Inferno Of Desire

Chapter 19: Shattered Truths

The Abyss loomed around them, its oppressive darkness pressing down like a physical weight.

Each step felt heavier, the landscape twisting, as if alive, warping in response to their presence. Despite the countless horrors they had faced, this place — the heart of the Abyss — was unlike anything either of them had ever encountered.

Seraphine walked slightly ahead, her wings shimmering faintly in the dim light, her face set with determination. She had always been resolute, but there was something different now — a tension that Azrael couldn't quite place.

He followed her in silence, his molten amber eyes flickering, their usual intensity dulled by a quiet storm brewing within.

The further they ventured, the more the Abyss whispered to them. Shadows reached out with claws of memory, tugging at the edges of their minds.

“I can feel it,” Seraphine murmured, not turning to face him. “The Abyss... it’s trying to break us.”

Azrael frowned, his voice low and rough. “It won’t succeed.”

But even as he spoke, he felt the familiar pull — a nagging sensation at the back of his mind, like a forgotten name on the tip of his tongue.

And then, like a blade slicing through the fog, he saw it: a flash of silver hair, Seraphine’s eyes, glowing with the same fierce light they had when they fought side by side on the battlefield of Heaven.

A pang of guilt struck him, raw and sharp.

He reached for her, his fingers brushing her arm. “Seraphine —”

She stopped, her breath catching, though she didn’t look at him. “The Abyss - we won't let it defeat us” she whispered. Her voice was strained, the vulnerability she usually masked, slipping through the cracks. “Not now. Not in the future.”

Azrael’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t press further. He knew her well enough to understand when to push and when to wait.

And yet, the memories were stirring — pieces of a puzzle he hadn’t even known existed, slowly fitting together.

They continued in silence for several more minutes, the tension between them palpable. The landscape around them shifted again, the ground cracking beneath their feet, revealing an expanse of jagged obsidian peaks.

And then it hit — a wave of memory so strong it nearly brought Azrael to his knees.

Flashes of a battle, then Seraphine by his side, her eyes locked on him, not in malice but in something far more dangerous. Trust.

He gasped, his wings flaring out instinctively as the memory engulfed him. Seraphine turned sharply, alarm flashing in her eyes. “What’s happening?”

Azrael blinked, shaking his head as if to dispel the image. “I... I remember. You—”

But before he could speak further, the ground beneath them rumbled.

From the shadows emerged a monstrous figure, a creature of the Abyss, twisted and deformed, its eyes glowing with a malevolent light.

Seraphine’s sword was in her hand in an instant, her wings flaring as she took a battle stance. “We deal with this now. Talk later.”

Azrael nodded, the urgency of the fight momentarily overriding the storm inside him.

But as they fought side by side once more, the memories wouldn’t leave him. The flashes of their past, the trust they once had, and the feeling of loss that had haunted him for so long —he knew now it was tied to Seraphine.