THE CATHEDRAL BURNS
Nyx didn't hesitate or strategize or plan or assess the odds. He just charged at them with brutality
Seraphiel had seen soldiers fight. Had witnessed duels, tournaments, even executions. This was different. This was art painted in arterial spray.
He moved through the guards like they were standing still. Sword in a rising arc.. throat opened. Pivot, elbow to temple skull fracture. Duck under a spear thrust, grab the shaft, drive it through its owner's chest.
A guard swung an axe at his head. Nyx caught the handle mid-swing, yanked the man off balance, and broke his neck with the same motion. Didn't even slow down.
Seraphiel stood frozen in the cell doorway, dagger clutched uselessly in her hand.
She could run to the opposite direction. Let the monster and the guards destroy each other while she found another exit.
Instead—
Black flames erupted from her free hand. She didn't think about it, and just pushed. The death-magic hit the nearest guard's shield like acid, corroding steel to rust in seconds. He stumbled back, screaming. She hit him with another blast—this one to the eyes. He went down, clawing at his face.
"Now you're getting it!" Nyx's voice carried over the chaos, almost gleeful. "Keep moving!"
They fought their way up the corridor. Seraphiel's magic blinding guards, withering armor, while Nyx carved a path through flesh and bone. Blood painted the walls. The screaming was constant.
As they passed other cells, Nyx paused long enough to kick open doors, shatter locks. Prisoners stumbled out—thieves, debtors, political dissidents, murderers. Didn't matter. They saw freedom and ran toward it.
"What are you doing?" Seraphiel gasped.
"Creating chaos." Nyx grinned, blood speckling his face. "More targets, better odds. Let them figure out who to chase."
Within minutes, it wasn't just them anymore. It was a full riot—prisoners flooding the corridors, overwhelming guards, stealing weapons. The dungeon descended into absolute bedlam.
They burst through a door into the Cathedral's lower levels. Stone gave way to polished marble, blood-soaked rags replaced by tapestries. The screaming behind them faded, muffled by closed doors.
Nyx headed for the main corridor, toward what looked like an exit.
"Wait." Seraphiel grabbed his arm. "I need to see something."
"We don't have time—"
"The Reliquary. It's this way." She was already running, following half-remembered paths from three years ago when she'd walked these halls freely.
Nyx swore viciously but followed, sword still dripping.
The Reliquary was exactly as she remembered... a small chamber lined with shelves, each holding artifacts of dubious holiness. Blessed swords, communion chalices, relics of dead saints. And in the corner, a simple oak desk.
She tore through the drawers leaving the papers scattered. Inventory logs. Maintenance schedules. Then—
She found a ledger. Leather-bound, locked. She drove her dagger through the clasp.
"Seraphiel, we need to move—"
She opened it.
Names. Dozens of names, written in Caelum's precise script. Next to each, a status:
"Lyra Moonshadow - Drained - Deceased.
Marcus Stormwright - Drained - Deceased.
Celeste Nightwhisper - Drained - Deceased"
Ten years of names. Ten years of oracles, captured and consumed. Their gifts extracted, their lives discarded.
Her hands shook as she flipped pages. There—
"House Ashvern:
Seraphiel - Drained - Executed.
Elowen - Vessel - Active - Sublevel Sanctum."
The world stopped around her.
Elowen. Her baby sister. Fourteen when Seraphiel had "died," bright and laughing and untouched by the oracle gift. Supposed to be safe.
"He has her." The words came out strangled. "He's been using her. Three years. He's been—"
"Seraphiel." Caelum's soft , concerned voice broke through.
She spun when she heard him call out.
He stood in the doorway, backlit by candlelight, surrounded by Holy Knights in silver armor. But he looked... broken. Tears tracked down his perfect face. His hands trembled.
"I mourned you." His voice cracked. "Every single day. I visited your grave. Prayed for your soul's peace. And when I heard you'd returned, when they told me you'd crashed through the Cathedral window alive..." A sob. "I didn't believe it. Didn't dare hope."
He took a step forward. Weaponless with hands open, letting his vulnerability take over this time.
"Please. Come back to me. Let me protect you from him." He gestured at Nyx with something between pity and disgust. "The Eclipse Tyrant has twisted your mind. The Pyre damaged you, corrupted your gift. But I can heal you, Seraphiel. We can fix this together. The way we should have three years ago."
He was good. So goddamn good. Even knowing what he was, watching him perform, part of her wanted to believe. Wanted that comfort he was offering.
Nyx laughed. Dark and mocking. Utterly humorless.
"She already knows what you are, saint." He leaned against the doorframe, casual despite the blood soaking his clothes. "She's just deciding which monster she'd rather feed to the crows—the one who admits what he is, or the one who hides behind prayer and plays victim while hoarding oracles like fucking livestock."
Caelum's expression flickered. Just for a heartbeat. The grief vanished, replaced by cold calculation, eyes flat and evaluating.
Then the mask returned. Hurt? Betrayed.
"Seraphiel." He sighed, and it sounded genuinely sad. "I gave you every chance. Every opportunity to come home, to be saved. You chose this."
He raised his hand.
Golden light erupted beneath her feet—a divine seal, intricate and binding. Pain exploded through every nerve. Her Revenant marks... the black symbols scored into her skin... ignited like brands, burning from the inside.
She couldn't help muffle the scream that threatened to come out. And collapsed to her knees as holy magic warred with death magic inside her body, tearing her apart.
"The seal will purge the corruption," Caelum said, walking forward slowly. "It will hurt. But I'll save what remains of you. I always save what I can use."
Through the agony, Seraphiel saw Nyx tense. Saw him calculate odds—fifty Holy Knights, Caelum's magic, her dying on the floor.
He could run. Save himself. The blood pact wouldn't kill him if she died from Caelum's attack—that wasn't betrayal.
Instead, he grabbed her. Hauled her up, one arm around her waist.
"Hold your breath," he growled.
"What—"
He charged toward the massive stained glass window depicting the kingdom's founding. The Holy Knights drew bows, arrows nocked.
"STOP THEM!" Caelum's voice, no longer sad. Just cold.
Arrows flew as Nyx twisted, putting his body between Seraphiel and the volley. Three arrows punched through his shoulder and back with meaty *thunks*. She felt him grunt, muscles spasming. But he didn't slow.
They hit the window.
Glass exploded outward in a shower of colored shards. The night air rushed up to meet them. Seraphiel glimpsed Caelum in the window frame above, watching them fall.
He looked patient. Like this was all going exactly according to plan.
Then they were falling.
Fifty feet. The river below black and churning, swollen from recent rain. Wind screaming past. Nyx still holding her, arrows jutting from his back like grotesque feathers.
They hit the water.
Cold. So cold it stopped her heart for a beat. The current grabbed them immediately, violent and hungry, dragging them downstream. Seraphiel's lungs burned. The seal on her chest still active, still *burning*, holy magic eating her from inside.
Nyx surfaced first, gasping. Blood poured from his wounds, turning the water pink. The arrows were still embedded in his back, pushed deeper by the impact.
"Stay..." He grabbed her, pulling her above the surface. "...conscious..."
His eyes were unfocused. Going glassy. Too much blood loss, too fast.
"Nyx—"
"Just... don't..." He coughed. Blood on his lips. "...drown..."
The current swept them downstream, tumbling them like debris. Seraphiel tried to swim, but Caelum's seal was killing her, the holy magic burning through her Revenant marks, through her very existence.
She couldn't feel her legs. Couldn't feel anything except pain and cold and Nyx's grip weakening.
The water turned red. Both their blood mixing, diluting, disappearing into the river's vastness.
Nyx's eyes rolled back.
"No—stay with me—Nyx!" She grabbed his face, slapped him. Nothing. His grip on her loosened.
They were both dying. The current dragging them toward whatever came next—rapids, rocks, the sea, oblivion.
Seraphiel's vision darkened at the edges. The seal burning brighter. Nyx's blood everywhere.
"This is how it ends," she thought distantly. "We didn't even make it one night."
The darkness swallowed them both.