CHAPTER 76: BURN A PATH

  Suryel’s knees stayed planted on the grassy ground beyond the bridge.

  Her shoulders sagged as the aftereffects of chaos and action hit her like cold water poured straight into her bones.

  Her entire body trembled with it.

  The Star-Bearing Tree’s warmth greeted them.

  It loomed just beyond the bridge, a steady, golden presence.

  But her fingers were still numb, unable to feel warmth.

  Her grip on the polearm was still steady, pure muscle memory holding it in place.

  Her hands refused to unclench even as pain gnawed at her palms, skin burning where the shaft pressed into them, as if the weapon itself had fused into her survival instinct.

  Helel did not lower his sword.

  He never did after chaos.

  He stood like a locked gate, gaze cutting through every shadow pocket, every corner, every wrong angle of light.

  His breathing was steady, but the steadiness was artificial, like he was trying to keep a wild animal trapped inside his ribs.

  Suryel swallowed, throat still raw from screaming, and felt the last of the panic leaving her body in cold sheets, draining down her spine.

  That was when Helel noticed it.

  Something… unusual.

  Yael stood close.

  Too close.

  Not hovering like he usually did when he scanned.

  Not positioned with intention.

  Just present.

  Suryel looked at Yael, chest still heaving, and felt something painfully like relief try to climb up her throat.

  Her eyes stung.

  She didn’t want to cry.

  She didn’t have the dignity for tears right now.

  But her body didn’t care about dignity.

  It cared about safety.

  “Yael. You’re…” Her voice cracked.

  “You’re here. I thought something happened to you...”

  She forced it through anyway, like shoving a broken door open with her shoulder.

  “You were suddenly gone. Where were you?”

  Yael’s head turned toward her.

  And when his eyes met hers, something inside Suryel froze.

  Not fear.

  Not yet.

  Something worse.

  The recognition of something wrong.

  Yael’s gaze was steady.

  But it did not hold warmth.

  It carried attention.

  The wrong, cold kind…

  Like a person watching a creature of fascination in a cage.

  Suryel blinked once.

  Twice.

  Her heart didn’t slow.

  It stuttered as she pushed herself up.

  Her legs protested, muscles still trembling from adrenaline, but she forced herself upright.

  The polearm shifted in her grip, blade angling downward.

  Not relaxed.

  Ready.

  Beside her, Helel’s posture changed.

  So subtle it would’ve been invisible to anyone else.

  His sword tilted.

  Not down.

  Toward Yael.

  The blade didn’t threaten.

  It measured.

  Like a ruler held to a neck.

  His eyes narrowed, steeling.

  Yael’s shoulders remained relaxed.

  Too relaxed.

  And that was when Suryel noticed the detail that made her stomach turn.

  Yael’s hands weren’t trembling.

  Not even a little.

  Not even with adrenaline after a snatch.

  There was no sign of aftershock.

  No reaction to fear.

  No reaction to anger.

  Still no reaction to Helel’s obvious threat.

  There was also no protective instinct burning.

  He was calm in the way Yael never was when Suryel had almost been taken.

  Suryel’s lips parted.

  She didn’t mean to speak.

  It came out anyway. “…Yael?”

  “Yes?” He answered too fast.

  The simple answer landed like a coin dropped into a grave.

  Helel’s voice cut through the silence, soft as a knife sliding free. “Say her name.”

  Yael’s eyes flicked to Helel.

  Not alarmed.

  Not irritated.

  Curious.

  He gave a barely concealed shrug, like he didn’t understand why this mattered.

  Then he smiled.

  A small curve of the mouth.

  A friendly thing.

  It was supposed to mimic a human thing.

  What came out did not belong on Yael’s face.

  “Alright… I will.” His voice stayed mild as he looked back at her. “Suryel.”

  Suryel’s blood turned cold.

  Her jaw tightened so hard it ached.

  Her fingers twitched around the polearm.

  Her voice came out low, shaken.

  “No. You…” She swallowed. “You are not Yael.”

  Her eyes searched his face like she could force the truth out of skin.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  Helel’s expression didn’t change.

  But the air around him did.

  Something sharp and old rose behind his eyes, like Authority himself had arrived as a door slamming shut.

  Not physically.

  Conceptually.

  The suspended space thickened, as if the laws of the Realm themselves had stepped into the room and decided no one was allowed to lie comfortably anymore.

  A pressure settled on their bones.

  A presence with no face.

  No voice.

  Just enforcement.

  Even the grass seemed to still.

  Even the tree’s warmth tightened into something watchful.

  And Yael… flinched.

  Not much.

  But enough.

  A blink too slow.

  A breath too shallow.

  A microscopic recoil of the shoulders, like his skin suddenly didn’t fit.

  Suryel’s grip tightened until her knuckles ached.

  Her voice thinned, trembling with denial.

  “Who are you?”

  She whispered. “You are not Yael.”

  Yael sighed, stepping forward.

  “Now, now, Suryel.”

  He reached for her hand.

  The gesture was perfect.

  That was the problem.

  Too correct.

  Too rehearsed.

  A mimicked idea of tenderness. “Its me… your favorite brother.”

  Suryel jerked back like she’d almost been touched by a hot blade.

  Helel moved between them in one fluid motion, sword raised fully now to the stranger’s neck.

  His stance widened.

  Protective.

  Predatory.

  His tone stayed mild.

  False mildness.

  The one that meant bodies were about to drop.

  “…Belial shut up. You are Belial.”

  Helel’s eyes burned as his blade steadied at the stranger’s throat.

  “How dare you try to approach my sister wearing my brother’s face.”

  Yael’s face held for a second.

  Then his expression broke.

  Not into rage.

  Into delight.

  He laughed, wiping at his eyes like tears had formed.

  His gaze brightened like someone had just complimented his performance.

  “Aww. That’s too… bad.”

  Belial purred, his voice shifting like a costume falling off.

  “You already recognized me.”

  His posture loosened with a sigh.

  His shoulders rolled like a dancer stretching after a show.

  He looked at Suryel with open curiosity, as if she was a fascinating puzzle and not a person.

  Yael’s eyes bloomed violet and grey as lawlessness slid back into his form.

  “I tried to be gentle. I was willing to play the long game, you know?”

  Belial tilted his head, almost offended by the speed of their suspicion.

  “But you are all so… Annoyingly intimate.”

  His laughter lingered a second too long.

  Not warm.

  Just… entertained.

  He shifted his weight like someone deciding whether to stay for dessert.

  Then his gaze slid to Suryel’s hands.

  To the polearm.

  To the way her grip wasn’t relaxed— It was loaded.

  Something about it sharpened his smile.

  He took one step back.

  Not retreating.

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  Inviting.

  Suryel’s body moved before her thoughts did.

  Her feet hit the ground with anger.

  The grass blurred beneath her as she lunged.

  The polearm snapped forward in a clean, furious line meant for his throat.

  Belial’s eyes lit up.

  Not with fear.

  With delight.

  He slipped sideways like a shadow choosing to be fluid.

  Suryel’s blade carved air where his neck had been.

  Her momentum carried her forward.

  She pivoted hard, boots grinding, and struck again.

  Belial ducked.

  The polearm swept over his head.

  Suryel’s breath tore from her lungs as she twisted into a third strike.

  Faster.

  Angrier.

  More desperate.

  Belial laughed.

  A bright sound.

  A wrong sound.

  He lifted one gauntleted hand and caught the polearm shaft mid-swing.

  Just like that.

  The impact rang through Suryel’s arms, numbing her palms all the way up to her shoulders.

  Belial tilted his head, studying her like she was a new equation.

  “You really are fun!” He murmured, as if he was moved by her feelings.

  Suryel snarled and yanked.

  Belial let her pull the weapon free like he was letting go of a toy.

  She didn’t stop.

  She couldn’t.

  She drove forward again, and this time she didn’t aim for his throat.

  She aimed for his ribs.

  For damage.

  For punishment.

  Belial twisted, laughing, avoiding the blade by a breath.

  Suryel followed.

  Like she was born to chase.

  Like she had done this before.

  “Stop moving and let me hit you!” She screamed.

  Belial tucked his tongue out. “Why would I? No.”

  Her polearm snapped forward again, and again.

  Each strike forcing Belial to move.

  To retreat.

  To slide backward across the bridge toward the open stretch of grass beyond.

  Suryel chased him with a violence that felt familiar.

  Not just to her.

  To Helel.

  Helel moved after them in a flash of black and gold.

  Sword raised.

  Boots striking the ground.

  His eyes tracked Suryel first.

  Not Belial.

  Always her first.

  And as she leapt, polearm arcing down like a guillotine, something in Helel’s chest cracked open.

  A memory.

  A sensation.

  A terrible sense of deja vu, heat crawling up his spine.

  Of the Eternal Realm once caught fire under his temper.

  Of him once running like this, chasing an unseen, unnamed enemy through the Eternal pathways.

  Too furious to care what burned.

  Too furious to care what broke.

  Too furious to care who screamed.

  His sword hand tightened.

  He felt it.

  That pressure in his ribs.

  That ignition.

  Helel didn’t breathe.

  He contained.

  Barely.

  Suryel struck again.

  Belial dodged, and Suryel didn’t slow, didn’t hesitate, didn’t think.

  She burned a path after him.

  Not metaphorically.

  Not poetically.

  Literally.

  Her boots tore lines through grass.

  Her polearm carved through air.

  Her breath ripped out of her throat in ragged, furious bursts, each exhale a match struck on bone.

  Her body was a weapon.

  Her fear was fuel.

  Her grief was gasoline.

  Belial’s grin widened as he backpedaled into the grass, hands loose at his sides, as if this was a dance he’d been waiting for.

  “Come on, Suryel.” Belial’s voice lilting, teasing, cruel in its playfulness. “You want answers, don’t you?”

  He rocked back on his heels, arms spreading slightly. “Then you better catch me before someone else does, because your other brothers surely will~”

  Suryel’s eyes flashed like magma. “Oh I will.”

  Her voice cracked into something raw as she surged again.

  Belial slipped away laughing.

  Suryel’s polearm cut down and bit into the earth instead, gouging tufts of grass, tearing roots.

  Her breath hitched.

  Her hands trembled.

  But she yanked the blade free like she was ripping a throat open.

  She went again.

  Belial moved too.

  Always just out of reach.

  Always giving her hope.

  And that was the cruelty of it.

  Belial wasn’t just dodging.

  He was feeding her, drip by drip…

  Hope like poison.

  Helel’s boots hit the grass behind her.

  “Suryel!” Helel shouted, voice sharp, urgent. “Please.”

  He slashed his sword down once, not at Belial but at the space between them, like he could cut the chase itself. “Stop chasing him!”

  Suryel didn’t look back.

  Didn’t hear him.

  Or worse…

  Heard him and refused—

  Which she confirmed as she screamed back, “He took Yael!”

  She sprinted harder, rage shredding her control.

  “And he’s right here. I can still catch him, he will be our lead!”

  Belial glanced over his shoulder, amused.

  “Oh. You know, I can definitely lead you to the Abyss. Is that’s what you want?”

  Helel’s voice cut in, furious. “As if I’d let you walk her right into a trap!”

  Belial darted sideways again, quick as a thought, and Suryel turned with him so hard her knees nearly buckled.

  She recovered instantly.

  She always recovered.

  Like she was built wrong in the best way, as Raphael once said with equal parts awe and annoyance.

  And the more she recovered—

  The more she believed she could catch him.

  That belief became a blade inside her chest.

  Helel’s jaw clenched.

  That’s when it hit him fully.

  This exact rhythm.

  This exact terror.

  Suryel running ahead.

  Helel behind her.

  The Realm around them trembling like it remembered what he almost did last time.

  His sword arm shook once.

  Not from exhaustion.

  From restraint.

  Because part of him wanted to stop being careful.

  Part of him wanted to let the fire out and burn a straight line through anything that dared to keep her from their brother.

  He understood.

  Suryel’s breath left her lungs in a sharp, broken sound as she finally halted, chest heaving, eyes locked on Belial.

  Her stomach lurched.

  Her hands shook now, finally.

  Delayed fear catching up to fading relief.

  “Where is he?!”

  Suryel demanded, voice trying to be calm and failing.

  Her polearm lifted again, blade trembling with her.

  “What did you do to him?!”

  Belial blinked.

  Then smiled wider.

  “Which one?”

  He asked sweetly, like he didn’t know he was bleeding poison into her lungs.

  “I don’t know who you’re talking about…”

  “Don’t try to play dumb with me!” Suryel snapped.

  Her fingers tightened until her knuckles screamed.

  “You know who I’m looking for!” She jerked the polearm up.

  “Where is my brother, where did you hide Yael?!”

  Belial’s grin widened, as if she’d given him exactly what he wanted.

  Suryel lunged again.

  Helel’s hand caught her wrist mid-strike.

  Not gentle.

  A clamp.

  A command.

  His fingers bit into her skin hard enough to bruise.

  “Suryel, no!” Helel growled, voice low.

  He yanked her back a half-step, sword angling to guard her flank.

  “Please try to contain yourself.”

  “Let go!” She screamed, thrashing against his grip like an animal caught in a trap.

  “He’s not, he’s not here, I thought he was but Yael’s not… here!”

  Her breath hitched.

  Her vision tunneled.

  The Star-Bearing Tree blurred at the edges like the world was trying to fade out.

  Belial chuckled.

  “Oh, she’s adorable when she panics!” His voice was bright with amusement.

  He tilted his head at Helel. “No wonder you all keep her.”

  Helel’s eyes flashed.

  A tiny jaw tick.

  A swallow of fury.

  His sword moved.

  A clean arc.

  Belial didn’t even flinch.

  He only stepped back and spread his hands like a host welcoming them to a feast.

  “Relax.” Belial’s smile widened.

  “If I wanted to kill her, I’d do it with something artistic.”

  His eyes flicked down to her shaking hands. “I’m not a savage.”

  Suryel’s throat tightened so hard it hurt.

  Her voice cracked into something smaller.

  “Where is Yael?” She repeated, trying to stay calm, breaking anyway. “Where did you put my brother?”

  Belial leaned forward, eyes gleaming.

  His expression softened like he was about to tell her a bedtime story.

  “Oh,” He said softly. “I would have no idea.”

  He blinked, innocent. “The one who took him was not me.”

  The words hit like a punch.

  Suryel froze.

  Helel’s grip tightened again, and this time it wasn’t to restrain her.

  It was to keep her from collapsing.

  Authority’s pressure sharpened, like the Realm itself had just confirmed what Suryel’s instincts already knew.

  Belial’s grin turned vicious.

  “He’s with Samael.” He said it like a polite fact.

  Then he lifted a finger and pointed at Suryel, casual as a teacher calling on a student.

  “For now.”

  His eyes glittered.

  “Until you…”

  He tapped the air toward her.

  “… decide to return to him.”

  Suryel’s scream didn’t sound human.

  It sounded like a soul trying to tear itself out of a body.

  She ripped free from Helel’s hold, not because he let go, but because her panic and anger became strength.

  Her polearm carved through the air, striking Belial hard across the ribs.

  Belial staggered, laughing like it thrilled him.

  “Oooh!” He hissed, delighted. “There it is. Violence!”

  Suryel didn’t stop.

  She hit him again.

  And again.

  And again.

  Not stopping.

  Not precise.

  Not tactical.

  Just rage and terror made physical.

  She wasn’t trying to win.

  She was trying to erase him.

  Her arms shook from impact.

  Her wrists screamed.

  Her breath tore through her lungs like knives.

  And still she advanced.

  Still she pushed.

  Still she burned forward like the only way to survive was to keep moving.

  Helel cursed, stepping in, trying to pull her back, but she was beyond hearing.

  Authority’s pressure started to surge again.

  A warning.

  Belial’s eyes glittered.

  He raised his hands, shadows twisting around his fingers like eager pets.

  “Careful, little bird.” His tone was almost fond. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

  Suryel bared her teeth.

  Her lips trembled.

  Her eyes burned.

  “Maybe.” She spat, voice shaking. “But I’ll hurt you first.”

  Helel dashed forward.

  “Suryel!” He snapped, sword cutting down between them again as if he could sever her rage from her body.

  But she flowed around it, leaving Helel behind.

  Belial’s laugh rang again.

  “Look at you.” He skipped back another step. “A little birdie with a spear.”

  Suryel’s scream tore through the air. “Shut up!”

  She surged forward and finally, finally closed the gap, polearm thrusting for his chest.

  Belial’s eyes sharpened.

  He didn’t dodge this time.

  He lifted both gauntlets and caught the blade between them with a metallic CLANG that vibrated through the field.

  Suryel’s whole body jolted.

  Her hands nearly slipped.

  Belial leaned close, smiling like poison.

  “Oh.” His voice dropped. “Hello.”

  His eyes flicked up to hers. “There you are.”

  Suryel’s eyes widened.

  Belial’s gauntlets twisted.

  The polearm wrenched sideways, ripping from her grip.

  Suryel staggered forward, suddenly unarmed, momentum still carrying her straight into him.

  Belial’s hand snapped out, fingers curling around her neck.

  Suryel froze for half a breath.

  Her body went cold.

  Belial smiled wider.

  Helel’s vision went white.

  He moved like a blade thrown.

  His sword flashed, cutting the air between them with a violent whistle.

  Belial released Suryel instantly, skipping back as the sword sliced where his throat had been.

  Suryel stumbled, catching herself, breath ragged, eyes wild.

  Helel stepped between them without thinking.

  Without permission.

  Without restraint.

  His sword aimed straight at Belial’s face.

  His voice came out low, shaking with the kind of rage that once almost burned the Realm. “I said you do not get to touch her.”

  Each word was clipped like it was being carved.

  He half-turned without lowering his blade, eyes flicking to Suryel’s throat.

  “Sunbird…” His voice softened by a fraction, dangerous anyway. “Are you okay?”

  His hand moved as his gaze tracked her neck, checking her like a battlefield scan.

  Belial blinked, amused.

  “Again?” He echoed, tasting the word.

  Helel saw the bruise on her neck and stilled.

  His eyes burned.

  He felt the heat under his skin.

  The Realm around them felt it too.

  First, like a sudden hush.

  The grass shivered.

  The air tightened.

  Like reality was bracing for impact.

  Belial’s grin turned hungry.

  “Oh, whoops.” He purred. “There it is…”

  He lifted his hands in mock innocence.

  “Sorry. Did I do that?”

  Helel’s sword didn’t tremble when he took another step.

  It vibrated.

  Not from fear.

  From the pressure of something inside him trying to get out.

  The air around his blade shimmered faintly, as if the Realm itself remembered what it felt like to be cut open by him.

  Suryel stood behind his shoulder, breath tearing in and out of her lungs, fingers flexing like she was trying to regrow the weapon that had been ripped from her hands.

  Belial watched them both with the pleased stillness of someone observing a fuse burn.

  He didn’t attack.

  He didn’t run.

  He simply waited, head tilted, eyes bright.

  Like he was curious how far Helel would go.

  This time…

  To stop his little sister and himself…

  From committing the same mistake he once did, burning with rage.