Chapter 38 Ezekial
Inside the cage which once held a dragon sits a dead man who once was my friend.
Prospero’s body slumps in a metal chair, held by leather bindings in the very centre.
Beside me stands Jasmine, and while I may appear unperturbed, the sight of his scarred face churns something old in me, becoming tight and bitter.
We fought together, rose in ranks together, led together. A blood mage, cast out of his homeland for his Dualist beliefs, but welcomed by the Council District, just like the rest of us misfits.
And now… he’s dead.
“Kacey, I’m so sorry about your sister. If there’s anything I can do…” Jasmine’s soft voice pulls my attention, but Kacey’s response is lost under the crackle of memories.
My darkness is uneasy, reminding me of Prospero’s betrayals in sharp flashes. Remembering he is the one who took her from me. My bond. Jasmine.
Locked her in his cells, let his men beat her, tried to ki—
Jasmine’s fingers brush against mine. It’s a small, light touch, but I feel it everywhere like a jolt of addictive electricity. Her darkness winds around my hand, sinking into me, and seeking out my flickering rage as she twists it into something calmer.
I want more. I want her touch everywhere. I want to be back in that room, in that bed, with her breaths warming my skin.
But right now, she knows exactly what I need to stay grounded.
I still can’t believe she’s here. With me. Us. That we’re finally at this moment, one that could give us all answers.
I take a breath and focus, staring at the man who once served beside me as a Council member.
Now, a traitor. A corpse.
And I need to know why.
“How long will we have?” I ask Kacey as she finishes painting runes on his forearms.
“Hard to say.” She runs a hand through her hair.
She’s exhausted. Amon told Julien she spent all night healing her sister, well into the early hours, no sleep. But her resolve holds; her hands are steady.
“The sooner we do this, the better,” she murmurs. “I only have a short window of time, and once it’s gone…”
We’ll lose our only chance at finding answers.
Amon moves behind Kacey, his large form easily doubles her, and we all watch with halted breath as his hand lands on her shoulder.
Jasmine flinches, I glance at the others in preparation, but then her fingers tighten around mine.
“They’re bonded,” she sighs into our minds.
And she sounds shocked. Confused. But there’s also the slightest hint of… awe.
No one responds aloud, but my unit’s emotions flood our connection. Jealousy surges most prominently, and I immediately throw up a mental block to dull it from our bond.
Kacey catches Jasmine’s eye, her lips tipping into a shy, wary smile. Jasmine returns a more confident one, that action reassuring Kacey more than any words.
It seems a lot had happened last night.
With a hard nod to us all, Kacey turns back to Prospero, and her skin begins to glow. A stern mask of concentration settles upon her face as strands of her hair lift, caught in some invisible current.
Kacey’s hands hover over the head, and ghostly beings form around the room.
We’re ready. We prepared, strategised, and decided Kacey will speak first, then Jasmine, then me. We’ll follow that order until there’s no time left.
Prospero’s chest inflates unnaturally, his spine snapping straight, and when a wet gargle erupts from him, his eyes burst open.
Now, they glow violet, just like Kacey’s.
He scans the room, landing on me, my brother, Julien and Sai, but when he turns to Jasmine, he never looks away.
“You found her,” he rasps. The words a brittle, broken whisper, but he almost sounds… happy.
Forget the fucking order.
“What?” I step forwards. “What the fuck do you mean, you found her? She nearly died in your cells. Almost executed under your fucking name.”
The dead man shakes his head. “Not me... I was never… against you.”
My hands curl into fists. “You fled, went into hiding. Then we found you with the Green Cloaks. That’s not betrayal?”
His expression twists with pain, frustration. “Green Cloaks… captured me… compelled me to… command…. her death… then taken. Tortured.” A shudder ripples through him. “Never gave them… anything.” His bones creak as he draws in a rattling breath. “When you came… to The Divide… killed me.”
Jasmine starts forwards, but I block her with my arm. I don’t trust this. I don’t trust him.
“You… met… before,” he wheezes.
“I already know that.” I scowl. “You were there. Why?”
Prospero’s hollow gaze finds Jasmine again, and something in it makes my stomach turn.
Then he says, “All of you… met before.”
“What?” Jasmine’s voice is just a breath.
Prospero twitches. “The four of you… Her.” His eyes fall back to me.
“Julien?” I ask sharply. “What the hell is he talking about?”
Julien moves closer, and he looks pale. “I… I don’t understand. I don’t remember meeting her. I would—”
“Too much. Too soon. Almost killed… all of you...” Prospero shakes his head. “Ezekial… stopped it.”
“Kane?” I seek out my brother, my confidence, my wall of absolute. “What does he mean? Tell me what he means.”
Kane is right behind me, darkness solidified, but his voice isn’t. “I don’t know.”
“Rune.” Prospero breathes. “Ancient.” A slow blink. “Your order.”
“The rune…” Sai’s voice is a horrific combination of terror and realisation. “It’s a blood rune. It’s a fucking blood rune.”
I’m submerged, drowning in all these words, all these revelations, trying to meld the broken pieces together. Then I see the look on Prospero’s face.
There’s more? He has something more horrific to say than this?
Prospero exhales, and it almost sounds like pity. “You erased… memories.” His glowing eyes flicker over each of us—all five of us. “All of them.”
“No.” The word slips out. Low. Laced in darkness. Hardly mine.
“Only… I remembered.” Prospero’s fingers twitch. “I hid her.” His gaze flits to Jasmine. “For you.” To us. “For them.” Another breath—rough, shallow. “To keep you all… alive.”
Prospero exhales shakily, frustration flashing through his dulling gaze. His body is failing, and he knows it. He’s running out of time.
Then his focus sharpens, locking onto me. “See, Ezekial.”
My blood stills.
Kane moves. “No, Ezekial—”
My barrier slams into place, blocking him as Prospero raises a shaking hand.
An invitation. A plea.
I step forwards.
I take his wrist.
***
A storm of power. Blinding, suffocating, yet… euphoric.
Jasmine.
She is light and dark all at once, a force neither realm was ever meant to hold. Her power lashes out, snapping at us, into us. The four of us.
I hear shouting. Julien. Sai. Me. But all I can focus on is him.
My brother.
We’re all in agony, but Kane… he’s dying.
I fall to my knees. He’s already down, convulsing, blood leaking from his ears, his nose. His breaths ragged and shallow.
No. No, no, no!
Not him. Not my brother. Please, Goddesses—
“Stay with me, Kane!” I scream through the chaos.
These sounds, the smell, this place…
We’re back in The Divide.
How did we get here?
“Kane? KANE!”
His pulse stutters beneath my fingers. He’s immortal. We’re supposed to always be together. He is the darkness to my light. My hero. My brother.
How is he dying? How is this possible?
Prospero’s on his knees too, hands over his ears, reeling from The Divide’s pressure.
“She’s killing him! All of you! It’s too much!” he yells through the chaos.
I know. I fucking know.
But what do I do? What the fuck do I do?!
“We have to stop it!” he shouts, and we both look at Jasmine.
She’s in so much pain. Screaming. Blood runs from her eyes, but her gaze is locked on me, wide and desperate. Her lips form broken, barely-voiced words.
Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.
Over and over.
The words press into me, curling through my thoughts as if they’re my own. They slip beneath my skin, sinking deep, too deep.
Not shouted. Whispered. Yet I feel them inside my skull.
She knows this destruction is hers, but she can’t stop it. Doesn’t know how.
We could have shown her; we could have taught her. Why did it have to happen like this?
“A rune!” Prospero yells, crawling along the unstable ground towards her. “It’ll suppress her, but…” A blood rune. An ancient one. Powerful but… “It could kill her!”
Why does that fill me with dread?
She is nothing to me. A stranger. The enemy.
But my brother—he is everything.
There’s no choice to make. It’s him. It will always be him.
“Do it!” I gasp.
He’s beside her, beside the woman I now know as Jasmine.
There’s a sound in my mind, the buzzing of The Divide? No—something beneath it, threading through the hum like a whisper just out of reach.
Prospero hesitates. “Ezekial, if I do this—”
“DO IT!”
Prospero speaks the ancient tongue, blood leaking from his fingertips and latching onto her skin, forming the shape. He begins to craft the rune, and the pressure upon us all slowly fractures like splintering glass…
One crack at a time, it ebbs away.
The sounds become quieter.
Kane gasps. His body jolts in my arms, but the relief of him breathing is cut short by his expression of… anguish. His eyes frantically search for... something.
“I’m here, brother,” I soothe, trying to feed my light into him.
Now no longer trapped in agony, Sai and Julien flit beside us. Sai’s palms are already hovering over Kane, but then he flinches—as though something has struck him. His markings dull.
Even Julien goes rigid, his hands pausing on my brother’s shoulders. “Something is wrong—”
As the rune is finalised, as it burns into her skin, marking her—she screams.
And The Divide screams with her.
The sound is everywhere, rattling through my bones, inside me and outside at once.
Everything detonates, a shockwave slams into us, plunging us to the ground.
And I feel the hold she once had on us snap.
Why…
Why do I feel… bereft?
We’re spat out from The Divide, back onto the Earth Realm where Kane jerks, gasping in the clean air. His pulse is faint, but steady.