Inferno Of Desire

Chapter 30: Torn bonds

Everything had grown unnervingly silent, the kind of stillness that felt like the calm before a violent storm. Seraphine and Azrael moved cautiously, their senses heightened by the palpable tension that clung to the air.

Shadows shifted around them, and the once-twisting, chaotic energy of the Abyss had morphed into something far more sinister — an eerie, watching presence that lingered in the periphery of their vision.

Azrael glanced over at Seraphine, his molten amber eyes gleaming in the darkness. The emotional weight of their journey had begun to weigh on him, stirring memories he had long thought buried.

He had never intended for her to be here. Never wanted her to return to the place where he had been shattered. But as the Abyss shifted around them, the veil of time began to thin, pulling the past closer to the surface.

Seraphine sensed his hesitation. Her silver eyes, filled with the calm resolve of battle, softened as she studied him. "Azrael," she began quietly, her voice a soothing balm against the oppressive silence. "What is it that you're not telling me?"

He stopped, muscles tightening as the question hung between them. There were things he had kept hidden, things that could unravel the fragile balance they had forged. Memories of a time before the war.

A time before the darkness claimed them both.

"I wasn’t going to lose you again," Azrael whispered, almost to himself, as his hand brushed against the scar on his chest — a wound not from any battle, but from the day he had lost Seraphine. "You were ripped from me once. And I couldn't stop it."

Seraphine's breath hitched. She felt it then — a subtle, piercing connection tugging at her soul. There was more between them than just this mission, more than their battles against the forces of darkness. Something ancient. Something painful.

"Ripped from you?" she repeated, stepping closer to him. "Azrael, what are you saying?"

His jaw clenched, the raw emotion in his eyes unmistakable. "Before this… before all of this, Seraphine, we were bound together. Our souls… they were one."

She gasped, her mind reeling. Memories, faint and fragmented, began to stir deep within her consciousness, flashes of another life — brief moments of warmth and light in a world that had only known war. "But I — how could I forget?"

Azrael exhaled slowly, struggling with the weight of the truth. "The Abyss, Seraphine. When the Veil was torn, the Abyss took more than just our world. It erased parts of us, parts of our past. But the bond between us — it's too strong. It’s why I can’t let you go."

Seraphine's heart pounded, the revelation filling the void that had gnawed at her for so long. She had always felt that pull towards him, but now, the pieces were falling into place.

Their connection was more than just a consequence of this war; it was the remnants of a love lost to time and the Abyss itself.

Seraphine’s pulse quickened, her mind flooded with fragments of memories that had long been buried in the depths of her consciousness.

A feeling of warmth — a warmth that could only belong to Azrael — crept through the icy barricades around her heart.

Her hand trembled as she reached out, her fingers barely grazing the edge of his cloak.

Her voice barely a whisper. "All this time… and I never knew, but I could feel it. I just wasn't sure."

Azrael’s gaze softened, the hardness in his expression melting as the gravity of his confession weighed down on him. "I couldn’t risk losing you again, not after the Abyss took you from me the first time. I thought if you remembered, if you knew the full truth, it might change everything between us. You weren’t ready… maybe I wasn’t ready."

The anguish in his voice tugged at something deep within her. Seraphine wanted to speak, to say something that would ease the torment he was carrying, but the words stuck in her throat.

Instead, she closed the distance between them, her silver eyes locking onto his amber ones, the shared history between them finally coming to the surface.

"Azrael… I know I’ve always felt it," she admitted, her voice cracking under the weight of her realization. "The connection. It was never just about this war, was it?"

"No," Azrael said softly. "It was never just about the war. You and I… we were forged from something stronger than any force in the Abyss. But the Veil tore us apart, and I thought I had lost you forever."

Seraphine’s heart pounded in her chest. The past they had once shared, forgotten by the cruelty of the Abyss, was coming back to her in waves.

She could see glimpses of it now — a world where their souls had been intertwined long before the war, before the chaos.

A world where they had loved, where they had fought side by side as one.

And now, standing in the heart of the Abyss, that connection felt as if it were being reignited, like embers slowly coming back to life.

"But we’re not the same people anymore," Seraphine said, her voice filled with a sadness she couldn’t quite name. "So much has changed. I’ve changed."

Azrael took a step closer, his hand lifting to cup the side of her face, his touch gentle, yet grounding. "We’ve both changed, Seraphine. But that doesn’t change what we once were. Or what we can be again."

For a long moment, they stood there, locked in a silence that was far more powerful than words.

The weight of their forgotten past settled between them, but it was no longer a burden they had to bear alone.

Finally, Seraphine found her voice. "We have to finish this, don’t we? The Veil, the Abyss… it’s all connected to what we’ve lost."

Azrael nodded, his eyes filled with both sorrow and determination. "Yes. And if we don’t stop it, we’ll lose everything. Again."

Seraphine took a deep breath, the last fragments of uncertainty dissolving. Her mind was set, her heart rekindled by the bond they had rediscovered.

Whatever lay ahead, they would face it together.

With a final look at Azrael, she turned toward the path before them. "Then let’s finish what we started."

Together, they walked forward into the darkness of the Abyss, side by side, as the echoes of their past continued to stir, ready to confront whatever was waiting for them beyond the shadows.