Elliana did not breathe.
For a heartbeat, she did not exist.
The storm around them froze—not metaphorically, not theatrically—
froze.
Rain hung suspended in the air like scattered diamonds.
Wind halted mid–howl.
Ivan's wings paused mid-beat.
The entire forest held its breath.
Because Elliana's did.
Her shadows, once a controlled storm, collapsed inward—
then detonated outward with a soundless violence the world was not built to withstand.
Ivan's grin vanished.
"…oh," he whispered.
Too late.
Something broke.
Not in the forest.
Not in the storm.
In her.
A line in her chest that had been trembling—stretched thin by exhaustion, fear, determination—
finally snapped.
And in the space it opened, her rage poured through.
Not hot.
Not loud.
Cold.
Absolute.
Annihilating.
Elliana's voice was a razor scraping along the fabric of reality itself.
"What," she whispered, "did you just say…
about my son?"
Her shadows didn't rise.
They collapsed beneath her feet—flattening, sinking, twisting—
as though the night itself bowed in terror.
A pulse of black erupted from her chest.
The floating raindrops shattered into vapor.
Trees twisted.
Stone cracked.
Colors bled from the world.
Ivan's wings flickered, his body jerking as he stabilized himself.
The rain hissed between them—thin, sharp, almost metallic.
Elliana did not blink.
Ivan let the silence stretch, savoring the tension pulled taut between their suspended forms. His wings stirred the air behind him with a low, steady thrum, casting ripples through the downpour.
When he finally spoke, his voice had lost all earlier playfulness.
It slipped into something quieter.
Darker.
More precise.
"My poor little nephew," Ivan murmured, "isn't built for this."
Elliana's jaw tightened by a fraction—too slight for most eyes to catch, but Ivan saw it. Of course he did.
He continued.
"He's been holding on longer than anyone expected," Ivan said, as though delivering a report. "Longer than I expected, honestly. A little helper of yours is doing the best she can to keep him upright."
Elliana's shadows coiled—slow, venomous.
He chuckled—low, rich, self-satisfied.
"Oh, don't try to hide it. I can not only feel it from here, but I can see it—and I know you can as well."
His crimson eyes gleamed against the storm.
"The boy is only staying conscious because others are holding him up."
He raised two fingers lazily, as though pointing to a distant star.
"But even with all that help… how long do you think he'll last?"
Ivan tilted his head.
He drifted backward slightly, wings pushing the water aside. His gaze stayed locked with hers, molten metal gleaming behind the rain.
"Sure—he can heal," Ivan acknowledged lightly.
"He can knit torn flesh."
"He can seal ruptured organs."
"He can even reattach limbs. Quite the trick."
He lifted one finger.
"But none of that works…"
Another finger.
"…unless the pieces stay close enough to stitch back together."
Ivan grinned wider.
"And a head, Elliana—"
He traced a line across his own throat.
Slow.
Deliberate.
"…is a very different story entirely."
Elliana didn't move, but the shadows at her feet surged like a breached tide.
Ivan's tone softened in a way that made it infinitely worse.
"Maybe," he mused, "my nephew could survive decapitation. Maybe he could reattach his head."
A pause.
"Or maybe… he could grow a new one entirely."
Elliana's fingers curled. The air darkened.
Ivan leaned forward, smile returning—thin and vicious.
"But we won't know," he whispered, his voice threading through the storm,
"until the head comes off first."
The forest held its breath.
Ivan's wings spread wider, crimson energy pulsing in slow, heartbeat-like waves.
"So tell me, Elliana," he said, voice lowering into a near purr,
"are you willing to find out if he lives…
after his head detaches from his body?"
Rain hammered the earth.
The shadows around Elliana didn't merely tremble—
—they shuddered, as though something inside them had been struck.
Ivan's grin widened.
"That," he murmured,
"is the real question here, isn't it?"
Ivan floated before her—
wings unfurled, aura cracking with crimson heat,
grin carved too sharp, too certain.
He tilted his head, almost sympathetic.
"Tell me, Elliana…" he murmured,
his voice stretching through the frozen storm like a blade dragged across ice.
"Are you willing to watch your son die?"
Elliana's pupils constricted.
Ivan lifted both hands—calm, open, offering her a choice that was no choice at all.
"If you're willing," he whispered, smile widening,
"then by all means—"
A heartbeat.
A breath.
The air twisted around him in a spiral of bloodlight.
"—please," he said softly,
"I insist."
His wings beat once—
a low, thunderous whum that vibrated through the frozen raindrops.
"I'm more than willing," he added with a chuckle,
"to accompany you to the end."
Crimson mana surged from his core, spilling out in violent waves.
The light flickered across his skin, illuminating the rain like shards of ruby.
His red eyes locked onto hers—
steady, unwavering, merciless.
Elliana returned the stare with her own.
Her silver eyes glowed like twin moons carved from steel—
bright, cold, cutting.
And then—
The shadows at her feet flared.
Not upward.
Not outward.
Inward.
They spiraled around her legs, twisting across her waist, her ribs, her throat.
Black lightning forked through the air around her
as her mana surged like a tidal wave of night incarnate.
The world dimmed.
The storm recoiled.
Color drained from the sky.
When she spoke, her voice did not rise.
It did not shout.
It did not waver.
It simply cut.
> "If any sort of harm so much as touches my son…"
The shadows behind her shuddered—
as if screaming in silent fury.
Her hand lifted—
slow, steady, unshaking.
Black energy coiled around her fingers, spiraling upward like smoke dragged by an invisible wind.
> "I will end you."
The last word didn't echo.
It devoured the space around it.
Ivan's smile froze.
Just for a fraction.
Elliana stepped forward, shadows spreading beneath her like a living starfield.
> "I will end your name," she said,
voice sharpening into frost-edged steel.
"I will end your bloodline."
Another step.
The shadows rose around her like an army kneeling only for her.
> "I will end your ancestors. Your descendants.
Your progenitors. Your echoes—"
The air trembled.
Ivan's grin twitched.
His wings faltered.
A pulse of crimson mana stuttered in his chest.
Elliana's final words fell soft—
and because of that softness,
they landed like the strike of a god.
> "Touch my children…
and I will erase the very idea of you."
Not kill.
Not destroy.
Not defeat.
Erase.
Ivan's smile broke—
not with fear.
But with something far more complex.
Recognition.
"…now that," he exhaled,
"is a threat worthy of your mother."
Lightning split the sky, illuminating both of them—
his wings blazing red,
her shadows coiling black.
Two forces suspended at the edge of annihilation.
Something shifted in Ivan's eyes—
interest, hunger, respect,
and something else, older, deeper…
But before he could answer—
The world jolted.
A ripple of energy tore through the forest—
a signal.
A flare.
A scream of power.
Elliana's head snapped toward it.
Ivan's grin returned—slow, wicked, triumphant.
"…ah," he said, voice a purr,
"looks like your boy finally dropped."
Elliana vanished.
And the storm broke open.