The Sleeper and the Silverblood

They expected obstacles. They expected split-second decisions. They even expected possible torture before all was said and done.

But they never expected this.

Even as the General electrocuted him, Storm never once made a sound.

But now…

Kitara’s stomach threatened to revolt. “Storm!”

He was beyond hearing, beyond comprehension.

Like flame licking the edges of parchment, his silver-white wings smoldered and charred, yellowing and dulling. He screamed again.

Tears flooded Kitara’s eyes and streamed down her face, the torturous sound making her sob. Until now, she hadn’t dared called her dark power forth, not with Itzal looming over her. Then he implanted that chip in her neck.

She witnessed now the brutal effectiveness of the Fallen formula: the formula now buried in her spine too.

Storm’s body contorted and writhed, twisting in macabre ways trying to escape the agony consuming him from within.

“Storm!” Kitara cried again.

Her nerves hummed with awareness—acute, excruciating awareness. She could stop the change if she acted now. The ability was there, just within reach. She could sense the poison in his veins as if acid flooded her own. The knowledge she could help him but didn’t dare—not with Itzal watching—nearly ripped her apart.

Storm went limp, losing consciousness.

Another sound, deep and dark. Itzal was laughing.

The aura she’d come to love, with its silvery warmth exuding safety and affection, chilled and faded. She retched, nothing in her stomach but bile. She came a hair’s breadth from intervening then.

Will I be able to undo it? Have I condemned him to this?

Something not quite steam, not quite smoke rippled off him. His wings, once a shining silver-white, had dulled to a lackluster sandy brown. A sheen of sweat dampened his skin. Kitara choked on another sob, trying to regain control of her emotions but failing.

Declan bellowed unintelligible insults from beneath the group of demons holding him down. Every few seconds, one or two of them would collapse as his defensive ability seared through them—but ultimately, he appeared subdued.

«This is much worse than we feared. You planning to intervene anytime soon?» Baylen did not sound happy through their new mindspeaking tech.

«I couldn’t use my power,» Kitara replied, terror and grief resounding in her chest. «Not with Itzal straddling me. He would have killed us both before I had a chance to get free. And now…»

«Fuck, we may all be dead anyway,» Declan said. «If only he’d let Storm down…»

Baylen couldn’t ethervesce Storm free of the room, not with those shackles around his wrists.

«You hanging in there?» Kitara asked Declan, worried.

«They have to think they’ve won, right? I’m fine. I expected him to kill me the minute he had you in his grasp, so better than fine, actually. Are you? That thing he put in you—»

«You let me worry about that.»

«Okay, well, I’m tired of holding back at the bottom of a demon dogpile. We need him to let Storm down.»

“Let him go,” Kitara shouted at the General, whose gaze flickered with mild interest in her direction. “You got what you wanted, let him go!”

“Yes,” the General said, regarding Storm with an impassive expression as the silverblood revived with another groan. “I want to test a theory. One that requires his hands free…” Itzal turned to the demons again. “Release him.”

They complied, using a hidden lever in the wall to lower Storm to the floor.

“And fix his arms—it’s no good if the players can’t participate in the game.”

Kitara’s stomach churned as a demon seized Storm’s shoulder and forcibly twisted. With a wet, blood-chilling pop, the joint snapped back into the socket.

Storm slumped to the cold stone floor once the demon finished with his other shoulder, his expression blank.

“Valëtyria will never let this go,” Declan hissed as a demon held a blade to his throat. “By Felling their most precious immortal, you’ve condemned yourself.”

“Have I?” Itzal sounded amused. “I told you, Captain—we have nothing left to fear from Valëtyria. The earth-compatible formula is in production as we speak. Another few tweaks, and we may even be able to adjust its efficacy to something temporary.” He laughed. “After all, what good to me is a realm of powerless angels? Control is only as effective as the leverage.”

«Kitara, if you wait any longer, none of you are getting out alive,» Baylen pressed from wherever he hid within the chamber. «He’s already Felled Storm, and no doubt the Captain is next. You’re going to have to risk it.»

With a shuddering breath, Kitara clenched her fingers into fists to allow darkness to pool between her hands, searching for the thread that would unravel the manacles’ essence. They’d been lucky in that regard; none of the Ostragonians saw any reason to swap her restraints, so her hands remained cuffed in front of her. It was about the only luck they had encountered so far.

Humming a macabre tune under his breath, Itzal crouched again at Kitara’s side, making her tense. His focused his attention on Storm, however, and didn’t spare her a glance. “Look at me, Ilythison. I want to ensure you’re paying attention.”

With once-silver eyes now corroded and black, full of hatred and a touch of fear, Storm lifted his gaze to meet the General’s.

Itzal brandished the blade he used to implant the Fallen chip and, without diverting his attention from Storm, pressed the edge against her jaw. She forced herself not to react as he carved a bloody line down the side of her face.

Storm stiffened, attempting to raise himself on one elbow as he laid on his stomach.

“What—” His voice failed, broken from his screams.

Itzal drew away from her side, the knife’s edge dripping red. “You will sit here.” He gestured to Kitara’s side. “And leave your mark on her skin.”

Storm’s face went ashen.

«Fuck,» Declan muttered through their minds.

“We’ll see who’s stronger,” Itzal continued, still focused on Storm. “How long she can endure you carving on her, or how long you can bear to do so.”

“And if I don’t?” Storm hissed.

“You forget; I have more leverage in this room.” Itzal gestured to Declan. “If you refuse to carve into the Sleeper, then I will carve into the Guardian.”

“Go ahead,” Storm snarled. “He betrayed everything between us the moment he dragged her into this realm.”

«Double fuck,» Declan grumbled silently. «I’m starting to think you were right about letting him in on the plan. Because it’s sure hard hearing my best friend call me his enemy.»

«I’ll have plenty of time to tell you ‘I told you so’ later,» Kitara said, her inner voice tight with stress and concentration.

«Focus, Kitara,» Baylen urged.

“Then I’ll Fell her,” Itzal said. “You want to know why I tortured you in such a manner? Why I made you heal yourself? Because I’m a generous man. You exhausted every iota of your power before I stripped you of it. It’s an opportunity the rest of us never had.”

“You are a sick bastard,” Storm spat out, his eyes blazing with pure hatred.

“Yes.” Itzal’s lips curved in a sardonic grin, cruel mirth dancing across his expression. “One her father created.”

One my father created…

The words hit with all the subtlety of a meteor crashing to the earth. As Kitara bled on the cold, stone floor, a snippet of memory rose—an argument mere weeks before her parents’ deaths. One Kitara hadn’t understood but still remembered, if only because it happened so rarely.

“…what do you mean, you don’t think it’s possible? You’re basing this on…what, a gut feeling?”

“I’m a part of her, Moriah, as it’s a part of me. You were an innocent bystander, but she…she’s a byproduct. Of you. It’s part of her, too. Both something I created…”

«Encourage Itzal’s game,» Baylen said, pulling her focus back to the present, oblivious to the cosmos-shattering realization ricocheting through Kitara’s mind. «The longer you endure, the closer the three of you are, the more likely I can get you all out alive.»

“Do it,” she said without hesitation, her voice barely more than a whisper. All eyes turned toward her.

“Kit,” Storm breathed in horror. “Don’t. Tell him no.”

“Yes, ‘Kit,’” Itzal mocked. “Tell me ‘no.’ I’ll happily dislocate his shoulders again and put him back as he was when you arrived, then Fell the Guardian too.”

Kitara didn’t answer immediately, and the General’s black eyes darkened further. “Or I’ll force you to watch Scarlet suck your lover off and castrate him after I finish with the Guardian.”

Storm’s head jerked back, while the vampiress, still unsteady on her feet after her encounter with said Guardian, glanced up with interest.

Kitara understood the general essence of the manacles, but she needed time to unmake them. She could endure a little pain if it improved their odds.

«I don’t like this,» Declan fretted.

«In Sleeper training,» Kitara forced the thought through her focus, «someone methodically broke every bone in one of my hands to test my resolve. I can survive this.»

«Not if he Fells you first,» Declan replied.

Stars, she hoped she was right.

«We’ll worry about that later.»

“Well?” Itzal asked, looming over her.

Kitara shook her head.

“Excellent.” He tossed the blade across the room to clatter within Storm’s reach, then stepped up onto the dais to observe from his chair. “Best begin quickly, Ilythison. I’m not a patient man.”

“Kit, please…” Storm begged, tears shining in his dark eyes. “Don’t make me do this.”

She shook her head, swallowing a sob.

“Thirty seconds, Ilythison,” the General said. “Or I start inflicting consequences.”

With a choked gasp, Storm wrapped his fingers around the handle of the blade, then dragged himself toward her. The sight of him so broken nearly broke her. “Just do it, Storm,” she murmured gently as tears ran down her face. “It’s going to be okay.”

He shook his head vehemently. “This will never be okay.”

“It will.”

“Ten seconds,” Itzal snarled.

“I won’t be able to live with myself—”

“And I can’t live with myself after I let you Fall!” Kitara sobbed. “Storm, do it!”

Itzal lifted two fingers, and Declan grunted in pain as one of the demons drew blood.

“Storm, now!”

With a wretched sob, Storm carved the blade across her shoulder, leaving a burning, jagged gash.

Pain brought everything into sharp focus, and darkness took shape around Kitara’s fingers, twisting through the essence of her restraints and dissolving the root elements of them.

“Again,” Itzal ordered.

Kitara stifled a hiss as Storm cut another line across her arm.

The electronic lock of one cuff disintegrated.

Itzal snarled. “Again.”

«No matter what, Baylen, you get them out of here. If I can’t take Itzal down—»

«Cut losses. I know, Kitara.»

At least she could count on her cousin’s pragmatism. She choked back a cry as the next line of fire across her skin magnified the pain of the rest.

«Ready, Dec?»

«Any readier, and I’ll come like a prepubescent teenager.»

If she survived this, she would definitely smack him.

The dark smoke slipped through the second lock, unraveling matter as it moved.

Itzal repeated his command.

Woodenly, Storm complied, lifting the blade with a numb expression.

Kitara stopped him.