The Sleeper and the Silverblood
The Inevitable Drop

The ground shuddered, another explosion echoing through the facility as debris fell from the ceiling.

Storm raised his head from where he’d thrown himself over Kitara. “What the hell was that?” he growled.

“We need to get dressed.” Kitara scrambled to her feet, haphazardly pulling on clothes and strapping on her blades.

Together, they sprinted from Storm’s room, seeking out the heart of the attack. A calm female voice instructed immortals to retreat to reinforced security rooms through the facility’s intercoms. Sirens and flashing lights punctuated her words as dust and smoke clouded the air. Massive white metal doors slammed shut, sealing off hallways to protect the immortals behind them.

Blades in hand, Kitara slid to a stop at the main foyer.

Normally so dignified, the room evoked a kind of hushed reverence even as immortals hurried about their daily lives. Now, it housed a chaotic tumult of slashing, burning violence peppered by explosions and crumbling infrastructure, suffused with the tang of sweat and the metallic scent of death.

The space resounded with the frenzied cries of the wounded, clanging blades, staccato gunfire, and ordered, adrenaline-soaked commands from officers.

The screams of the dying.

Kitara launched herself at the closest target: a twisted, eight-eyed demon.

The monster struck back with vicious claws and fangs. Amber eyes blazed with rage as it swiped one claw across Kitara’s torso. She slashed through its arm before hacking down onto the skull with all her strength. The demon froze before collapsing to the ground in an unceremonious heap of smoldering sludge.

Around her, more Netherlings surged from every direction: their twisted forms filling out at impossible angles.

A noise like thunder echoed through the room, and Kitara looked up as Storm slew another demon behind her.

Something with six legs and three long necks snapped at her with ferocious fangs, drawing her focus. Kitara leapt out of the way as its teeth grazed her skin. The beast bellowed as it turned to charge again.

When a monster presented with more than one head, a direct hit to the chest was always the safest bet. Kitara ducked under slavering jaws and flailing limbs to shove both her blades into the rough approximation of where its heart should beat. It fell, shuddering and decomposing behind her.

Storm deadlocked with another towering monstrosity at her back. Electricity crackled in his hand, and he charbroiled the Netherling. Raw waves of power rippled away from him.

Kitara’s wings unfurled and she launched into the air, using the advantage to target flightless Netherlings as she tried to fight her way to him. Something gripped her throat and hurled her to the floor.

She cartwheeled into the marble tile.

Stunned, Kitara struggled to her hands and knees, fighting dizziness.

“Kit!” Storm roared.

She raised her knives instinctively against a descending blade. The resulting peal of colliding metal reverberated over the rest of the fighting.

She was pinned.

A scaly, three-fingered hand wrenched one of her knives from her grasp and hurled it out of her reach. Desperate, Kitara lashed out with her second blade, cutting through the demon’s wrist. It howled in pain and recoiled just enough for Kitara to twist away.

Storm dispatched his current assailant with brutal efficiency before turning his attention back to Kitara’s would-be attacker, stretching out a hand. Power arced through the air and burned it alive.

A second wave rushed in, composed primarily of Valorn.

The angels battled back the Netherlings, breaking through their lines with shouts of victory. For a moment, they were triumphant.

Until injured angels began to fall.

The slightest of injuries, a graze here, a shallow cut there. Poison.

Wings smoldered and burned, leaving behind tarnished, yellowing wings.

The Fallen formula.

The Valorn had coated their weapons in the Fallen formula.

Something in the atmosphere shifted.

A sudden calm.

The chaos parted before him as he stepped through the smoldering crater in the side of the AIDO’s lobby. A huge, muscled figure clad head to toe in armor as black as obsidian. Golden wings stretched behind him, but not like Kitara’s. These wings were tainted with darkness, like corrosion festered from within.

Unfazed by the fight raging around him, his black eyes found Kitara as if she were a beacon in the madness. Immediately, she knew without a doubt who he was.

Itzal.

The General and at one time, if Kitara’s eyes could be believed, a Fallen Ninthëvel.

How?

As Itzal drew nearer, the details of his armor became apparent: not just black but stained with blood—old and new. Heartbreakingly stunning, he towered nearly seven feet above most of the other immortals, still blessed with the otherworldly beauty of the Myragnar.

All but his eyes, which glittered with cruelty and centuries of hatred.

The Valëtyrians scrambled back, recognizing what had begun consuming their comrades.

Devika was wrong: Felling angels did render them incapacitated. Their fighting skills meant nothing against the decay ripping them apart from the inside out. Netherlings surged forward, killing without discrimination.

He had eyes only for her, never sparing a glance for the immortals fighting and dying around him as he stepped over crumbling stone and headed straight for her. A massive red scimitar gleamed at his side.

A flash of white, the crackle of electricity…

Storm slammed to the floor in front of Kitara, wings spread, blocking Itzal’s view of her.

Itzal smiled and strode forward.

Unease surged in Kitara’s gut. Something was wrong. Not just the Falling angels, no. They underestimated the General. Something else was at play here.

Two demons flanked the General, but not the mindless monsters they had fought until now. These were something else entirely. Standing nearly as tall as their commander, sharp teeth protruded from their mouths while their eyes glowed red against sickly, brackish gray skin.

Storm stepped forward with electricity crackling in one hand, hoisting his broadsword with the other.

Itzal noted the movement, his lips twisting in a wicked half-smile. Raising a hand, a surge of invisible power exploded through the room.

Kitara slammed into the marble floor hard enough it drove the air from her lungs. Choking in her attempt to draw breath, Kitara blinked the stars from her eyes just in time to see Storm and Itzal’s weapons meet in a shower of sparks.

Kitara could only watch in horror before the General’s bodyguards focused their attention on her, moving with a grace that belied their monstrous appearance. Automatically, mindlessly, she fended off their blades as they forced more distance between herself and her lover.

Itzal laughed, deflecting blow after blow with his scimitar as he and Storm battled. He toyed with the silverblood, waiting for an opportunity to bring Storm to his knees.

Kitara’s chest heaved with panic. One of Itzal’s demon escorts melted to sludge: when had she done that? She shifted her gaze back to the General.

Electricity blasted from Storm’s fingers, eagerly arcing over the Fallen Ninthëvel’s skin, seemingly without effect.

Itzal raised his own hand.

The battle surrounding them faded into the background. Kitara’s hands shook, horror threatening to consume her. The world seemed to slow, as if time moved in reverse around her while Storm fought for his life on some surreal battleground.

Guardians began pouring in, and Kitara caught a glimpse of Declan’s face among them. Immediately, he began fighting his way toward her, toward Storm.

The second demon blocked Kitara’s view for just a fraction of a second, drawing her focus as she parried a blow before punching her blade through his skull.

He collapsed, melting to ooze as Kitara found the General’s height amidst the chaos again.

Storm had dropped to one knee, silver blood trickling from a gash at his temple.

Itzal brought the hilt of blade down hard over Storm’s head, and the silverblood crumpled.

Kitara screamed, desperately clawing, stabbing, fighting to reach him.

«Kit…Kit, I love you—»

Terror painted the words.

And then…his mind went blank.

Itzal’s laughter rose over the sound of battle as he effortlessly hoisted Storm’s lifeless form over one shoulder. A black disk appeared in his hand; he tossed it to the floor and stepped onto it.

They disappeared.

A portal. He’d taken Storm through a portal.

The General’s departure prompted the swift retreat of the remaining demons and Valorn. Black portals swallowed some whole; others attempted to go back the way they came. Some made it, others didn’t.

Kitara fell to her knees, gasping, staring at the place where they’d vanished.

Cold, she was so cold.

Icy, excruciating, piercing cold.

Physical pain ripped through her soul.

A keening wail sounded nearby. Screaming, someone was screaming.

She finally realized the screams belonged to her.

The Guardians had been too late.

Kitara…

Kitara…

Kitara.

Kitara!

“No,” she gasped, suddenly aware of Declan shaking her.

Shock, disbelief, horror, sorrow, pain.

So cold.

“Kitara,” he rasped, gripping her shoulder, “we have to get you out of here.”

“It should have been me. He came for me. Storm—he took Storm instead…”

“We’ll find him, Kitara,” Declan swore. “We’ll get him back.”

She couldn’t breathe.

She couldn’t think.

She couldn’t move.

A thousand realms away, a scream echoed as her soul shattered.

Kitara buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

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