Previously ✨⚔️🔥
At dawn, Zepherius woke the siblings—Maevhara had a mission for them 🕰️. They journeyed to Black Hollow, a cursed village hiding the Crystal of Aegis 👁️🗨️.
The village was silent and full of dark magic ☠️. A monstrous creature attacked, but after a brutal fight, the siblings took the Crystal 🔥.
The Crystal was alive, whispering dark secrets and awakening a terrible power within them 🩸. Its breaking unleashed a storm that would change everything forever ⚡🌑.
The Crystal Shattered
"The cursed crystal ruptured with a sound like the sky screaming — a crack like the wrath of gods tearing the world in two."
. Purple-black veins of light lashed out from the heart of the chapel, consuming its sacred walls, its cracked statues, and its blood-stained floors. Magic — wild, furious, untethered — howled through every crevice.
"Kael stumbled back, panic flaring behind his fury. Aelina hissed, not just in pain but in recognition. Nyra clutched her temples, eyes burning, and somewhere deep inside, a memory stirred like a sleeping god."
Something inside her was responding to the crystal.
Or awakening with it.
"Move!" Kael shouted hoarsely, grabbing Aelina by the arm as the floor beneath them began to split apart.
"No!" Nyra gasped. "It's calling to—!"
"A cascade of obsidian shards burst outward, the world tilting violently."
Escape Through Fire
"They ran through collapsing corridors choked with smoke and howling voices. Through shattered altars and halls where shadow-creatures burst from walls like oil come to life. Through fire and holy stone crumbling to dust."
"Outside, the cursed sky had split in two — one half bled twilight's last breath, the other seethed like a wound freshly torn."
They didn't look back. They couldn't.
By the time they reached the edge of Maevhara's corrupted domain, their limbs trembled, their vision warped, and the dark air burned their lungs.
Nyra dropped to her knees.
"Kael doubled over, breath ragged. Aelina's hand trembled as she reached toward the golden band circling her forehead."
The golden bands — safeguards gifted by Maevhara — pulsed faintly, restraining what their magic alone couldn't.
"Don't—" Kael growled.
But the symptoms had already begun.
The Blight Awakens
The blood came first.
Kael coughed — once, then again — and his glove came away slick and red.
"Nyra leaned forward and vomited a string of bile laced with glittering black flecks, like shards of midnight glass."
A sick crunch sounded from her stomach as something crystalline pressed outward beneath her skin.
"Her breath grew shallow. She clutched her belly, whispering, 'It's starting again…'"
Aelina's breath grew shallow. Her midsection rippled, skin bulging as though something coiled beneath, writhing to be born.
"No—" she gasped, clutching her belly. "We fought it with everything we had... Our magic was enough—until we got too close to the crystal."
"We were too close to the core," Kael said, wiping blood from his mouth, fury in his voice. "The crystal's curse… it recognized us."
"The golden bands — ancient safeguards gifted by Maevhara — pulsed faintly, holding back the curse's worst."
By the time they stumbled back to their assigned chambers, half-drenched in ash and blood, the Blight was raging silently inside them.
The Healers' Plea
The chambers smelled of incense and damp stone. The moment they entered, a group of Maevhara's top healers rushed forward — old, weary figures who had long since abandoned hope of earning the siblings' cooperation.
One knelt before Kael, horror flashing across her eyes.
"You're bleeding internally—"
Kael shoved her aside with a sneer. "Don't touch me."
Another reached for Nyra's shoulder as she collapsed against the wall. "Please, your body can't handle this—let us—"
Aelina snapped her fingers, a razor-thin whip of black magic flicking across the healer's robes. "Back. Off."
They meant it.
No mercy. No vulnerability. No submission.
The oldest healer stood firm. "If you refuse help, the Blight will spread. You could die."
"Kael smiled darkly, blood dripping between clenched teeth. 'Then dig a hole. But we're not your broken pets.' His eyes burned with defiance."
The silence that followed felt colder than the dark between stars.
"The healers left hollow-eyed and broken — revulsion in their gaze, but not a wish for death."
One healer stepped forward, shaking but resolute. "Even weapons deserve to be mended." Kael stared her down. "Then find another battlefield."
Mother's Gift
Later, in the flickering silence of their quarters, the memories came.
Mother's voice, low and cruel, whispering words of power into ritual-bound blood.
"The memory lingered like a shadow in their minds — a bond they could never break, a curse they could never escape."
Their bodies, tiny and trembling, bound in a circle of bones and salt.
The pact she made with something beneath the earth.
The day Nyra's stomach first swelled unnaturally. The night Kael coughed up his first crystal. The morning, Aelina's hair writhed of its own accord before the headband was fastened on.
They never spoke of it.
Not even now.
But it haunted their eyes, their silence, their refusal to trust anyone else.
The Town Begins to Change
The town around them—Maevhara's temporary outpost—was once a quiet ghost of their ruined childhood home.
Now it twisted daily.
Buildings decayed unnaturally fast. Rats with glowing eyes whispered nonsense into alleyways. Devotees of the Crystal formed nightly circles, mimicking rituals they did not understand. They carved vigils into their skin. They bled willingly into the earth.
The ground beneath the old chapel trembled once every hour.
Nyra stood at the window one night and whispered, "Something's still down there."
Kael, behind her, only nodded. "And they want us to lead them to it."
The Cult's True Face
Three days later, they found the cult's hidden chamber — a low hollow behind the cathedral wall.
"Inside were paintings. Them — distorted, revered, bleeding.
Their mother's eyes are hollow.
And the crystal — bursting from the earth like a god's wound."
Of their mother.
Of the crystal bursting from the earth.
Worship. Obsession. Apocalypse.
"They believe we're vessels," Aelina said coldly. "Not people."
"They're right," Kael muttered.
"No," Nyra said, voice like smoke. "They're wrong. We're weapons."
The Vow in Shadows
That night, the healers returned. One last plea.
"Let us help you. The Blight will kill you. We've made a new serum—experimental, unstable, but it might—"
Kael stood slowly, his body trembling from the inside.
"We don't want salvation."
Nyra rose beside him. "Only leverage."
Aelina smiled faintly, blood trailing from the corner of her mouth. "And revenge."
In the heart of the dark chamber, lit only by flickering candlelight and the pulse of dying magic, they raised their hands and swore their vow.
"We will not let this curse define us.
We vow to drown this world in blood and shadows before we fall."
Behind them, something ancient stirred beneath the town.
Something listening.
Something… waiting.
Ending: Only the Beginning
At dawn, the siblings vanished into the fog — leaving behind silence, broken walls, and the first signs of true war.
"The cult grew bold. With each passing hour, their rituals became more frenzied, their whispers louder, the darkness around them deepening."
The earth cracked deeper.
And the healers, shattered and grieving, watched from afar as their last serum pulsed weakly in a glass vial, untouched.
The Blight would return.
The siblings had made their choice.
"The curse lives in our blood," Nyra whispered once more to the void,
"but so does our wrath." And this… was only the beginning."
[End of Chapter 18]
Author's Note:
The Blight has awakened… but so have they.
This chapter marked a turning point — the siblings are no longer just cursed. They are becoming something far more dangerous.
What did you think of the vow in shadows? Are you ready to follow them into war?
Leave your theories, scream in the comments, and brace yourselves for Chapter 19. The darkness is listening. 🔮🌑💀
Next Chapter:
The earth cracked beneath the cursed chapel's ruins, awakening something ancient and hungry 🦷🌑. The siblings fled through dark tunnels, their bodies twisted by the Crystal's Blight — coughing blood 🩸, swollen bellies, and serpents writhing in their hair 🐍.
Behind them, the cult's desperate chants grew louder 🔥, hungry to claim the curse's power. But deep beneath the soil, a monstrous devoured stirred, its eyes burning with endless hunger 👁️🗨️.
At the infirmary, healers watched in dread as the siblings spat blood — their pleas met with cold cruelty ❄️.
Nyra's voice cut through the darkness: "This curse is not our end. It's only the beginning." ⚔️
The devoured waits. The real nightmare starts now…