The Wrong Thing We Brought Back
"The child did not cry. Not when Aelina ripped the crimson thread from her lips, silent as a tomb. Not even when the blood thrumming in her veins sang an ancient, godless hymn. Yet, in that silent defiance, Aelina chose her."
The Hollow Deep wasn't just empty. It was mocking. Kael hated it on instinct.
"He stepped through a mirror that shattered behind him, and squinted into the pulsing, death-lit cathedral."
"Aelina?" he called.
She didn't answer.
She knelt by the body of a girl who looked more statue than child. Her skin was like ivory, smooth and unblemished as if carved from marble, yet unnervingly cold to the eye. "Her lips were sewn shut with crimson thread, taut and harsh like a silent curse." Her hair fell in a tangled web of midnight strands that seemed to absorb the faint light, and her eyes—though closed—held the promise of something ancient and terrible beneath their lids. Her fingers clutched a lump of black cloth that pulsed like a heartbeat born of shadow. Kael's jaw tightened.
That thing is alive.
He didn't trust it. He didn't trust this place. And he didn't trust fate. Not anymore.
"What is she holding?"
Aelina didn't flinch. Kael hated how steady she was. Like she knew what she was doing. Like she had already made up her mind.
You always choose the broken ones, he thought bitterly.
The spell was already in motion. Blood met blood. The girl gasped. And smiled.
Wrong.
He felt it instantly, crawling under his skin like cold fire.
We should not have come here.
They stumbled out of the portal in black flame and bone dust. The divine hall rang with alarm as the child emerged—silent, clinging to Aelina like she'd always belonged there.
She wore a gown of woven spider silk and twilight mist—thin, but untouched by any dirt or blood. Around her wrists were bracelets of broken mirror shards, dull and humming with something ancient.
Gasps. Shouts. echoed
"That thing has no soul!"
"She reeks of the hollow light—cast it back!"
"You brought back a blight-child."
"Seraph bait. Witch spawn. Mirrorling."
Maevhara raised her obsidian-gold staff.
Thoom.
The room was silenced. Every mouth sealed like stitched wounds.
She took a step forward, jaw clenched.
"Where is the relic?"
Kael interrupted her, voice flat and cold.
"You mean this?"
He reached into his coat and threw the pulsing bundle onto her dais without ceremony. It landed with a wet thud. Dark gauze unwrapped slightly, revealing the relic's heart—pulsing, strange, like a heart that hadn't remembered how to stop beating.
"The relic throbbed with a dark heartbeat—a slow, ominous rhythm that seemed to echo in the bones of the hall itself."
The court recoiled. Maevhara's eyes burned.
Her creatures—winged seers, scaled judges, molten beasts, void kin—let loose dissonant cries.
"How dare he speak to Her like that?"
"Blasphemous spawn."
"And the girl—what is she?"
Aelina patted the girl's head gently, protectively. Unbothered.
"She stays."
The girl looked up with haunting, bottomless eyes.
That smile was wrong, empty, and endless, like the void itself had taken shape and worn her skin. A pulse of unnatural silence rippled through the hall, as if the shadows themselves held their breath.
KAEL & AELINA POV – THE FRACTURE
Kael felt it again—something slithering under his skin, like a whisper sewn into bone.
The child shouldn't smile like that.
Aelina stood firm, the child beside her like a shadow given form. She felt the same sensation Kael did—like something watching them from inside her own heartbeat. But she didn't look away.
"You chose her over the Seraph," Kael murmured, his voice laced with amusement, like someone savoring the beginning of a bloodbath. "How interesting… I wonder what Maevhara's precious court is going to do."
Aelina's smile widened.
"I hope they try," she whispered, a wicked glint in her eye. "I want to see what breaks first… their courage or their spines.
The girl clutched her strange black cloth tighter. Kael looked closer now. It wasn't cloth—it was shadow made solid. Writhing gently, like it breathed.
Aelina always chooses the broken ones, Kael reminded himself.
Aelina felt the girl's gaze digging into her side like an anchor. Not pleading. Not grateful.
Just watching.
The divine court whispered louder.
"The girl has no soul."
"The girl is a gateway," someone breathed.
"The girl is wrong."
Then Maevhara pointed her staff at them again.
"You will return her. Now."
Kael smirked and rolled his eyes, his hand lazily resting on the hilt of his blade as it scraped halfway free.
Aelina didn't move.
She simply looked at them—Maevhara, her court, the crowd of snarling creatures—and then smiled.
Slow. Cold. Twisted
"She's ours now," Aelina whispered. "And I'm not giving her back."
The girl leaned into Aelina's side. Her eyes shimmered like twin eclipse moons.
Kael glanced down at her.
She's like me, he realized
Her gaze held the same cold fire that burned beneath my skin — a shadow of what I once was, or what I might become.
He didn't understand it. But he felt it.
Aelina always brought back strange things. But this time? Kael couldn't tell if she brought back a curse or a companion.
NYRA'S POV — WHISPERS OF A NAME
Nyra's eyes narrowed as the child clutched Aelina's side, her gaze endless and unreadable. The name whispered through the hall like poison:
"Elaris."
A shiver ran down Nyra's spine. That name… it carried weight. Danger. A shadow from their past—or worse, a future nightmare.
Aelina always brings back strange things, Nyra thought, her voice cold in her mind.
Her fists clenched. Fury bubbled beneath the surface—this child wasn't just an accident. She was a weapon, a curse, and a threat all in one.
THE MYSTERIOUS FIGURE — A DEADLY PLAN FORMS
From the shadowed edge of the chamber, a figure cloaked in dusk and moss stirred. The name "Elaris" hit him like a blade.
Their eyes flashed with shock and fury, lips curling into a cruel, calculating smile.
The child's gaze held the same cold fire that burned beneath Kael's skin—a shadow of what he once was, or what he might become. He didn't understand it. But he felt it deep inside.
Aelina's hand tightened protectively on the child's shoulder, unwavering in the face of the court's growing hostility.
From the shadows at the edge of the hall, a figure cloaked in dusk and moss stirred, eyes flashing with shock and fury.
"They brought back the wrong thing," the figure hissed, voice low and venomous.
A deadly plan sparked in their mind — a plan that would twist fate and fracture everything the siblings thought they knew.
THE SILENT SMIRK — UNHOLY ALLIANCES
The siblings noticed the figure's movement. Their eyes met across the chamber, cold and sharp.
A slow, knowing smirk spread across Kael's lips.
Aelina's hand tightened protectively on the child's shoulder.
Nyra's gaze burned with silent promise.
The smirk on the mysterious figure's face deepened.
A game had begun. None of them intended to lose.
🎜️ Next Chapter: "A Vow in Ash and Hunger" 🔥
Where the divine turn on the siblings. Where truth bleeds like prophecy. Where the child shows them what she's hiding... and what she is becoming.
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✨ Author's Note ✨
Hey everyone 🥺💖
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