Michael said quietly. “Do it. You have until then.”

  A pause.

  “Or I will have to step up.”

  Helel glanced back, meeting his eyes.

  A sharp, fleeting gratitude passed between them.

  Two brothers moved.

  Helel toward Suryel.

  Michael clearing the shadows away.

  Author’s Note:

  Why do I keep imagining the miasma like cheese on a puto. Hahaha.

  Anyway, I was listening to the following on my playlist while polishing this chapter:

  Aviators - Streets of Gold [ Orchestral Alternative Version ]

  Aviators - Godhunter [ Alternative Version ]

  Aviators - Into The Black [ Dark Alternative ]

  Aviators - Find Me [ Rewind Version - Orchestral Ballad ]

  I hope you enjoyed!