Page 62 of Fallen: Darkness Ascending, Vol.1

Her father answered frighteningly fast, gliding through the air while dragging her mother along the ground by her collar. “Best hope she’s not been hurt, Oros!”

Indra’s little body was alright, but the Wilder mourned for the turmoil she was sure to go through.

“ Indra ,” Oros whispered. “ I’ll try, I’m sorry, I’ll always try again …”

He hadn’t blinked and the distance between him and the immortals closed. He focused his aura, remembered the sensation of power building—then erupting—when the demon threatened Uradri and her baby.

Try again.

“Oros.”

Closer.

The Wilder lashed out at the Infernal with an infuriated bellow. “ Get away from her!! ”

The surge slowed his ancient grandsire, pushing the red-skinned devil backward, but did not topple him. Uradri cheered as the strange wire harness disintegrated to ash, freeing her hands. Meanwhile, Indra screamed in full-throat fright against his heart.

“I will claim my daughter, Oros,” Indrath snarled, green mist sublimating across his shoulders and wings as he caught his balance. “Even if it kills you! I will give you one . Last. Chance!”

“Leave him alone!” Uradri cried, shoving her shoulder into his hip, knocking him off balance long enough to plant white-light hands on his chest.

Now Oros knew the devil could still feel pain.

“Oros! Flee!” cried the white-winged creature in a drag-down fight. “I release you from your cau?—”

Indrath backhanded her before she could finish, struggling to put her back in shackles before her wings broke their bonds, too. The two grappled as Oros tried to rise on trembling legs.

His own wings wouldn’t work, the pain in his back made him nauseous and dizzy. He managed to get to his knees with Indra sliding down into his lap.

“ Oros! Forget the cause! Forget ever meeting me!”

“Adri, you mad moon slut?—!”

“ Be free, Oros! ”

His heart clamped down, refusing to beat until the Hellish barbed wire around it shattered. His mind filled as if to burst with light, every face he’d ever known disappearing behind a sheet of white.

His body spasmed, falling to crush wings paralyzed by clashing factions at war. His aura rebelled, hardening into a shield, expelling every argument beyond staying alive.

The first such sound to fade were Indra’s cries.

Along with her name.

“Oh, gods,” Uradri gasped as her agent collapsed into seizures beside the newborn. “Oros?!”

“Fool!!” Indrath cursed, “By the High Hells, I’ll…!”

He locked her wrists behind her with cuffs he summoned himself after the Abyssal snare failed under Oros’s last attack. He pressed her to the ground, his knee on the square of her back, unable to hide being winded.

She was too shocked to gloat, and the baby was crying far too close to a thrashing, adult body. Indrath dug claws into the back of her neck, breaking the skin.

“ Be still! For once!”

His power knocked her out.

But not for long. She’s grown strong after giving birth.

Indrath swept in to lift his daughter from the ground, before evaluating his unfortunate son. The youth almost seemed coherent as hands lifted to clutch his head, lips peeled back in a grimace.

“Oros?”

“ Tsah…tsah…tsah…! ”

Indrath reached out to touch his aura, his thoughts, anything , but could find nothing static. Only motion and that clipped, grimacing sound as his body jerked like a landed fish.

“ Tsah…tsah… tsah…! ”

“Another…” he whispered.

Another one lost to the maneater.

Yet another!

Little Indra’s tears wetted Indrath’s chest as fury whorled with Hellish heat within.

I should destroy him. It’d be a mercy.

As if sensing the executioner’s hand, Oros’s form changed with a violent crack, like the shattering crystalline chains. The black wings vanished, and his body shifted, becoming a sandy brown wolf with hackles raised, lifting his muzzle to the stars in the sky.

“ Ayoooooooooo! ”

Indrath stepped back when the Wilder shifted again, this time into a massive, golden cat, snarling and spitting at him, fangs on display and ears flat.

“Stay back,” he said, keeping his hand out. “I will kill you.”

The former Elf didn’t understand him. No comprehension of language showed in his eyes while sustained howls sounded at the fore of his mind.

His grandson shifted one more time into a massive, red stallion with black points. Oros reared, screamed in fury, kicked out hooves until the Infernal Elf moved to protect Uradri from being trampled.

The lost Elf seemed to consider it.

Instead, he spun around, launching into a full gallop within seconds and disappearing into the Desert night.

The Ice Lord, shaken yet aware that he had somehow gotten all that he wanted and more, opened a portal to home. Snowflakes drifted in only to melt before they touched red sand.

With Indra cradled in one arm, Indrath reached down to grab his sister by the collar and drag her home with him.

Uradri awoke in the black throne room of Ice Heart, the orange light glowing piteously.

Chill seemed even deeper, the sense of isolation beyond dire.

Her wings remained bound with metal enchantment; her wrists were fixed to the arms of the wide seat by marked manacles.

A wide, leather belt burned with Infernal script strapped down her hips, and magical hobbles wound around her ankles.

He’s afraid.

So was she. She filled her lungs with the potency of that fear, fueling her rage.

“ Indrath!! Show yourself! ”

The Infernal Lord stepped out of deep shadow wearing his true, Hell-bound form. He said nothing, staring at her, contempt and accusation burning in his eyes.

“Where is Oros?” she demanded.

His focus drifted to one side. “Oros escaped.”

A jarring admission. It sounded like truth, but from that expression, she was wary to believe it.

“He escaped you?”

“He escaped us both.”

“So, he’s alive, and not in your clutches.”

“Correct on both counts.”

So much unsaid. Yet, she would take it as a win. He clearly wasn’t happy about it.

“What about our daughter?”

“Indra?” Now he smiled. Broadly. “ My daughter is safe in my home. Resting well after all the rushing around, and quite healthy. I’m surprised your negligence didn’t cripple her in the womb.”

Uradri caught the dart with a casual grin. “She’s part chaos, beloved, and hardly my first. She was always going to be fine without a silk-lined cradle. ”

“She would never be ‘fine’ with you as a mother,” he retorted, showing his first ripple of temper. “When you escaped, I was certain you would find a way to expel her.”

“Why would I do that, brother? You told me you were ready.” Uradri chuckled. “And creation is my favorite pleasure. Given the lengths you went to conceive her, I figure she has much to teach you. You will no doubt learn it all the hard way.”

His lovely eyes narrowed. “One thing I have learned, kinship goes far deeper than forcing a reaction to every impulse, only to do it again and again, as if the fallout never happened.”

She wrinkled her nose. “You keep saying that, but I only hear you complaining.”

“Because you dare not go ask them yourself.”

“Seems pointless when you’ve spent countless days whispering honeyed lies about me.” She scoffed. “An Infernal would make certain they’re hardened against me and their own destinies, even if he has to lie until he believes it himself.”

He returned a sharp, sickly-sweet smile. “There’s a kernel of truth in every self-motivated lie. I know when I lie because I accept unpleasant truths. It’s better than willfully ignorant delusion.”

She clenched her teeth. “Tell me something. Have you left any of them alone since the island? The Naulor? The Davrin?”

“With the obvious threats in their way? Why would I?”

“What you see as danger, perhaps they see as discovery.”

His tail lashed against the ground behind him. “I’ve heard this before, Adri. I remember what you don’t. It’s always been up to me to make a place for your children and your creations here, for better or worse.”

“So, your response is to plot and play with them as pawns where they’ll never know their true potential?”

“Do you suggest potential comes passively?”

“No, but you can’t control it either, no matter if the Hells and the Heavens wish they could. That is your delusion.”

His face turned sinister. “I see. Your methods for opposing the Abyss leave something to be desired, given how the Trinity fell for your ‘cause.’”

She sucked in a frigid breath.

“Ah.” He crossed bare arms. “Did the memory flare up at last?”

Avel.

Ishuna… crying after what she’d done.

Oh, gods!

“What was that?! ” Uradri demanded, her body spinning up with righteous light, sputtering and sparking against her restraints.

Indrath tilted his head with maddening innocence. “What was what?”

“At the end! The Seer trying to claw your eyes out! She knew you! She demanded back what you stole!”

“Now you’re championing her as the victim, hm?” The Ice Lord shook his head with disbelief, pausing for long enough, his calm mask slipping into a hateful frown. “Uradri. Do you know how long I have been overseeing that situation? Take a guess.”

“Too long without doing anything to help,” she sneered, “while pretending you were in control of that ‘situation.’”

His upper lip curled. “I’ve watched since the day that bua was born. One hundred and eighty-three years ago.”

“So, you’ve never left him alone to discover anything about himself.”

Slowly, Indrath approached the throne, eyes fixed on her. “I guarantee I know more about that bua, about his life, his hopes, his heart, and his plight than you do.”

“None of that matters when you look into his eyes,” she replied, chin quivering at the memory of the pleading prisoner.

“ All of it matters.” Indrath took the steps, his feet silent.

“With each careful measure over eighteen decades, with every change he experienced.” The devil topped the platform, stepping in front of her.

“I assure you, because of all you haven’t seen, I have made a tangible difference in defense of the Davrin from the Abyss. ”