🜃Axis of the Blue-Eyed Nevri — "What is broken… can also choose not to heal."
The sky above the Golden City burned with a sickly shade of violet.The towers cast blade-like shadows, and the rooftops trembled with a kind of electricity that had nothing to do with the weather.
At the top of a nameless tower, the blue-eyed Nevri sharpened his weapon.Not out of need.But out of ritual.
The ring etched with ancient runes shimmered faintly over his glove.
—"You've awakened," he whispered, looking south."But you don't yet know what you've become."
The city, still standing, smelled of fracture—of civil war.
He closed his eyes briefly.And the memories came to him.Not his own.Inherited.
Shards of screams.The snap of broken wings.Betrayal at an altar.And the face of a girl with golden eyes… crying his name:—"Kiran…"
His eyes opened, cold as iron.
—"If the cycle is broken… then I must choose what to do with the remains."
He fired a single, calculated shot—just enough to breach the perimeter of the vampires' golden fortress.
Axis of Arisha — "Not everything lost deserves to be recovered."
The doors closed behind her—Not with locks…But with abandonment.
Arisha didn't run.She couldn't.
Her body was still clothed in gold, but her soul burned beneath a different kind of armor—The legacy that had finally begun to speak in its own voice.
She moved through the temple halls like an exile among ruins.And then, she felt it.
A presence.Not like Mikhael.Not like Morgana.
Older.Quieter.Sharper.
She looked up—and between worn marble columns… she saw him.Not in movement.Not in form.But in blood—As if her veins remembered something her mind didn't yet know how to name.
The blue-eyed Nevri.
He was there.
He didn't approach.Didn't speak.
He simply looked at her with that impossible expression—somewhere between compassion… and judgment.As if he were not watching the heiress, but the mistake.
And yet,he didn't stop her.Not to kill.Not to save.
Arisha held her breath.
He tilted his head ever so slightly—As if silence itself revealed more than any question.
And in that moment, she felt no fear.
She felt vertigo.
As if the world no longer recognized her…but he did.
—
A blast erupted not far from the altar, scarring the walls—but not her body.Arisha had already left, instinct guiding her steps.
Now, amidst the chaos, she moved swiftly through stone corridors, her heels still on, gripping the hem of her wedding gown like she was hunting something with no name.
The mark on her chest pulsed with erratic rhythm—As though it beat in answer to a presence still unseen… but drawing near.
She passed a mirror.Her reflection flickered.Not because she didn't recognize herself…But because she wasn't just herself.
The child.The shadow.The Nevri.The daughter.
They were all there.
And none of them fully remembered what had been lost.
—"Which of us must die so the other can live?" she whispered, stunned.
Axis of Mikhael — "Truth is the only thing I cannot forge."
Inside his sealed chamber, Mikhael bled from the nose.The illusions he had crafted—one by one—were unraveling.
His plan to control Arisha hadn't failed.
It had reversed.
What he had tried to seal… was now unchained.And worse still—Arisha wasn't fleeing.She was searching.
—"Who's guiding her…?" he spat, teeth clenched in fury.
Morgana, still weakened from the failed ritual, murmured:
—"Someone who didn't die.Someone who remembers… what you pretended to forget."
Mikhael paused, shielding himself as shards of glass rained like needles around him.
A name pierced his mind—One he had sworn never to say.
—"Kiran."
The Encounter — "Guardian versus Huntress."
Beyond the northern wall, where time had cracked the stone, Arisha came to a halt.
A figure waited for her—Unarmed, but with fire in his gaze.
The blue-eyed Nevri.
He didn't smile.He didn't bow.He simply stared.
—"You're not the same girl," he said.
—"Do you know me?"
—"I know your blood," he answered.
She took a deep breath.The mark on her chest glowed with each pulse.
—"Are you the hunter?"
—"No," he said, eyes hardening."I am the Guardian of the Broken Cycle."
—"And what do you do when the cycle bleeds?"
He replied without hesitation:
—"I cut it… before it poisons what might still be saved."
He jumped down from the ledge of the nearest mansion, walking with subtle grace toward her.
End of Chapter
Arisha didn't step back.And he didn't strike.
Both knew the war wasn't between them.
It was with what they both represented.
A bloodline that would no longer obey.A truth that could no longer be buried.
And in the silence that blanketed the city, only one truth remained:
The cycle was broken.
And this time…no one would come to fix it.