BLADE OF THE FALLEN

Chapter 6 – The Seal Cracks

The room felt too small. The safehouse had always been narrow, but now the walls seemed to press in, the air thick with the weight of three different storms about to collide. Kael’s hand never left the dagger on her belt.

Ethan’s eyes never left the sword in Axel’s grip. And the goddess, she was inside his head, burning hot, her voice wrapping around his thoughts like a vice. Kill him before he opens the wound further.

“Axel,” Kael said, her voice low and precise, “tell me exactly who this is. And don’t try to downplay it.”

“I already told you,” Axel replied, trying to steady his breathing. “He’s”

He stopped himself. No, that wasn’t the whole truth. The word “friend” didn’t fit anymore. Not after everything Ethan had just said.

Ethan smirked, reading the hesitation. “We were friends,” he said for him, taking another deliberate step into the room. His boots made no sound on the warped floorboards. “Before the accident. Before your second life started.”

Kael’s gaze sharpened. “Second life?”

Don’t you dare tell her, the goddess hissed.

Ethan ignored the tension in Kael’s posture. His eyes flicked to the runes pulsing faintly on the blade, and his smile thinned. “That thing in your hand, she’s dangerous.”

He’s twisting the truth, the goddess cut in. I’m not dangerous to you, Axel. I’m dangerous to them, Axel tightened his grip. “You said… that’s why I died?”

Ethan’s gaze met his. “You think a car hitting you was an accident? No Miguel, sorry, Axel now, isn’t it? that was a consequence. A side effect of crossing paths with her.”

Kael’s voice snapped through the air. “Explain. Now.”

Ethan turned his head slightly toward her but never really looked away from the sword. “Your ‘partner’ here isn’t just a relic or a cursed weapon. She’s a breach point. A living fracture in the boundaries between worlds. Every second she exists, the Seal weakens.”

Axel frowned. “The Seal?”

Kael’s jaw tightened. “If that’s true…”

It’s not, the goddess said sharply, but there was something, just a hair’s breadth of hesitation, in her tone that Axel had never heard before.

“What seal?” Axel pressed, his eyes moving between Kael and Ethan.

Kael didn’t answer immediately. She moved closer to the wall, as though needing distance between herself and the sword. “The Seal is what keeps… them out. Things that shouldn’t exist in our world.”

Ethan’s smile turned humorless. “She’s not one of yours, Kael. She’s from somewhere else. Somewhere worse. And she wants the Seal gone.”

Lies! the goddess roared in his mind. I want freedom. That’s all.

“Freedom to do what?” Axel asked her, but she didn’t answer. Not this time.

The silence from her was worse than her shouting, A sudden pop echoed from the rafters above, like a bubble bursting. Then a faint shimmer ran along the edges of the room, like heat haze in the air.

Kael swore under her breath. “Wards are failing.”

“Because the breach is here,” Ethan said. “Right now.”

Axel’s pulse spiked. “Meaning what, exactly?”

“Meaning,” Ethan said, “if you don’t hand me that sword, this whole city’s about to see something it’s not ready for.”

Hand me over, the goddess said with poisonous amusement, and you’ll never leave this room alive.

The shimmer along the walls deepened, twisting into faint cracks of light, light that wasn’t white, but something else, something wrong. A low, humming vibration spread through the floorboards, making the hair on Axel’s arms stand on end.

Kael drew her dagger fully, the blade glinting in the dim lamplight. “Axel, whatever you do, don’t drop it. If she gets loose”

“Loose?” Axel echoed.

“She’ll anchor herself to the breach. And then this city becomes a feeding ground.”

Ethan stepped closer, his voice level but urgent. “She’s lying to you too. She’s not a predator, she’s an invitation. Her presence calls things through. Things you don’t want to meet.”

Do you hear them? the goddess whispered suddenly. They’re hungry for him, not you.

Axel’s head snapped toward Ethan. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

But before Ethan could answer, the air in the center of the room split.

It wasn’t like glass shattering it was more like fabric tearing, threads of space itself fraying apart, revealing a void that swallowed the lamplight. From that void, a cold wind poured through, carrying the faintest sound of distant, overlapping voices, all whispering in languages Axel didn’t understand.

Kael moved instantly, dragging a pouch from her belt and scattering a handful of powder into the air. The particles flared blue where they touched the edges of the breach, slowing its spread, but not stopping it.

Ethan’s coat flared slightly as he reached into it, pulling out what looked like a long, thin crystal wrapped in etched metal bands. “Step back,” he ordered.

Don’t let him close it, the goddess hissed. If he does, we lose our chance, Axel froze, his knuckles whitening around the hilt. Two voices, Kael’s sharp, Ethan’s steady, cut across each other, telling him opposite things. He didn’t move.

The breach pulsed, Something moved inside it.

At first, it was only a shadow, shapeless and crawling, but then it began to take form a massive arm, jointed wrong, fingers tapering into needle-like claws, its surface slick like wet stone. It gripped the edge of the breach as though pulling itself through.

Kael’s powder flared again, but the limb ignored it. Ethan lifted the crystal high, its bands beginning to glow. “Last chance,” Ethan said, locking eyes with Axel. “Give her to me, or we all die here.”

Give me to him, the goddess said suddenly, and for the first time, there was no mockery in her tone, only an edge of… challenge. Let’s see what he does.

That froze Axel more than anything. “Why would you?”

But she didn’t answer, The arm was followed by a head, if it could be called that. A face like cracked stone, without eyes, with a mouth that opened too wide, filled with rows of teeth that seemed to spiral inward.

The temperature dropped sharply. Frost formed along the walls, Kael lunged forward, dagger raised, but the thing’s other arm lashed out, sweeping her aside like she weighed nothing. She hit the wall hard, her breath leaving in a painful grunt.

Ethan’s crystal flared, a sharp, piercing tone cutting through the air, and the breach began to close. The stone-headed thing roared, though the sound was felt more in bone than heard, its claws digging into the floorboards to resist being pulled back.

Axel, the goddess said softly, almost intimately. Decide, Axel’s mind spun. He could give the sword to Ethan and risk whatever his real motives were. He could trust Kael, though she’d just admitted there were things about the Seal she hadn’t told him. Or he could.

The breach pulsed again, the pressure in the room so strong it made his teeth ache, Something inside him snapped into focus. He didn’t drop the sword. He moved.

In one breath, he crossed the space between himself and the thing crawling out of the breach, lifting the blade high. The runes along its length erupted in a burning crimson light, so bright it drowned out Ethan’s crystal entirely. He brought the sword down.

It didn’t cut flesh, it cut space. The air screamed as the breach split down the middle, twisting into itself and collapsing in a violent rush of wind and darkness.

The impact threw him backward, the sword tearing itself from his grip for the first time since he’d held it. When he opened his eyes, the breach was gone.

So was Ethan, The safehouse was silent except for Kael’s ragged breathing as she pushed herself upright. “Axel… where is he?”

Axel sat up, scanning the room. Ethan’s presence was gone entirely no footprints, no sound of retreating steps. Only the faint smell of burned air lingered. Then, slowly, the goddess spoke, The Seal just broke a little further.