Page 59 of Fallen: Darkness Ascending, Vol.1

Emmelil lunged forward, planting both hands upon the rock without hesitation.

Her will shoved at the stone, causing them to sink in as the wall dissolved before their eyes.

Foreign fingers landed upon bare iron bars, which sparked, forming arcs of yellow and violet lightning.

She screamed as the force threw her backward.

Jois darted forward, catching her. “Are you alright?!”

“That’s it!” she wailed. “There it is! The wound!”

Uradri stared at the young male Davrin kneeling in front of them, wearing only a loincloth and gripping the bars of his prison cell. The door through which anyone might come or go was locked and small enough to require crawling.

“Let me out!” he cried, reaching through with blistered fingers, his dark skin scarred from prolonged and deliberate cutting.

“Wh-who are you?” she asked. “Who did this to you?”

“Please, get me out before she comes back!” he begged, his face dusty enough to show multiple tracks of dried tears. “Don’t leave me here! I’ll do anything! ”

Uradri’s heart almost broke to hear the torment and desperation, and yet…

His eyes.

Were they demon-yellow or…

Dragon-gold?

She dropped to her knees, wrapping her hands around his, feeding him enough healing to ease the strain on his handsome face.

He is mortal. And an Elf.

Not a demon. Not a Dragon.

“Tell me your name,” she soothed, holding his hand to her cheek. “We will get you out, I promise. But tell me who you are.”

“Avel,” he answered, wincing. “S-sorry, my fingers…”

“Of course. I apologize.”

She released his brutalized hands, sympathizing and yet wanting to ask about those eyes .

“Come on, let’s break this thing!” Picsi barked, lining up with the lock. “Back up, boy. And cover your ears, we’re getting loud.”

Avel scrambled backward to the nearest wall and covered his ears, glancing over his shoulder and drawing Uradri’s focus to passages beyond the iron bars. She blinked.

He isn’t locked in a cell…

He was being kept from leaving a larger network of underground channels.

“What else is back there?” Uradri asked Jois as she got out of Picsi’s way. “How far does it go?”

Her companion fixed his penetrating gaze into the dimly lit corridors. His aura chilled as their partner’s heel clanged stubbornly against the locked gate.

“Many doors behind these bars,” he whispered with dread. “Not all made of stone and metal. It goes far enough to become lost. ”

“Here, let me, let me!” Emmelil slapped Picsi’s back. “Move!”

“Corrupt magic for sure,” he grumbled, “or the iron could never withstand what I just gave it!”

“I know, I know. Jois! I need your eyes.”

While her brute caught his breath and the two with more subtle touches huddled in front of the gate, Uradri moved to one side, beckoning the prisoner.

“Avel, come here. Let me fix your hands. Don’t worry, you’ll be free soon.”

His heart raced as he started to sweat, trembling against the wall.

“Come here. Give me your hands.”

Avel looked between the black passage and the Trinity working on the door. After a few moments, he crawled forward. Uradri reached through and snatched up his hands, letting magic pour in.

“Goddess,” he groaned, hunching over as a fractured bone snapped back into place.

“I’m here, beloved, I’m here.” Uradri watched him, unable to read his aura for how many splinters she saw within it. “You said before ‘she’ comes back. Who is she?”

Fresh tears stained his cheeks.

“My mother,” he whispered, the slow healing bringing his exhaustion forward. “The… Seer of V’Gedra…”

Ishuna? Oh no, you wouldn’t…

The Valsharess’s sister wasn’t planning to sacrifice her son to the Abyss, was she?

What else could it be with everything I see?

“What about her acolyte?”

Avel squinted in confusion.

“Kadre?”

He recoiled; Uradri barely kept her hold.

“ She’s not an acolyte ,” he hissed. “She’s a horror! F-feeding on me!”

Uradri noticed the fang marks. How many there were! Sets of dual puncture wounds, most scarred over, some disturbingly fresh, marking his torso and each limb, as well as his neck. Each of them a reason her healing wasn’t helping as quickly as it should.

How are you still sane enough to seek help?

“Your eyes—” she began.

“ Shut it!! ” he roared, wrenching his hands from her. “Don’t fucking ask about my eyes!”

“Hai!” Picsi admonished. “Don’t yell at her, she’s trying to help!”

“It’s fine ,” Uradri waved her hand irritably. “He’s being tortured, for goodness’s sake!”

“ Torture? ”

An eager, breathy echo from the shadows. Avel sobbed with despair as an ill sensation rolled out the dark passage like a sticky fog. Uradri and the Trinity froze, ceasing to breathe as eight yellow eyes appeared.

“Alwaysss a good sssuggessstion,” said Kadre, her manic grin appearing next.

The Davrin bua threw himself against the iron bars, terrified eyes pleading with them. “Get the gate!”

“We’re trying!” Emmelil said.

The Trinity seized the warped metal surrounding the lock, hauling together. It shrieked but didn’t give. Kadre cackled, a high, spiraling sound fragmenting like glass against the stone.

“Try!” she goaded, stepping out not on two feet but four arachnid legs. “Try harder, freedom fightersss!”

The Handmaiden surged in on Avel and Uradri. The Sovereign erected a shield of light, but while it held on her side of the iron, vaporizing her spitting venom, Kadre shattered the shield covering Avel, who screamed in terror as the hybrid spider seized him.

“No, not again, no!” he cried. “Help me!”

“Avel!”

“Oursss, you fool!” The demon’s hind legs whipped webbing around his ankles, and clutched him against her oozing breasts, dragging him flailing into the demon’s lair. “Oursss foreverrr!!”

“NO!”

Uradri lunged to help her partners with the lock.

Not yet! It’s not too late yet!

“I’ll send a surge through the Ley!” she barked to the others. “Lay your hands on me! As Io’tracta, we’ll augment it!”

“Yes!” Emmelil agreed. “Overwhelm whoever holds us back!”

They laughed, groping and petting her, blending their auras with hers.

“Now! Now!”

“Gods, I love this!”

“We’ll save him! We will?—!”

*SOVEREIGN. HOLD.*

Her Trinity yelped as the command nearly broke their supernatural eardrums. Uradri jolted to her feet and whirled around, shimmering pearl wings curling around her mates. Standing at the entrance was a Celestial, small in stature and almost impossible to see in full detail.

Nonetheless, Uradri recognized the compelling voice: never angry, never frustrated, never joyful. The monotone always came across as a wandering storm that hadn’t realized the next thunderclap could level a mountain.

“Mhael,” she bit out the angel’s name. “I don’t have time for you. This is not your fight.” She sneered. “You never fight.”

The Celestial drew her voice back down. “Uradri. Do not use the Ley to reach this demon.”

“Why not?”

“The damage would extend beyond your ken. If you would show any wisdom in this crucial moment, leave this place now.”

“I will not leave him alone to suffer!”

Avel screamed in the darkness behind her.

He kept screaming.

It didn’t stop!

“Get out!” Uradri cried, her eyes filling with tears. “I know you have no compassion for mortals, but I do! I am going to help him!”

“Sovereign, I repeat. DO NOT USE THE LEY TO brEAK THE IRON.”

The Trinity shuddered and, regardless of any further argument, they were now incapable of helping her get in this way.

“Fine,” she snarled. “There are other doors to this place.”

Jois nodded with certainty, and she smiled.

“We will find another way in and leave the iron in place. I assume that satisfies your rules , Heaven-bound?”

Mhael said nothing but stepped aside to let them leave the cave if they wished.

Oh, I wish it!

“Come with me!” she ordered.

The four Sovereign skimmed past the Celestial, refusing to so much as brush her brittle. Flying down the crevice, they returned to a moon-drenched valley floor, readying to circle the slopes beneath which Avel was trapped.

She turned. “Let’s try this w?—”

“ Stop .”

Uradri reeled back, the shock genuine as her Trinity collided with herself and each other.

Ohhh, gods damn him, no…

Indrath stood out in the open, wings out, casting a massive shadow under Miurag’s sister moons.

“What the—?” Picsi began. “Who in the maelstrom is that?”

Indrath flicked his wrist, sending a green shard of light which forced the Sovereign to duck. “Silence, pig. If you value your tackle in its place, and I know you do, you’ll let my sister speak every word for you while you’re in my home.”

“Sister?” Jois repeated, shooting a fiery look at Uradri as she grappled with her calm.

“Not possible,” Emmelil squeaked. “I-Indrath?”

“Surprise, Emmi.” The Infernal smiled, his eyes shining with anticipation. “Assumed I passed on? Heh . Adri knew I was coming. Interesting that she didn’t warn you.”

Uradri raised her chin, opening her wings wider. “It wasn’t necessary if we were quick.”

“A risky gamble.”

“We don’t have time to talk. An Abyssal servant has one of our grandsons. Avel. The Handmaiden has been torturing him for months or… or for years! I don’t know! Surely you can’t let that stand? Or would more power be necessary? We could fight the Abyss together!”

Indrath’s body stood still, though the head of his shadow looked to each side before looking up, the wings in negative space swaying more than his physical form would dare. When he spoke, his voice was restrained. “Mazdek told you something important. Did he not?”

She clenched her jaw. “You found Oros.”

“I did.”

“Did you kill him?”

“We talked.” Indrath sighed a scorching breath through his fangs. “Yes or no, Adri?”

“Oh, gods, you…!” The horror struck. “You were going to leave him! You knew this was happening to Avel but you believed that… that Dragon?! He convinced you to do nothing for your own family you claim to watch over?!”