No!
The word forms without sound, forged from will instead of fear. Through gritted teeth, I rise through the pressure and snap a protection ward into place on instinct, Blood Magic blooming outward in a tight, controlled pulse. Crimson-gold light threads through the room, weaving itself around the Eternal Sins brothers, a living net, dampening the scream just enough to keep them standing and safe from the Banshee scream.
The effort burns.
My ears ring.
My pulse stutters.
Heat floods my chest while power drains faster than I want it to.
But Lilith’s presence lingers, heavy and watchful, not resisting, not assisting.
Observing.
Judging.
‘Interesting,’ Lilith’s attention seems to murmur, a weight rather than a word. ‘You choose protection.’
I grit my teeth and hold the ward anyway, my muscles trembling as I force the magic to stabilize.
This isn’t domination.
This isn’t conquest.
This isrestraint.
Eden’s scream continues to rip through the enemies, but the brothers stay on their feet, their eyes wide, watching me as Ishield them from the banshee’s wail. And Lilith watches from inside me, ancient, patient, as if deciding whether this choice makes me weak or worthy.
Then, as quickly as it started, Eden’s wail stops, the intense pressure eases, causing the supernaturals caught in Eden’s grasp to fall to the floor in their pain.
I let out a heavy breath, dropping my protection ward around the brothers. Hex glances up at me for just the briefest moment, smirks, and bobs his head in a gesture of thanks.
Seraphine picks up where Eden’s scream ends, her Siren’s song weaving through the destruction, but this isn’t the gentle melody from the bar. This is a combat aria, notes weaponized into something beautiful but terrible at the same time.
Where her voice focuses, gravity shifts.
Vampires are yanked off their feet, slammed into walls with bone-breaking force. A demon-possessed human tries to charge her position, and Seraphine’s song catches him mid-stride, increasing his personal gravity until he can’t move, function, or barely exist under the crushing weight.
Together, their powers create sonic waves that shatter vampire bones, rupture organs, and reduce Viktor’s forces to screaming, broken husks.
Even as chaos closes in, Oracle moves among the wounded as a phoenix given purpose.
His flames don’t burn. They heal. His Soul Forge activates, channeling his ancient fire into injuries that should be fatal, repairing torn flesh, mending shattered bone, pulling brothers back from the edge of death.
“Stay down!” he orders a vampire who tries to rejoin the fight with a gaping chest wound. “You’re no good to anyone dead.” His hands press against the injury, phoenix fire flowing as liquid gold, and flesh begins to knit.
The process is slow. Deliberate. Painfully so.
Every spell he casts leaves a mark. The light around his hands dims with each wound he closes, the glow thinning, fraying, as if scraped away piece by piece. His shoulders sag by degrees, breath growing heavier, sweat beading at his temples while something vital bleeds out of him with every life he saves.
Color drains from his aura, replaced by faint scorch marks where power has been burned down to nothing. Each restoration steals from him to give to them, his own essence flaring and then guttering like a candle pushed too hard.
He never stops.
Even as the cost carves itself into him, he keeps reaching for the wounded, trading pieces of himself to drag others back from the edge.
As the world burns around us, my Crimson Sight makes the truth unavoidable.
