The clearing reeked of blood.
Three bodies lay broken in the dirt, their weapons scattered among the ashes of the fire. The air was thick with the iron stench of death and the faint, fading crackle of Aetherion still clinging to the trees.
Ezagone knelt on the ground, cradling his brother's battered form.
"Nezra… please…" His voice trembled, thin and frayed. "Stay with me. Don't do this, not now."
Zethra's chest rose and fell in shallow, ragged gasps. His skin was pale, lips cracked, every inch of him carved by wounds too deep for a human to survive. But worse than the wounds was the stillness—the terrifying silence of power gone quiet.
The wings, once blazing crimson and obsidian, now hung limp and fractured, feathers singed and dripping with blood.
"He isn't dead..."
Ezagone swirled sharply to see amethyst staring down at him. Leaning against a tree, her red dress hugging her figure like sin's incarnate, but even then she looked slightly harggared, as though the spiritual consequences of the battle had taken it's effects on her.
"...Yet"
"So, there must be a way to save him, right? You can't just be here to tell me he's gonna die. Right?"
She sighed. "Ezagone you must unseal yourself to save him."
Ezagone jerked up his head. "I'm going to die if that happens"
"Not if you're careful. It's high time you awakened, Ezagone." She said.
"So... tell me, how."he said, his eyes desperately fixed onto hers."
She knelt beside him, silk pooling beneath her. "You have to reach deep into yourself, that deep darkness within you. Those threads woven around your very soul by your brother,"
Ezagone closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
*Damn this is so melodramatic, I didn't sign up for an audition.*
Then pushing away all unnecessary thoughts from his head, his reached deep into his body trying to find, as Amethyst said, those strings of aether she described to him. Strangely enough, that was pretty much easy, it barely took him thirty seconds to escape into the deepest pars of his mind.
"I think I found it."
"Amazing," Amethyst replied, "to think you'll be this talented. However, we just got to the real point. If you can feel those threads now I want you to unravel them. Shift them gently apart, until they fall asunder, but beware, you must not rip it apart. If you do so... you might explode. Can you do that?"
Ezagone squeezed his eyes shut forcing the dark tapestry to be laid bare before him, Then said in a tone of certainty .
"No."
He was not been lazy, In truth zethra had really performed a masterpiece over there. It was beyond imagination how someone could have woven something so intricate, so complicated. The whole thing would take a week to unravel. And a week was one thing he didn't have in his backpack.
"Ezagone you must, or he'll die" her voice shook slightly, a rare unbelievable display of fear."
"How many hours do you think he has left,"
"Zethra is strong,But he'll live the next four hours." She said
"That's barely nothing close to enough ".
'I already knew it was going to go this way the moment you said it,' Ezagone sighed wistfully. 'Ah... How really melodramatic.'
And with that ripped off the threads woven around his soul. Forcing his aether to burn through. He was suddenly consumed in In incandescent white flames, his body glowed as though it was on the edge of cumbusting. Pain numbed his soul his head powered out. A few moments later he was finally able to manage a thought.
'Crap, did I actually die, that never happens in drama.'
"You really are a crazy one you know" Amethyst purred.
'Oops guess not.'
Of course he hadn't planned to sacrifice his head for no apparent reason. The moment his aether exploded, he had gone searching for the source, and from there snuffed it out to embers, which was why currently, there were no enormous wings behind him, Because just as zethra does, he had sealed them and into his body, even now he could feel them twitching within his back.
'So, finally, I'm awakened'
He didn't however let that get into his head. He turned to Zethra, whose condition was gradually deteriorating.
"Amethyst, what I'm I to do now?" He whispered, his voice low with exhaustion
"Feed him your aether, let him drink from yours since he's is purely exhausted and so cannot help him repair his body."
Ezagone allowed his hands and to hover above his brother's chest, he could feel his aether gushing within him like a little stream. All he just needed to do was give a little push, and push he did.