For a moment, there was only rain.
It fell in steady flow now, no longer violent but heavy, like the sky was trying to wash away what had just happened. But the streets of Veyruhn would not forget. The earth had opened. Something old had stepped out. Elian saw it all.
Damian and Nyra stood at the cathedral's steps as if they'd never been gone, as if they belonged in the storm, in the shivering silence that followed it.
Elian's heart thundered louder than the retreating storm clouds. She couldn't breathe.
The streetlamps flickered back to life one by one, revealing the glint of figures in the shadows too still, too deliberate to be townsfolk. Shapes cloaked in dark coats, movement silent and sharp. The Order.
Damian's gaze shifted, eyes lighting up with recognition .
"Run!," he said to Elian, calm and resolute. Not cruel buh commanding.
But to his surprise she didn't move.
"I said run!!," he repeated, this time his voice carried weight, not loud but enough to make her obey without hesitation. She was about running when Nyra stopped her. "No. Let her see."
"Elian!" a voice called from the dark. it was Cass, stepping into the open, with a blade in hand, his face shadowed and grim. "Step away from him!"
Behind him came Seraphina, hunched over a sleek device flickering with runes and static light. Lucien emerged last, calm as always, his coat dry despite the rain, his eyes locked not on Damian but on Elian.
"Don't move," Lucien said to her. "Don't let him pull you in."
"Elian," Damian said gently, ignoring them all. "I'm not here to hurt you."
"But you will," Cass spat. "You always do."
Damian turned his gaze slowly toward him, that very moment the rain froze in the air. Not metaphorically but literally. Drops hung mid-fall like suspended glass, caught in a spell neither natural nor human.
"Watch your mouth!!!!," Damian said between gritted teeth.
"And what are you gonna do if I don't???," Cass snarled.
"Elian," Lucien said again, stepping forward, "you need to come with us now. You might not realise the impact of your actions but I'm here to help you understand it, just come with us."
Nyra took a step down, blue eyes gleaming. "No she won't!"
Seraphina flicked a hand across her device. A shimmering barrier snapped into place between Elian and Damian, light flaring across the wet cobblestones. Damian stepped forward and the barrier hissed and cracked, losing it's holding.
"Go," Lucien said to Seraphina. "Initiate containment. Now!!!."
Damian's hand brushed the air and the barrier shattered like glass, he didn't even flinch.
"They never learn," Nyra said quietly to herself watching the scene before her
Cass launched at him faster than a blink of an eye.
But Damian was faster than he was. In one step and one breath.
He had Cass flying backwards, and crashing into a lamp post with a force that cracked metal. Blood painted the wet stone. He groaned but stayed down.
Lucien raised his hand and wanted to attack but Damian was already in front of Elian.
Way too close.
Her breathe seized.
"I won't let them hurt you, ever again," he said, his voice calm and sweet, like a lullaby being played in a warfront.
"You don't even know me," she whispered.
"I knew you before your first breath."
Suddenly the world exploded in lights.
Seraphina had activated a flare of raw magic burst from the cathedral's roof, bathing the street in blinding white. Elian screamed and covered her face, but Damian shielded her with his body. It tore at him. She felt it. Like fire, like sun piercing through his skin. He groaned in pains, but didn't move.
The Order moved and surrounded them.
A fight was about break out Elian knew it but Damian didn't seem bothered. He turned to face her, with pains in his eyes.
"Don't be afraid, they won't hurt you. I won't be gone for long this time," he said, barely audible, while stroking her hair softly.
With that been said, Nyra stood behind him, raised her hands and the ground split once more, but not to swallow them. To scatter them.
Smoke surged from the chasm and swallowed the street. When Elian opened her eyes again
They were gone.
They vanished leaving the Order in a mess. Drenched, bleeding and badly injured.
Cass was trying to drag himself upright, grimacing in pains.
Lucien wiped blood from his mouth, his composure cracked.
Seraphina's device sparked and fizzled. "They didn't expect things to go this way. They weren't prepared.
This was just a warning."
Elian stood in the center of it all, frozen.
Lucien looked at her, with an unreadable express on his face.
"You need to come with us now. You've made your choice."
"I didn't choose anything," she said, with a shaky voice.
"But something in you did," Seraphina said. "That bond, whatever it is. It has awaken. We can feel it."
Cass limped toward them, dragging his blade. "She's compromised. We should just...."
"No," Lucien cut him off. "Not yet."
Elian turned toward the cathedral, now quiet and intact, as if nothing had happened. But she knew the truth.
The storm had broken the world.
And she wasn't sure which side she stood on anymore...