Chapter 7 - Blood on the Wards

The hollow became a slaughter yard in seconds.Shadow met steel and ichor met stone. Azraath fought like a storm given form—every movement economical, lethal, centuries of combat distilled into single, devastating strikes. Senna clung to him, legs locked around his waist, arms around his neck, becoming both anchor and counterweight. She felt every flex of his shoulders, every shift of balance as he pivoted to meet the next attacker.A cultist lunged from the left—ritual blade arcing high. Azraath caught the wrist mid-swing, twisted, snapped bone like dry twig. The man screamed; the blade clattered. Shadow tendrils rose like vipers and drove through the cultist's chest before he could fall.Senna didn't flinch. She'd seen worse in her own chest forty-seven times.Another came from behind—roots bursting from the ground to snare Azraath's ankle. Senna reacted before thought: she kicked downward, heel slamming into the black tendril. It recoiled with a wet hiss. Azraath spared her a half-second glance—surprise, approval—then spun, shadow whip lashing out to sever three more roots in a single arc.The high priest stood at the ridge's edge, arms spread, chanting louder. His voice cracked the air; each syllable made the red fractures in the sky pulse brighter. The gate's pull on Senna intensified—threads tightening like wire around her ribs—but she gritted her teeth and focused on Azraath's warmth against her front."Left!" she shouted.Azraath was already turning. Two cultists charged together, blades synchronized. He met them with crossed shadow blades—parry, twist, counter. One head rolled; the other dropped clutching a ruined throat.Senna's heart hammered so hard she felt it in her teeth."You're holding back," she murmured against his ear."I am not killing the high priest yet," he answered, low. "He knows things.""Then let's take him alive."Azraath's laugh was short, dark. "Ambitious."He surged forward—long strides eating distance. Cultists fell like wheat. Senna reached down with one hand, snatching a fallen ritual dagger from the dirt. The hilt was warm, sticky. She gripped it anyway.A root thicker than her arm whipped toward them. Azraath raised a wall of shadow; the root struck it and shattered into black splinters that stung like glass. Senna ducked her head against his shoulder, avoiding the spray.They reached the base of the ridge. The high priest's chant faltered for the first time—surprise flickering across his fanatic features as he saw his lord ascending with the vessel wrapped around him like a lover, not a sacrifice."You dare—" the priest began.Azraath cut him off with shadow. Tendrils snapped forward, wrapping the man's wrists and yanking his arms wide. The ceremonial dagger clattered down the rocks. The priest struggled, face purpling with rage and something like betrayal."Lord Veyr," he spat. "You forsake the prophecy? For her?"Azraath stopped three paces away. Senna slid down his body until her bare feet touched stone—still holding the stolen dagger, still pressed close to his side."I forsake nothing," Azraath said quietly. "I choose differently."The high priest laughed—high, broken. "The gate does not choose. It demands. And it will take her whether you will it or not."Senna stepped forward half a pace. "It's been trying. I'm still here."The priest's eyes locked on her—wild, almost pitying. "You think defiance makes you special? You were made for this. Your blood sings to the wound. Every loop was practice. Every death tuned you. You are not escaping fate—you are fulfilling it late."Azraath's hand settled on her shoulder—steady, grounding."Speak plainly," he ordered. "Or I take your tongue next."The priest's gaze flicked between them. "She is not some random soul plucked from another world. She is ours. Fragment of the first sacrifice—the one you failed to complete three centuries ago. The gate tore a piece of her essence free when you hesitated the very first time. It kept her safe across worlds, waiting. Reborn. Reset. Until the alignment was perfect again."Senna felt the world tilt.She stared at the priest. Then at Azraath.His face had gone bloodless."You… knew?" she asked softly."I suspected," he admitted, voice rough. "The pull was always too strong. Too familiar. I thought it was the prophecy's design."The high priest smiled—slow, cruel. "It was. And you were meant to finish what you began. But you faltered. Again."Senna's grip tightened on the dagger until her knuckles whitened."So I'm… what? Your recycled battery?""You are salvation," the priest hissed. "And damnation. The gate needs your death to close—or your surrender to widen forever. Either way, the world ends as foretold. Only the flavor changes."Azraath's shadows tightened around the priest's wrists until bone creaked."Enough riddles."Senna stepped closer—close enough to smell incense and sweat on the man."If I die outside the ritual," she asked, "what happens?"The priest's smile widened. "The wound festers. Reality unravels slowly. Cities collapse into voids. Oceans boil backward. It takes decades instead of hours. A lingering apocalypse. Poetic, no?"Senna looked up at Azraath. His eyes were fixed on the priest, but she felt the tremor in his hand on her shoulder."And if he dies instead?" she asked.The priest's smile faltered for the first time.Azraath answered before the man could. "The gate loses its key. It starves. Closes. The fractures heal. The world continues—broken, scarred, but breathing."Senna exhaled shakily. "Then we have options."The high priest thrashed. "You cannot kill him! He is the last scion! Without him—""Without him," Senna cut in, "the ritual fails anyway. You lose either way."She lifted the dagger—point resting lightly against the priest's throat."Last chance," she said. "Tell us how to starve the gate without another death."The priest stared at her—then laughed again, softer, resigned."You already know," he whispered. "Bind him to it. Let the calamity become the cage. But he will never agree. He fears becoming the prisoner more than becoming the executioner."Azraath's shadows flexed—ready to end it.Senna touched his wrist. "Wait."She met the priest's eyes one last time."Then we'll make him agree," she said.She stepped back.Azraath released the shadows.The high priest collapsed to his knees, gasping.Around them, the remaining cultists faltered—uncertain, horrified.The red sky pulsed once—hard—like a heart skipping.And Senna turned to Azraath, voice steady despite the tremor in her hands."We're not done rewriting," she told him.He looked at her—centuries of guilt, fear, and something dangerously close to hope warring in his gaze."No," he murmured. "We are not."The gate howled—distant, furious, hungry.They ignored it.Hand in hand, they turned their backs on the broken priest and the fractured skyand began walking down the ridgetoward whatever ending they could still steal.