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I scoffed softly and got up to my feet. Samuel lay softly groaning amidst the dirt and blood, his every breath was pained and jagged. I closed my eyes and swallowed hard.
"A protector who protects the one, by slaughtering the other..." I sneered at myself through clenched jaws.
"Yes... Very effective indeed..." my demon replied with a smirk.
This time I scoffed loudly and suppressed a frustrated growl.
"No!" I groaned, "You don't understand, it's..."
A soft shimmer vibrated through...everything. My eyes shot open and quickly scoured the dimension, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
There it was again - it came from the portal - a waving ripple erupted from the portal and simmered through the dimension, distorting and warping the surroundings wherever it touched.
This wasn't good...
***Eir***
My throat hurt and I was so incredibly thirsty. My voice had deteriorated into a raspy residue of what it usually was. My mouth was painfully dry, my lips chapped and the palms of my hands were blistering from gripping my staff so rigidly. Yet none of that physical discomfort couldn't hold a candle to the utter agony that gripped my soul.
My chest hurt from the sheer and constant despair that seemed to physically coil around and suffocate my heart. Each breath I took pained me both physically and emotionally, for with each breath, with each word I uttered, I upheld the portal and the dimension behind it - upheld the arena where my soulmate was being massacred.
Not knowing how he fared, not knowing if Dante had suffered the same fate as my mate, or whether he could somehow withstand Samuel was harrowing. The warm comfort brought by my friends flanking me and supporting me did not however lessen the terror that flowed through my veins. With each passing minute, terror's claws dug deeper into my soul, made my muscles jerk from exhaustion, made me fumble more and more words of my spell...
They had been inside for so long already... Were they even alive anymore?
If I had any tears left to cry, they would wet my face, but I hadn't... Where this excessive spellcasting and soul wrenching situation had all but mangled my soul, it increasingly took its toll on my body - more and more words did not leave my mouth the way I desperately wanted them to - my tongue and lips were heavily weighed down by physical weakness and emotional exhaustion.
My soul wailed and mourned loudly for the loss it would endure, my body struggled to do everything in its power to keep the spell active, but it was futile...
I'm so sorry, Alexis...
Please forgive me...
"I love you."
***Dante***
As fast as I could I dashed over to Alexis, uncomfortably surprised with the way Samuel's blood had made me that much stronger. I had crossed the dimensional bubble in no time and knelt down to pick up my wounded friend. His eyes moved around slowly and almost clumsily, as if he was drunk, but eventually dragged themselves to gaze into mine. When he connected with mine, his cheek twitched ever so slightly, though his soothing grin did not appear.
"I'm getting us out of here..." I told him softly, yet urgently and tried to pick him up as gently as I could. Alexis winced weakly several times, gasping mutely in silent pain as his drying blood clung to my skin. He hung painfully limp in my arms, his head weakly bumping against my chest.
An ominous rumble vibrated through my surroundings. I looked up and saw another one of those ripples surge towards us, though this one was even more powerful. Like a large, foggy wave it warped everything it touched as it sped towards us, violently cracking open the ground beneath it. Rocks violently snapped open with loud explosions, sand and dust were launched up in the air, leaving an ominous black mist in the ripple's wake.
"Fuck!" I hissed and took to the air with a powerful beat of my wings, holding Alexis securely in my arms.
Another ripple emerged from the portal, and another - they followed each other in rapid succession, each one louder than the other as they violently tore through the dimension. Even the very air seemed to shake, making me oddly lose my footing in midair and making it ridiculously difficult to continue flying - it took me far more effort and energy to even stay aloft, let alone fly somewhere.
"We must leave... Now..." my demon urged me, spurning my wings to fly to the portal.
The ripples became fiercer, the rumbling sound became thunderously loud, but worst of all - the portal seemed to shrink. Fuck! As if I didn't have enough adrenaline coursing through my body, my impending doom forced my muscles into overdrive.
Suddenly my gaze fell upon Samuel. He was barely visible underneath the rubble and dirty mist that now covered the ground. For a tiny, yet vile moment, I longed to leave him here - leaving him to painfully perish amidst the loud and violent chaos that this dimension had deteriorated into.
But I couldn't - despite the horrors this man had committed upon my friends, me, and undoubtedly countless others I didn't know, I couldn't leave him here to die.
I was actually relieved I couldn't.
Maybe I wasn't such a monster after all.
With a stumbling and uncoordinated swoop I tried flying down towards him. There was no time - or desire - to be gentle, so I tightly wrapped my tail around his legs and tried my best to regain some altitude and flap towards the shrinking portal, though it was far from easy with the added and cumbersome weight.
The air itself now shook so violently, that my wings had the greatest difficulty to push the air away for me to fly. My ears were painfully hurting from the loud explosive sounds that wracked everything around me. Rocks and sand blasted upwards from the ground, hitting me and cutting my skin. The ground had burst open into deep cracks stretching down into empty nothingness.
They now littered the ground, turning into ominously gaping gorges with every ripple that wrecked through them. The ripples pushed the sand and dirt down into those black holes, creating disturbingly beautiful waterfalls of sand as they spilled into the emptiness below.
I hardly noticed - my focus was fully geared towards the portal. That floating and shimmering fissure in the sky was still shrinking. Like burning paper, the edges of the portal slowly crawled to a close.
I wanted to roar in frustration at hardly being able to fly in this oddly convulsing air, wanted to cry in despair for the impending doom that clung to my soul. The closer I got to the portal, the harder it became to stay aloft - the ripples were ridiculously strong here, severely impeding my flight.
With each failing flap of my wings, my hopes of getting out of here dwindled, my hopes of seeing my ladies again - seeing Cyrea again - withered. With soul wrenching agony, I doubted whether I could escape this thing at all...
***Cyrea***
Eir's voice faltered. Again.
A sharp pain stabbed my soul as the portal shrank. Again...
This portal, this otherworldly beautiful sliver of shimmering nothingness had become my entire world. It was all I could see. All I cared about. And I painfully withered inside with each inch it grew smaller.
Layla was pacing furiously behind Eir, livid from despair, though I could tell she tried her best to be quiet. Her tail swiped menacingly around her and she was clearly trying hard to hold back her growls. Earlier, I wanted to comfort her and share the burden of loss, but she didn't let me approach her in her furious grief. From a distance I gazed at her as she preferred wallowing alone in misery, wincing in emotional pain and reminding myself that everyone deals with pain in a different way.
From the corner of my eye I saw Aurora talk to the last angel she healed. Their words were too soft for me to hear, their movements too muted for me to read. She had diligently healed her fallen brethren. Too diligently perhaps. I sighed softly - she too deals with pain in a different way.
Aurora soon finished her conversation with the angel and watched him take off. Now, the only remnants of the battle that took place were eerily moonlit coagulating puddles of blood on the floor, hauntingly highlighted by golden feathers strewn around. And Isabel. We had no idea what to do with her, but it was painfully clear we wouldn't lift a finger to help her or make her comfortable.
When the other angel had disappeared from sight, Aurora sighed deeply and wiped her bloody hands on her clothes. The dried blood of her brethren refused to be wiped away however, and stubbornly clung to her skin. A rather sharp and loud exhale from Layla drew her eyes to our seething succubus and it warmed my heart to see a tiny, but unmistakable, loving smile on her lips.
Aurora walked over to Layla with regal grace, not at all fazed by Layla's menacing body language and gathered our furiously pacing succubus in her arms. Layla snarled fiercely and her lashing tail came precariously close to cutting Aurora's blood stained skin, but Aurora did not budge - she tenderly wrapped her arms around Layla and softly threaded her fingers through Layla's hair. Slowly the fierce demonic growls withered into labored breathing. With every tender stroke of Aurora's fingers, Layla calmed down and relaxed, lovingly leaning into Aurora's embrace.
Seeing the two of them together like this brought a small smile to my face, regardless of the soul wrenching situation we found ourselves in - it was beautiful to see those two together.
Eir's faltering voice brought my gaze back to Eir. I was deeply hoping she could somehow delve into some unused internal well of magical energy that she could use to endure this, but I knew it was a meaningless and wishful thought. Eir was exhausted - the moonlight softly reflected on the dried tears on her cheeks, her tired bloodshot eyes, cracked lips and trembling body. Sorrow dripped off her face instead of her tears and droned through in her voice with harrowing clarity. The subtle trembles and soul wrenching breaking of her voice resonated in my heart - she was saying goodbye to her soulmate.
All this time I dared not touch her, dared not deter her focus from her spellcasting, but I could not ignore her pain - my pain - at never seeing our soulmates again. I walked up to her side and gently wrapped my arm around her waist, softly pulling her against me. As I laid down my head on her shoulder I reached out with my other hand to wrap my fingers around her hands that were still tightly gripping her staff.
She was trembling. I felt her chest expand with each brave breath she took to uphold her spell, but I also felt the weakness in her body - her exhaustion, her agony. Tears streamed down my face as I shakily caressed her fingers, idly hoping it would soothe her, or me. Eir rested her head against mine as she soldiered on.
A flash of...something shimmered inside the portal.
Did I see it correctly? Was that...movement? I quickly dislodged myself from Eir and furiously blinked away the tears that blurred my vision. I ran up to the portal and craned my neck, trying different angles and desperately trying to distinguish anything beyond the portal in that pitch black darkness.
There! A brief and blurred flash of something...golden. Dante! It must be him!
"I see something! Eir, I see someone!!" I squeaked loudly.
My heart thundered in my chest, hope mixing explosively with adrenaline. With a desperation I did not know I possessed, I stared into the portal. Come on, come on! I held my breath and clenched my fists, staring intently at the vague shimmer of Dante's eyes. Closer and closer it inched to the portal.
Eir's voice trembled loudly, causing her to fumble another word, causing the portal to shrink even more. Yet before I had a chance to agonize, Dante burst out of the portal with a tremendous roar. He was heaving from exertion and almost doubled over from the immense struggle, but he was alive. He carried a heavily wounded Alexis, but he was alive! Both of them were alive! Oh, the joy and relief coursing through me caused new tears to stream down my face and I couldn't hold back my sobbing bursts of joy. He made it out alive...
Where our bloody bit of desert had been sadly quiet, it had turned into a bustling and noisy cacophony of gasps, growls and grunts.
Dante was profusely out of breath and dropped to his knees. With heavily trembling arms he managed to lay Alexis on the floor somewhat gently before doubling over and loudly catching his breath. His wings sagged down and hung limp next to him, scraping along the rocky soil in time to his rapid breathing.
"Yes! Yes, I'm here!" Aurora's emotional voice sounded behind me, followed by hurried footsteps.
All of us rushed to Dante and Alexis - Aurora knelt down next to him and immediately inspected his wounds while Eir stumbled over to Alexis' face. A soul wrenching, tearless sob wheezed out of her mouth as her fingers shakily caressed his cheeks and she placed teary kisses on his forehead. With almost imperceptible subtlety, Alexis' face lit up - joyful recognition spread along his face in such a weak and indistinguishable way, it was almost invisible - but it was there.
Dante was still heavily out of breath and was urgently staring at Aurora's movements as her hands inspected Alexis' body.
"I don't know... I'll try..." she whispered, tentatively looking into Dante's eyes, to which Dante leaned over to her and placed a firm, almost desperate, kiss on her forehead.
"Thank you..." Aurora whispered with a tentative smile and quickly continued her healing spells.
My eyes devoured Dante with unfiltered longing and relief. He was back, he was alive! I wanted nothing, nothing more than to crash into him, to feel his strong arms pull me in his warm embrace, for his scent to envelop me and his lips to devour me. I carefully kept my bond muted, carefully sculpted my face to hide my deep, selfish needs and submit myself to the urgent matters at hand. Even though it was far from easy, I would wait...
Tearing my eyes away from my wonderful mate, they fell upon Alexis's body - blurred by Aurora's quick and efficient hand movements as she did what she could to heal him. I swallowed hard and tried not to cringe, but Alexis was not looking good... While he appeared to be conscious, the bits of his skin that weren't covered in dirt or blood were white like a sheet and his eyes did not seem to be focusing on anything. His breath was weak and he didn't seem to be aware of what was happening.
"Who the fuck is this?!" Layla half growled, half yelled. The anger from before still tensed her muscles and harshened her words.
Next to me, Eir tensed up ever so slightly as she kept caressing Alexis' face.
"Who?" I asked nobody in particular, not understanding what Layla was talking about.
Dante hung his head down and lifted his wings. They revealed his tail that was wrapped around something... Something bloody and...feathery. Was it an angel? Who...
"Samuel... The Gatekeeper..." Dante replied, his breath somewhat normal again.
Aurora froze. My heart thundered fearfully in my chest. Layla balked in fury and surprise.
"The fucking Gatekeeper?!" she screeched and trembled - whether it was in fury or fear I could not tell.
My eyes snapped to Eir whose lack of response made a dreadful shiver run down my spine. Even though she still softly caressed Alexis' face, she was tense and breathing hard.
She knew...
All this time, she knew...
With every word she uttered to keep her spell up, with every second she kept it open, she knew her mate was in there with the very one who despised him, with the very one who maimed him all those centuries ago.
The horror...
Dante dislodged Samuel from his tail and turned around to look at him. It was clear to see that the Gatekeeper had taken a vicious beating - his once so shiny armor was just as viciously torn and deeply broken as his body. Even though he was heavily injured and laying in a pool of drying blood, his fury practically dripped off his body. His groggy grimace was harshly contoured by the moon's pale light, the dried blood on his skin gave him a sickly menacing look, though his venomous eyes said it all...
Despite the horrific atrocities this man had committed, I found it difficult to feel any resentment for him. I stared at his furious eyes, unfazed by the venom that stared back at me, for he too was merely following the path that destiny had laid out for him. Just like Dante's choices to stand up for injustice led him here, so did Samuel's choices to root out sin bring both of them here - here where their destinies clashed ever so violently.
The utter disdain dripping from his face told me he did not perceive tonight's events as the inevitable outcome of their paths, but the birth of a personal vendetta - the ultimate defiance of sin against virtue.
People like him could not be reasoned with, would never agree to a compromise. People like him would rather rot in their own righteousness than to listen to reason.
No, I did not resent Samuel.
I pitied him.
Dante took a deep breath and clenched his fists.
"Samuel was livid, insane with anger and was hellbent on killing Alexis. I intervened," he said.
It was nigh imperceptible, but it was there, lacing his words - sadness, defeat.
Despite having obviously come out of this fight as the victor, for that sliver of a moment, Dante was somber - disappointed perhaps. His tone of voice immediately caught my attention, and I barely prevented the accompanying frown from appearing on my face. It was painfully obvious these three had been in a harrowing fight, an emotional battle... There was no way that fight was only physical. So, of all emotions, why was Dante sad? What happened in there?
I was contemplating on asking Dante, publicly or privately, when Eir's broken voice crackled through the soft droning sound of Aurora's healing spells.
"Layla, could you hand me my staff, please?" Eir asked. Her voice was hoarse from her marathon spell casting, but I picked up a subtle yet unmistakable tone in her voice that instantly made the hairs on my neck stand up.
Layla had no idea something was off. "Sure..." she replied and gathered Eir's staff from where it had fallen to the floor when Dante and Alexis burst out of the portal.
"What's wrong?" Dante immediately asked me. His eyes were on me, instantly triggered by my emotions.
"I don't know," I confessed. "Something's wrong, but I don't know what..."
With some tired grunts, Eir managed to stand by herself, but was grateful when Layla handed her her staff to lean on.
My eyes were on Eir the entire time as she politely thanked Layla and tried to take a wobbly step, but I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. My eyes were glued to her with each step she took, trying to detect anything in her movements that would justify the uncomfortable feeling that her voice sparked within me - but her exhaustion masked any subtleties I might have discovered in her movements, tiredness pulled too much on her facial muscles for me to notice anything off.
I couldn't discover...
Wait...
Eir took another unsteady step and my eyes snapped to Alexis - his face hidden in darkness where the moonlight didn't reach. His eyes were shut, and although he hid it well, the grin that previously decorated his face had warped into a thin lipped and almost pained expression. Even though he couldn't be in this much physical pain anymore with Aurora healing him, he winced his eyes shut even further and his lips trembled ever so slightly. A tiny tear dribbled down from his closed eyelid, almost imperceptible in the darkness and silently fell onto the sand.
