DOUBLE UPDATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Lmfao just all the emotions😊 I hope you guys enjoy!!❤️

AND COMMENT PLEASE

————

Kalem’s P.O.V

Aias’ magic was just like the streams he loved. It started in a small trickle that was hard to find before it spread wide, becoming a storm of pure power that washed over anything in its path.

Usually, when I felt that storm, my heart had no choice but to beat as fast as it could to keep up with my joy because I always felt joy at seeing Aias again. But now, for the first time, it pounded hard for another reason.

“They’ve found us already,”

Zhoron’s haunted whisper draws my gaze away from the direction of Aias’ quickly approaching magic and back to him. When I do, I spot the one thing I never expected to see in his colourless eyes, fear.

But when he looks at me, I know the fear there is not for himself, but me.

It disappears in a flash as if it had never been there at all, blotted out by the black that rapidly bleeds into his eyes again while his features harden into a set of harsh lines I knew too well.

“Zhoron,” His name barely leaves my lips before he spreads his wings wide. They take up everything in my sight as he swiftly wraps them around us and pops us away.

The feeling is weirdwith him. It’s not wrong or bad, just different but familiar too, like another side to my magic that I’d forgotten existed.

Thankfully, it isn’t anything like my last pop, the painful one that had made me hurt for so long. It’s gentle and easy, but maybe that was because Zhoron had only popped us over to another mountaintop instead of a new country.

Where we landed gave us an open view of where we’d been only a second ago, the type of vantage point that was perfect for an attack.

“I will deal with them,” Zhoron states, tone void of everything but the will to slaughter as his outline shifts, reading for a fight.

Starting from the soles of his feet, streaks of black start scaling his body, covering every inch of his pale skin in midnight ink that hardens into sleek armour at his silent command. Behind him, his wings bunch, pulling close together until their edges sharpen like swords.

I stare up at Zhoron as he plucks his name blade from the endless darkness of his wings, completing his image of death reawakened, and a vision of Aias laying limply beneath him in a puddle of his own blood flits across my mind.

It’s that horrible site that has me scrambling forward.

“No!” I beg, latching onto Zhoron’s arm before he could pop back. “You can’t!”

Zhoron’s stoned frown hardens, “If you still worry for my health,” he starts, only to stop when I shake my head desperately.

“You can’t hurt Aias,”

Zhoron stills as if he’d been shocked, and far too quickly, his confusion shifts, threatening to become something else, something dreadful like suspicion.

“Aias?” He repeats, the word laced with venom.

I didn’t curse, even in my head, because that was bad, but right now, I really wanted to say the baddest word I knew.

“Zani,” Zhoron starts only to quiet completely as the mountains’ thick, surrounding clouds begin to part.

My heart sinks as the familiar trickle of Aias’ magic washes over me. It’s the only warning I’m given before the clouds spread wide, and Aias surges from beneath in his elven form, landing where we’d been only moments ago with a thunderous boom.

Zhoron and I freeze immediately, only allowing measured breaths to pass between us as we watch Aias straighten in his place, his silver armour glimmering under the sunlight just like the massive sword in his hands.

It matched Zhoron’s in every way, except his was silver, not black and full of magic I could sense even at a distance.

I feel Zhoron tense beside me as the air around us turns bleak. It’s quiet in a way most wouldn’t notice, but I can’t miss the way everything around us slowly withers while he gathers his strength.

I tighten my hold on him, digging my fingers in while I pray to everything good that Zhoron wouldn’t pull from me and attack. A mute glare is all he spears me before he redirects his attention to Aias.

Where Aias was usually cool and collected, he was now looking around the mountaintop frantically, his head snapping from side to side as his long legs carried him forward.

“Kalem!” He calls, his familiar, loving voice triggering happiness inside of me. “Kalem! Where are you!”

Zhoron’s eyebrows dip a little, not recognising my name or understanding the English, but he still cuts his sharp gaze across to me.

I wanted nothing more than to pop right over to Aias and hug him the way he taught me, freeing the tears currently filling my eyes. But Zhoron stood like stone beside me, shaken by the presence of the very thing we’d run from.

How did I explain Aias to Zhoron after all we’d been through?

Without my memories, Aias was my best friend, someone who showed me kindness in the darkest part of my life. With them, my image of him tried to shift with distrust.

It had always been Zhoron and I, we trusted no one else to love us the way we did each other, especially other elves. But this was Aias! If he’d come only a little sooner, before I’d found Zhoron or lost Thén, I would’ve already been at his side, but now…

I couldn’t let the two of them meet.

“Kalem!” Aias shouts again, sounding so desperate my heart crumbles inside me.

When no answer comes, Aias stops his frantic searching, his feet stopping as he lays his eyes on the blackened ring of grass that spiralled out from where I’d freed Zhoron.

Oh, bad word.

He eyes it for a moment before he cautiously steps forward and slowly makes his way towards the dark splotch in the otherwise rich, green grass with his sword held firmly in hand.

Stopping just outside the blackened Earth, Aias circles the ring like a predator once before he stills again.

For a moment, he doesn’t move, only stares down at the drained grass before he straightens abruptly, his entire body going stiff the same way Zhoron and I do.

We don’t move. We don’t dare take a breath as our grip on each other tightens while we watch and wait for Aias’ next move.

My heart hammers in my chest, staggering with fright as Aias slowly turns his head, his body shifting to look behind him for the first time. His silver eyes land directly on us.

“Run,”

It’s all Zhoron says before he shoves me behind him and charges forward. At his back, his wings spread wide, stretching their full width before they launch him into the air. They beat hard as they send him soaring straight towards Aias.

Aias doesn’t falter at the sight of Zhoron or the promise of death, he only spins his elegant sword while his gaze sharpens, focused entirely on cutting Zhoron down.

Fear pushes me to act before their blades could meet, giving me the strength to pop towards Aias, who I latch onto long enough to spot the pure shock on Zhoron’s face before I pop Aias and me away.

We land only a few paces away, my mind full of too much worry for me to focus on going any further, but the distance is enough for now. I just had to keep them apart until I could make them both understand that they weren’t a threat to one another.

“Kalem?” Aias’ shock and joy are all I hear as he tries to turn me towards him to confirm that it was really me, but we didn’t have time for that when Zhoron was already racing towards us, his face set in a mixture of terror and confusion.

“Move, Zani!” He booms, his voice like the thunder gathering behind him, “he carries a Sael!”

I feel Aias stiffen behind me, but I take advantage of it, calling on the building winds to push him back, to keep him away from Zhoron, who was already freeing another long, jagged blade from his wings.

“Stop, Zhoron!” I shout, before realising that I was using English, “Just wait!” I try again in Therzya as I run towards him.

With eyes only for Aias, Zhoron collects the life from the dirt beneath me, causing it to sink and trap me in place so he could rush for Aias without trouble. At the site of my fall, Aias’ silver eyes spark as he overpowers my magic, taking control of the winds and using them to push him forward.

“No!” I scream but neither listen, only tightening their hold on their swords.

Flashes of them bleeding and dying force power to my veins as I flatten my hand to the Earth and demand it answer my call.

Dirt splits from the Earth instantly, surging upwards in a thick barricade that separates Zhoron and Aias before they can meet. It shakes the mountain beneath us as my power surrounds us all, stronger now than I’d ever felt it before.

I breathe a sigh of relief, but it’s snatched from me as Zhoron lurches upwards, his wings working desperately behind him to take him to the skies so he can strike Aias from above.

“Zhoron, stop!” I beg as I force the barrier to climb higher. Pulling more dirt from the Earth to add to the towering wall, I put all my magic into matching his pace, forcing his wings to climb even higher.

“Zani!” I ignore Zhoron’s curse as I pull myself from the sinkhole he’d locked me in, scrambling up to my feet as I allow Aias to break through his side of the wall.

At the sight of him, Zhoron changes course. Tucking his wings in close, he swoops down from the sky like a bullet bent on finding its target.

I run as fast as I can, heading straight for Aias, who looked like he was torn between coming toward me and waiting to meet Zhoron’s strike.

I take the decision away from him. Diving forward, I latch onto Aias and pop us away just before Zhoron’s blade slices through our parting shadows.

Wherever we land, I hear a faint thud in the distance, the sound coming from the same direction I could feel Zhoron.

We weren’t far enough. I needed to take us further, but how long could that last?

I was already tired, aching all over, and Zhoron was only a step behind us. Sooner or later, he’d catch up.

“Kalem!” Aias pulls me to my feet as he takes my face in hand, his silver eyes shining with relief and joy, and all things good as a shaky smile pulls at his lips. “Kalem! Bless Ythene!” Water threatens to spill from his eyes as his fingers tighter around me, “Kalem, words can not express how good it is to see you.”

I smile at him, wanting to say the same and so much more, but I could feel Zhoron gaining on us, only seconds away now. I steal the quick breaths I can while I ready myself for his next attack.

“Don’t hurt, Zhoron. He is my brother,”

It’s the only words I have time for before I push Aias back, putting myself between him and Zhoron, who lands before me, his eyes raging with barely caged fury.

“Are you crazed?!” He hisses through his clenched teeth as he strides towards me, his eyes locked solely on Aias. “That elf carries a Sael! He is one of Ythene’s chosen!”

I stiffen, my body growing tight all over as I fight the urge to look at Aias, knowing that Zhoron would take the opportunity to attack. But my tongue still goes dry as Zhoron’s words settle in.

I’d only been a babe during the war, too young to witness my kind be slain from the skies, but I knew how they’d suddenly overpowered us.

Ythene had forged new weapons to kill us, made from the same stars used to make our kind, and she’d armed the strongest of every species with the only things that could make us bleed.

Aias had made me bleed once.

“Kalem,” Aias tries, sounding unusually frightened as I hear him shift behind me. Whatever move he tries to make, he quickly puts it to a stop as Zhoron’s wings spread in a blatant warning.

My head reels while I try my hardest to understand everything, even knowing I didn’t have the time.

I should trust in Zhoron, he was the only person I could trust always, but that was before I’d had to live on my own. When I had no one, Aias was there.

He was the one who cared for me, protected me, and trained me, the one who held my hand during my darkest nights and made me smile in a place that had no room for happiness… he was my best friend.

I couldn’t lose Aias, not Aias.

“A-Aias is my friend,” I say as I plant my feet.

“A friend?” Zhoron spits as if the words were cursed. “He is here to kill us!”

I wanted to deny it, to say it wasn’t true, but I knew the weapon in Aias’ hand now and what it was made for. A Sael only had one purpose, and that was to kill Nyphilims.

Though Aias hadn’t been born until long after the war, he still held one of the weapons that changed everything – a weapon only the strongest elves could carry.

Some two forgotten pieces in my mind move then, clicking into place to create a dangerous thought that made my heart want to hide. I try to shove it away, to ignore it, but the more I push it down, the louder it gets in my mind until its the only thing I can hear.

If Aias were strong enough to hold a Sael, then he should’ve never been enslaved.

“Whatever lies he has etched into your mind, they are only that!” Zhoron states coldly, his words like bones being crushed between his teeth. “Lies!”

Shifting enough to risk a glance behind me, I look to Aias and immediately spot the fear I’d heard in his voice earlier. It was written all across his face, from his parted lips to his wide silver eyes.

“Kalem, whatever he said,” his voice wavers, “I promise you, there is an explanation.”

“Stop burying your venom into him,” Zhoron snaps, his eyes lighting with pure rage as he moves forward.

I stop him with a plastered hand to his chest that I keep there while I try to breathe around the panic forming inside my chest.

Aias couldn’t be a liar; I wouldn’t survive it if he were. Aias was m-my best friend… but then, everything Zhoron said was true, and Aias himself looked at me with terror as if he was about to lose something important.

“Lincoln might die!”

The words make everything quiet as a chilling stillness settles over me.

Lincoln and die did not belong together, it was not something I would ever allow to happen, ever.

Before my next breath, I find myself standing in front of Aias, any fear towards his weapon small now. When Zhoron tries to follow me, the Earth opens beneath him and clips his wings down to keep him on his knees.

“What happened?”

The voice that fills the air doesn’t sound like me, but I know they’re mine since Aias wasn’t speaking. He wasn’t speaking, and we didn’t have time for that.

“Too slow.”

Before Aias can try and stop me, I press my hand to his head and peer inside.

I set my focus on looking only for Master, for my Lincoln. I expected it to be easy, to find what I was looking for immediately since Aias hated Lincoln, but surprisingly– alarmingly… Aias’ memories were full of Lincoln.

In memories of Ythene’s golden light, Lincoln’s face showed. In a message or a target, I didn’t know, but Lincoln’s face had been given to Aias by Ythene herself.

In all the months he’s stayed in the cells, Aias had been waiting, not kept, never kept, only waiting. When I was taken with Master, he stayed with Malcolm not to watch over me, but to watch Lincoln.

All that time he lived with Malcolm, he’d been studying Master, learning and guiding his hand in subtle, secret ways to do what? I couldn’t see that, but I saw the truth.

Aias had a charge, a mission, and it was all centred around Lincoln.

It took everything not to pull away immediately, to draw my hands away from the liar Zhoron said he was, but he’d said Master was in danger, and I couldn’t risk losing Lincoln, even if it were another lie.

So I push forward, searching through Aias’ most recent memories that show how desperately he’d looked for me. Without rest or pause, he looked for me day and night, just like Malcolm, Wequie and all my friends, the entire clan, looking for me.

Lincoln searched for me most. Despite how weak he was without my blood, he spent every second looking for me, scared that he wouldn’t reach me in time – I could see that even through Aias’ gaze.

Then they were fighting. Everyone who joined the clan had all come together to fight Diablos and his forces. But they weren’t enough on our side, and the vampires with Diablos were more viscous and they looked crazed.

One clear fact shone through Aias’ thoughts: We were losing.

I draw back, stumbling from Aias, who falls to his knees with a deep, harsh gasp that turns into pained heaves as he tries to rid my touch from his mind. Even so, he looks at me, trying to explain with his gaze alone all the secrets and lies that he’d hidden for so long.

But he’d lied to all of us. He lied.

“Kalem,” he tries, his eyes wet, but I knew now that they were only more lies.

Aias was a liar.

My chest tightens, struggling not to turn black all over.

“Zani,”

Zhoron’s voice draws me back like a whip, pulling me from the edge of hurt so deep it almost turned into hatred.

But I could feel it, the beginnings of hate for the first time inside of me and I just wanted to k-

“Zani!” Zhoron booms, his voice forcing me to pull my eyes away from Aias’.

Wiping at my wet cheeks with shaking hands, I turn away from Aias and fall to my knees in front of Zhoron. I draw close, resting my hands on his shoulders so he could take all the anger that bubbled inside of me, growing like a wave that would drown me if Zhoron wasn’t there to pull me out.

He takes it all without complaint, letting it strengthen him while I waver on the line of hate and grief. But as much as it hurt to know the truth about Aias, Lincoln was what was important right now. So I force it all down as far as I can and focus instead on what I had to do.

I had to go back to help Master and everyone else, but I couldn’t do it on my own.

“What is it?” Zhoron asks once we part, not bothered that I still had his wings trapped, “What did you see? What worries you so?”

I tried to find the right words that would do the best job of convincing Zhoron to come with me, but none of them seemed right.

Zhoron wouldn’t want to fight for anyone that wasn’t me, not without explanation, but we didn’t have time for that.

The fastest way would be to share my memories with Zhoron as he’d done with me, but once that channel between minds was opened, everything would be there for him to examine.

He’d see it all, the best and the worst.

He’d see all the beatings that twisted my mind into believing I deserved them. He’d fell how lifeless the air of the cells was, how the darkness that swarmed me with hopelessness before Aias, before Master and the life we built together.

He’d see it all, and he’d grieve for me, he’d look at me differently. I wasn’t ready for that, but there was no other choice with Master’s life on the line.

Quietly, I press my hand to his chest as he’d done to me earlier, and rest my head to his. I waver for a moment before I free his wings and body next and wait.

Zhoron is hesitant at first, as if he wanted to see it all but knew it would change things the moment he did, but eventually, he rests his hand on my chest as well and lets himself in.

It’s only a moment for me, a second and nothing more, but when we part and I meet Zhoron’s black eyes, it is as if years had been taken from him within that single second.

I shake my head to stop his apologies and the tears flooding his white eyes that were now filled with horror and anguish.

“I’m alright,” I promise, trying for a smile.

“Alright?” He breathes back, voice broken with his disbelief, “how could you be alright after–” He doesn’t finish, the words choking him.

“It was only for a time,” I say, the words hard even for me, “before Lincoln found me and helped me build a life with friends and a home. But right now, that home is in danger, and it’s my turn to save them.”

Despite my greatest hopes, Zhoron’s eyes still sharpen with guarded wrath, “Save them? You wish to save the very being who enslaved you.”

“They’re not all the same,” I protest, holding his sharp gaze as I stand up, “you’ve seen through my eyes that they’re not. Now, I’m going to fight for the people I care about.” As I look to Aias and find him watching me with a solemn expression, I tighten my jaw, “we all are.”

Aias nods his agreement before he drops his gaze as if he couldn’t face me anymore now that I knew the truth.

There was so much I didn’t understand from what I’d seen in Aias’ memories, but it was clear that everything I knew about Aias was built on lies. All the times I’d thought we’d suffered together, the tiny bright moments of hope he’d given me, that we’d eventually escape and be happy.

It had all been lies.

“You can’t take life,” Zhoron declares as he stands to his feet, “you’ve already risked far too much with the ones you have.”

I falter at the sharp words that remind me of Thén and what I’d done to the ones there.

It still hurt, what I’d done. It still made me feel terrible and rotten inside, but I couldn’t make myself regret it, not with Thén’s wet face still so fresh in my mind.

“I won’t,” I say with a deep breath, “if you come too.”

Zhoron’s expression twists into something new while his eyes threaten me, “I see your mind and what you cherish, but Zani, these half-dead creatures, these vampires, their war is not our own.”

“It is!” I protest, hating how much time was passing on this, “It is mine because it all started with me. It’s mine because they’re my home, Lincoln is my,” I try to find a word, ”everything. Now I’m going to save them, whether or not you come with me.”

“You’d leave me,” Zhoron breathes, eyes widening, “again?”

The words cut me, tempting me to take it all back, but even as much as I loved Zhoron, there was no life I could live if I didn’t get to share it with Lincoln.

“Yes,” I say even as my lip trembles, “I would, but I don’t want to. I don’t, so please, come with me. Zhoron, please.”

With bleached eyes stuck on mine, Zhoron stares at me with a crippling look of disbelief and betrayal I hated to be the source of but would accept if he didn’t join me.

Darting his gaze past me, Zhoron looks to Aias, his eyes still filled with mistrust that I felt too much now, and then back to me.

“I do not trust him,” he says without looking at Aias, “nor will I trust any of these beasts you’ve comforted yourself with, but I will not let us part again.”

Relief makes my shoulders slump before I crash into Zhoron, hugging him tight with all the thanks I didn’t have time to put into words now.

“But you must not take life,” Zhoron instructs seriously, “no matter the cause, you can not bloody your soul any more than you already have.”

“I won’t,” I promise.

Pulling back with a grimace, Zhoron nods sharply before he looks me over, “And you must take your true form if we’re to be in battle.”

As I step back, I glance at Aias, whose eyes were just as wide as mine while he looked hopefully at Zhoron. Zhoron shifts his gaze between us, only blinking as if he were waiting for me to just do it. But that was the whole reason I’d come looking for him in the first place.

I’d been wrong in thinking I had a demon side to unlock since Zhoron was that side to me, but even now, my true form as a nyphilim was still out of my reach.

“I-I can’t,” I try, looking up at him.

Zhoron frowns while he looks me over, “Why not?”

“I don’t know,” I reply, wanting to look to Aias for help but thinking better a moment before, “I’ve been in this form since I arrived.”

Eyes bulging now, Zhoron sucks his teeth with disapproval, “You must break this one then,” he instructs before he steps back, “gather too much energy for this shell to hold, and it will shatter.”

My heart leaps at the word, not wanting to shatter anything about me when I liked who I was and how I looked, but we’d already wasted too much time.

I had to save Master.

Following Zhoron’s lead, Aias quietly steps back from me, both giving me a wide berth while I press my hands to the dirt, reaching out to the abundant life there that had helped me through so much.

“One last time,” I whisper quietly to it before I close my eyes and think of what I was, who I was meant to be.

I was Ythene’s Light Nyphilim, her last Light Nyphilim. I gave life and protected it, and right now, I had to protect the people I loved.

With that sole focus in my mind, I reach deep and shed all barriers around me like skin and open myself to the world around me.

Life in its rawest form floods into me in a desperate rush as if this world’s energy had just been waiting for me to come for it. My entire body rattles from its power, making my bones shake, teeth chatter, and lungs squeeze so tight all I can do is scream past the pain.

Everything inside of me, my bones, soul, and mind, wailed against this, protesting that I couldn’t contain this much life. But I could feel its energy, trying to push my skin outwards, trying to break the shell locked around me.

I wanted to stop, to put all this pain away because I’d already hurt too much, and I would’ve if Lincoln’s face didn’t stay plastered to the front of my mind.

Not his happy one I’d fallen in love with or the angry one I’d last seen, but that tearful, beautiful face that he’d shared with me when I read him a letter that barely put into words the things I felt for him.

I keep that image of my Master in my mind as a long-forgotten ember flares to life within my chest, blooming and growing quickly into a flame that called for me.

Even through the pain turning my vision white, I could hear that call for something more, something greater, and it sang my name like a song. I follow it and answer its call that asked me to welcome it, to let it consume me.

So, I do.

I let it all in.

———-

ANGEL KALEM, LET’S GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thoughts?????????

Thoughts on the Aias and Zhoron meet? On the Aias secret reveal?? Ahhhh, that shit HURT to write but Goddamn it had to be done.

OMG thoughts on Kalem just kind of snapping and taking down both Zhoron and Aias when Lincoln being in danger was mentioned. I just LOVE that scene.

Please do comment, leave thoughts and vote if you enjoyed, and enjoy the second half of this double update!!!!!!!!