Chapter 27 Sinking Fear #2
But self-doubt had taken root and begun to grow before he had any chance to stop it. And now look where it had gotten us. I was so damn foolish. Foolish for running, foolish for fighting him… foolish for reaching out and touching that damn spell that caused this.
And now I was forced to face the inevitable.
Oblivion would be walking into a trap, and it was all my fault.
In the end, I didn’t know how long it had been since I started beating myself up about everything. Bo had pretty much given up trying to talk me out of my self-loathing.
Because time seemed to move differently in this place, even the dust settling on the floor drifted more slowly, as though gravity and time had merged into something entirely its own.
It was as though time had warped, slipping through my grasp in a way that made it impossible to tell whether seconds or hours had passed.
The silence pressed in around us until it felt like something alive, something waiting.
I found myself watching the horizon more than I realized.
My body tense, my thoughts circling the same question over and over again.
Wondering how long it would take before he came, because deep down I knew he would.
He always would.
And when it happened, it wasn’t subtle.
No, it tore through the stillness like a blade.
My heart practically leapt from my throat when I heard him call my name in a desperate call.
“Eliza!” It snapped through me so violently that I felt it before I even turned. My heart lurched as relief and dread collided in equal measure.
“Wye!”
He stood at the edge of the cage, his presence alone enough to shift the very air around him.
Shadows were already spilling from his body in thick, violent tendrils as his wings burst free behind him in a single, powerful motion.
They stretched wide enough to make the jagged prison around us feel suddenly smaller.
Everything about him felt darker. More dangerous… Unleashed.
And for the briefest moment, despite everything, despite where we were, despite the danger, all I felt was relief.
He had found me. But unfortunately, that feeling didn’t last. Because the ground beneath me moved.
It was subtle at first, just a shift, a slow, unnatural give beneath my feet.
But it was enough to send a jolt of panic through me as I tried to walk closer to him, only to realize with breathless horror that I wasn’t rising at all.
I was sinking.
“Wye?” My voice broke as the earth gave way beneath me, swallowing me inch by inch, my feet trying in vain to lift as I tried to step out of the sinkhole beneath me.
“Eliza!”
“Girly!” they both shouted as one, as Bo was already moving, scrambling up the jagged stone beside me. His fingers gripped the uneven surface as he hauled himself higher so that he could try to reach for me with everything he had.
“Grab my hand!” he shouted, stretching toward me, his arm straining as he tried to close the distance between us.
I reached for him.
Goddess, I tried.
But the ground dragged me down faster than I could fight it, the pull relentless as my body slipped further and further beneath the surface as panic clawed its way up my throat.
As for Oblivion, he was going fucking crazy at the stone cage, throwing everything he had at it in an attempt to tear it down.
But it quickly became clear that the structure was magically reinforced.
His shadows snapped back the moment they struck it, as though repelled by violent arcs of electricity.
“STOP THIS!”
Wye’s voice tore through the space the second he saw me sinking further, Bo’s hand too far out of reach. His command was layered with something far more powerful as his shadows lashed outward in a violent surge. Striking once more against the cage with enough force this time to shatter stone.
Only…
It didn’t.
The moment his power collided with it, the jagged pillars flared to life. As once again that same sick violet light ignited along their surface. His shadows recoiled violently, forced back as though the structure itself rejected him.
And then a foreboding voice cut through it all, one laced with a quiet, unsettling amusement.
“The only way to stop this… is to make a bargain, Lord Prince of Oblivion realm, Judge and executioner of the damned.”
“Dantalion,” Oblivion snarled, his fangs lengthening as if he could feel them already sinking into his jugular.
Dantalion stepped forward once more, as though he had never truly left. His presence slipped back into the space with unsettling ease as his gaze flicked between us, taking in the scene with quiet satisfaction.
“Stop this… Now!” Oblivion commanded, looking back to see now that the ground was up to my waist, constricting the lower half of my body.
“Oh, but that depends on you,” Dantalion replied, lifting his long talon up and flicking something unseen from the tip.
“What the fuck do you want?!” Wye demanded, his voice fully claimed by his demon this time.
By now, the ground had swallowed me to my chest as I continued to sink further. The pressure tightened around my body as I struggled to breathe, my breath coming faster as my hands grasped at anything that might hold.
“It’s simple… her life for yours,” Dantalion replied simply, and my chest seized, which had nothing to do with the crushing weight of the dirt and ash consuming me.
“No!” I shouted, causing Wye to look back at me, the panic growing in his gaze as he saw how far I had sunk.
As for Bo, he had broken off a shard of the rock that must not have been touched by the magic Dantalion had cast. It was about the length of my leg and long enough that I could at least grab onto it with my hands.
“That’s it… hold on! Don’t let go, girly!” Bo begged me, the jagged rock cutting into my hands, making it harder to grip.
“Oh dear, it really doesn’t look like she has long, Son of Oblivion.
” At this, Wye snarled so viciously that it was like his demon had taken over completely as he lashed out at him.
His shadows snapped like a whip before lashing around Dantalion’s throat.
Oblivion rose up, growing in height, making me gasp at the sight.
His wings snapping outwards as his shadows lifted Dantalion clean off the ground, choking him.
“RELEASE HER!” he roared, cracking the floor beneath him with the force of his demonic fury.
However, this backfired because the moment Dantalion’s eyes began to glow, something shifted beneath me.
It made me slip so suddenly that my hands lost their grip on the rock Bo had been using to pull me out.
My arms slid under, and within seconds, I found myself sinking down to my shoulders.
“Oblivion, she’s going under!” Bo shouted in panic, making Wye snap his dark gaze back to me, and this time it wasn’t just panic I saw there, it was raw, unfiltered pain. Which meant I knew what he was about to do, so I told him softly,
“It’s okay… just let me go… Don’t do this,” I told him, tears running down my eyes, but that’s when I saw him shake his head and tell me,
“Burn the world to the ground, remember.”
“No!” I shouted, but he turned back to Dantalion and let him drop, his shadows dissolving in an instant.
“My life for hers,” he stated firmly, and I cried out one last time,
“Don’t do this!” Just as I had to arch my neck back to keep my head above the ground for as long as possible, as it rose to my neck and chin.
“You will take my place here,” Dantalion continued, his tone smooth, almost conversational, as though he hadn’t been choked seconds ago. As if they were discussing something trivial rather than condemning someone to an eternity of this.
“This place will strip you of your power, just as it did me. No access to your realm, no command, no escape. You will remain here… and she will live.”
“No!” I shouted, the word tearing from me as I struggled harder, only to sink further despite it.
“You can’t do that, you can’t… Wye, don’t please!” But he wasn’t looking at me. His gaze was locked on Dantalion, like his decision had already been made.
“You want your freedom,” he said, his tone flat and cutting.
“And my revenge,” Dantalion added, that same faint smile curving his mouth.
“Don’t forget that.”
Wye’s gaze snapped back to me then, catching the ash as it crept over my lips, and something in him broke.
“Done!” he roared, biting into his own hand, tearing into it with his fangs as blood spilled freely, just as Dantalion dragged his palm along the edge of his blade, offering it forward so they could seal the bargain.
And the second the deal was made, the air cracked with something ancient, something binding.
A force that moved through them both like a current being redirected, tearing something from one and pouring it into the other.
And then it was done, and Wye took no time at all before he was shouting,
“Now fucking release her!” The words hit harder than anything else had. I now knew that this was all he cared about.
“My pleasure,” Dantalion replied, clicking his fingers just as the ash and dirt had covered my nostrils, making Bo shout my name frantically.
My first gasp of breath couldn’t have come any sooner, because it had felt like I was on the verge of drowning.
The ground finally released me, slowly receding down from my neck as I dragged in air.
Now that the pact was complete, whatever that blood-bound vow had been, I felt it the moment it took hold.
Dantalion inhaled sharply, as though drawing something in, and at the same time, Wye reacted. His body tensed as the shift hit him, bracing through it as though something was being forcibly stripped from him piece by piece.
The air around him changed, the weight of his power pulling inward rather than expanding.
As though something vast and untouchable was being dragged back beneath his skin.
His demonic form shifted instantly, reverting back to the one I was more familiar with.
The change was so sudden, so complete, that it left a single, terrifying thought echoing through my mind…
Had he just become mortal?
Then the portal opened, dark and unstable, its presence almost hungry as it tore through the space before us. As if it didn’t quite belong.
Of course, Dantalion didn’t hesitate, stepping into it without a second glance. His form disappeared into the void as the connection snapped shut behind him, leaving nothing but silence in its wake.
And then… everything shattered.
The cage exploded violently, the jagged pillars collapsing into ash and stone as the force holding them together vanished.
And at the same time, the ground beneath me released its hold completely.
What had been a slow retreat now fell away in seconds.
My body slipping free just as strong arms caught me, dragging me upward before I could fall completely.
I gasped, clinging to him instinctively, my fingers gripping him as though he might disappear if I let go. My entire body trembled as I struggled to catch my breath.
“Why…” My voice shook as I pulled back just enough to look at him, my chest tightening as I searched his face.
“Why would you do that?”
His hand lifted slowly, brushing away the ash from my cheeks, as he placed his forehead to mine and whispered passionately,
“I would never let you die.”
And in that moment, I realized the truth.
As he hadn’t just saved my life.
No…
He had traded everything for it.