Chaptxr 6
A whistle through the air. I barely registered the glint of silver before—The impact made a sickening thwack that turned my stomach.
Aqoon la'aan waa iftiin la'aan.
The absence of knowledge is the absence of light
Chaptxr 6
The night air slapped me—slicing through my overheated skin like a blade of winter glass. My lungs screamed in protest against the sudden chill, each breath a desperate battle between survival and collapse, the cold burning my throat raw after the blistering heat of the house. The air tasted of ash and of a world irrevocably changed.
Behind me, the house—my house—was burning.
Fire streamed from the windows, curling over the roof, it snarled hungrily at the sky, twisting in shades of deep orange, crimson, and unnatural cobalt. The heat pressed against my body like a wall, the roar of flames drowning everything except the thunder of my heartbeat.
The memory of my life in that home sliced through me, a blade of grief so sharp I nearly doubled over. Years of existence contained within those walls—Christmas mornings dark with Edith's grief but brightened by mugs of hot chocolate she'd pretend she didn't make especially for me. The corner of my room where I'd curl up with books during thunderstorms. The creaky third step I'd learned to skip over during midnight kitchen raids. Somewhere in that inferno, her body lay lifeless, void of all that had made her Edith.
The flames consumed it all—her books with dog-eared pages and penciled notes in the margins, her herbs hanging from the rafters in patient bundles, the old kitchen table where she'd taught me everything from fractions to how to properly chop vegetables without losing a finger.
That contradiction twisted within me—her coldness had shaped me as surely as her rare tenderness. Ice and fire, both leaving their marks.
The cloaked man emerged from the flames, as if to remind me that from this point onward my life is forever altered. His eyes—locked onto mine. Cold despite the inferno behind him. A predator assessing wounded prey, calculating the effort required to finish the kill. I staggered backwards in terror.
He was unscathed, although I witnessed him visibly struggling with flames not even moments ago. Not a single ember touched his midnight cloak, the fabric rippling like liquid shadow against the backdrop of destruction. The heat warped the air around him, making his figure shimmer like a mirage in desert heat. What spells did he cast in that foreign, abrasive tongue to be untouched by fire?
"Run." Her last words echoed in my mind, the final gift from a woman who had given so few.
My legs obeyed before my mind could fully process it. I bolted down the street, lungs burning, feet pounding against the pavement each footfall a reminder of my battered body. Each step jolted my bones, sending shockwaves through my body. The frigid air raked my throat raw with every gasping breath, the contrast between the burning house and cold night disorienting my senses.
My ears were still ringing—a high-pitched whine, the tears came before I even realized—hot and fast, mingling with the soot and sweat marking my face. These were different from the ones shed in my basement. Those were born from fear. These carried the weight of something lost before it was understood.
The world collapsed into a tunnel—street ahead, fire behind, the stink of fear rising from my skin.
I reached the same corner where Levi had stood hours ago, his silhouette familiar against the evening sky, waiting for me to walk the final block home. That memory felt like someone else's life—a mundane moment from a reality that no longer existed. Now, the burning house loomed behind me, a grotesque beacon marking everything I'd lost.
Movement ahead.
Something was coming straight towards me. No–someone. A figure cutting through the night, moving with impossible speed. Too fast for a normal person. That unmistakable shock of messy dark hair caught the moonlight—
Levi.
My stomach dropped. A wave of ice-cold dread crashed over me, dousing the heat at my back. The realization was immediate and devastating: he was running toward me and towards danger.
No!
He was going to die with me. The certainty of it hollowed me out like a cruel hand scooping away my insides. I could already see his blood pooling on the cobblestones, his steady hands going limp. Another laugh I'd never hear again, another person lost to violence I couldn't comprehend.
I threw my arms up, waving frantically. Muscles screamed with effort, joints popping from the wild motion. My body betrayed the panic my voice couldn't fully articulate.
"Levi! RUN!" The words tore from my throat, ragged and raw, clawing their way past the smoke and fear that lined my windpipe. I stumbled, pushing myself harder, desperate to make him understand the death awaiting him.
He didn't stop. Didn't even slow.
His face carved from determination, jaw clenched tight enough to make the muscle beneath his ear visible from a few feet away. I could hear the rhythm of his steps—steady and sure like a war drum, even as mine faltered on the ground. There was a purpose in his movement that tickled the back of my mind—he knew exactly what he was running toward.
He barreled at me, eyes locked past me.
Panic shot up my spine like liquid lightning, "Levi, RU—"
He reached me and the world blurred. Levi moved with that impossible grace I'd watched for years. He spun me with ease, his center of gravity dropping as he stepped into a perfect stance—weight balanced, knees flexed. My world tilted and swayed, my balance completely at his mercy. His other arm swept outward in a protective arc, the movement so swift it displaced the air with an audible whoosh. The sudden contact knocked the breath from my lungs, leaving behind the scent of pine, cedar, and steel that always clung to him.
His grip was firm but careful as he yanked me into his side. His fingers pressed into the soft flesh above my hip, his palm pressing against my skin through the thin fabric of my shirt.
We were back to back now, I turned to look at him through my tears. His body was solid and warm, a stark contrast to the freezing air, radiating heat like a furnace. I could feel each tensed muscle through our contact, the product of thousands of hours of brutal training.
A whistle through the air. I barely registered the glint of silver before—
The impact made a sickening thwack that turned my stomach.
A dagger.
Levi caught it inches from my head.
With his bare fucking hand.
The blade vibrated between his fingers, the steel singing a thin, metallic note like a tuning fork struck against bone. A droplet of blood welled up where the edge bit into his palm, then another, falling in perfect crimson spheres to splatter against the cobblestones. Each drop seemed to fall in slow motion, capturing the moonlight before disappearing into the darkness of the street. The metallic scent filled my nostrils, mixing with the smoke that still clung to my clothes like a second skin.
It should've pierced my skull.
Would've, if not for his impossible reflexes. My mind could already feel the phantom steel slicing through bone and brain, the death I had missed by mere inches.
Levi stood, stock-still, palm wrapped around the blade.
A beat of silence, as I held my breath.
Then he flipped it. The handle turned mid air, the blood-slick grip rotating like it was nothing, the tip landing pinched between his fingertips. With a flick of his wrist—He threw it.
The weapon hummed through the air, a lethal extension of his will, carrying with it the precision of countless hours of practice I'd never witnessed. It all took less than 40 seconds since he reached me, a blur of movement too fast to fully comprehend.
A sharp cry—the sound of steel meeting flesh and tearing fabric. A second cloaked figure materialized in front of my eyes and staggered forward, the dagger buried deep in his chest dark blood seeping outward like ink on parchment. He hissed—a sound more animal than human.
My stomach plummeted.
There was another.
FUCK.
The first one still advanced from the direction of the burning house.
The second, wounded but not down, circled us like a vulture, calculating his next move. His breath came in ragged wet pulls, fogging in the cold air. He got him good.
Levi let out a breath, shaking the blood from his fingers. The blood scattered like rain, pattering against the street.
We were trapped.
My pulse hammered, my hands shaking with adrenaline and fear. Sweat beaded along my hairline, trickling down my temple in slow, nervous rivers.
His voice was steady, but there was something in it—an emotion I'd never heard from him.
"Risa. Run."
My foot twitched forward—
I almost did. Almost.
"No." My response was visceral and devoid from rational consideration.
I can't lose him. I won't.
Levi stiffened for half a second. I felt the surprise ripple through his muscles, the momentary hesitation as he processed my refusal.
Then, softly—
"Risa." My name on his lips—half plea, half warning. It hung in the air between us, desperate.
I didn't answer. I didn't move.
The cloaked figures tightened their circle, boots scraping against stone. They didn’t bother to conceal themselves any longer. They both unsheathed a blade slowly from beneath their cloaks. The steel caught the moonlight revealing a weapon with an edge that pulsed faintly in a sickening shade of green, casting eerie shadows across their faces. The unnatural light seemed to drink in the darkness around it, leaving trails of venomous green as they moved. A silent alarm went off inside me at the sight, every instinct screaming danger.
"Shit," Levi muttered under his breath. The tension in his body shifted, fear threading through his usual confidence. The acknowledgment of true threat in his voice sent ice cascading down my body.
Then—slowly—Levi pressed his back against mine. His spine aligned with mine, a solid pillar of support. The contact was both comforting and terrifying—the reality of our situation undeniable in the warmth of his body against mine.
His stance shifted, grounding himself. Feet planted wider, knees slightly bent. I could feel the subtle adjustments through the contact of our bodies. I mirrored his stance and drew a deep breath, the night air sharp in my lungs. The minute shifts of weight and balance had become second nature for us.
Then, strangely, wisps of gray began curling around our ankles.
"Stay in the fog," Levi murmured, his voice tighter than before, eyes fixed on the green-tinged blades. "Don't let those blades touch you."
"What?!" I hissed incredulously, certain I'd misheard. The fog thickened rapidly, coiling around us in unnatural tendrils that seemed to respond to his words. It crept higher, enshrouding our legs in swirling mist that felt neither cold nor damp but sentient in its movements.
Levi's hand found mine for a brief moment, his fingers squeezing once before returning to their defensive position. The touch was fleeting but communicated volumes—reassurance, and apology.
"Do you trust me?" The question held weight beyond the immediate danger, beyond the men circling us with death in their eyes, beyond the house consumed by flames.
I laughed—a sound edged with hysteria. Trust him?
The boy who'd stepped between me and death without hesitation, who'd caught a dagger mid-flight, who'd stood beside me through every twist of my life?
"With everything I am," I answered, the words emerging immediately. The truth in them surprised even me, it was absolute.,
The fog surged upward at my response, spiraling around us like a living cocoon, thick enough now that the approaching figures became shadowed silhouettes, their movements sluggish. It felt like the mist responded not just to Levi but to our connection, to the trust between us.
"Well. Guess we're doing this the stupid way," he said dryly, his gallows humor a familiar comfort.
His voice dropped lower,"Just don't… die, yeah?"
I nodded as the two figures closed in.
I tightened my grip on—nothing. I had no weapon. Just my hands, just my fear, just the burning memory of my reality and the solid presence of Levi at my back.
It would have to be enough.
While the fog thickened and swirled around us, I could make out the darker shapes of our attackers.
“They can’t see as well as we can, but they can sense you better than if they could see you,” Levi muttered. He turned his head, locking eyes with me. “Keep your posture tight, and don’t—”
“—Die. That goes for you too.”
The first mercenary lunged through the fog, his movements sluggish, like he was wading through water. I dropped my weight and slipped to the side, feeling the displaced air as his blade whistled by, missing me by inches. The fog wrapped around his arm, slowing his strikes, buying me precious seconds to react.
I shot my elbow up into his nose, the solid impact snapping his head back. The force sent a shock through my arm all the way to my shoulder, but his grunt of pain was satisfying confirmation that I’d connected. My body remembered the training sessions I’d sleepwalked through, muscle memory taking over where conscious thought faltered.
Behind me, Levi was a blur of movement. The rhythm of his footwork synced with mine. We circled, back-to-back, rotating like a well-oiled machine, the years of training finally manifesting. His breath matched mine—four counts in, four counts out—a metronome keeping us aligned in the chaos.
The mercenary’s movements were still fast despite the fog’s resistance—like watching someone run underwater but somehow still matching my land speed. The fog twisted between us, thickening where the mercenaries moved, thinning where we needed to see. The mercenary’s blade caught the moonlight as it sliced through the mist—slower than it should’ve been, yet still terrifyingly fast. The green glow left a toxic trail as it moved, hissing slightly when it made contact with Levi’s fog. I barely managed to dip my shoulder as the edge skimmed past me. The cut was shallow, but the pain was sharp, burning like acid where the blade had touched.
But it was more than just the physical injury. The realization hit me like a freight train: How fast would they have been without Levi’s freakish control?
Shit. Maybe he is a vampire.
The thought crashed through me like a stone through glass, shattering my focus momentarily. Not just the fog, but his reflexes, the impossible speed, the way he’d caught that dagger mid-flight. The pieces were assembling into a picture I can’t believe I trivialized.
But…what does that make me?
Flashes of memories flickered—quick as sparks.
The way flames seemed to bend toward me, like flowers reaching toward the sun. The comfort I’d always found in Edith’s hearth, in the summer heat that made others wilt. The fire that had consumed my home—had I somehow called it into being?
Levi’s voice, teasing me over the recent years: “Careful, little pyromaniac.” “There’s that dragon I know.” “Your temper’s like wildfire, Risa.”
It was just teasing. Affectionate nicknames. Right?
Focus, Risa. Not now. Survive first. Freak out later.
The mercenary’s low strike brought me back to the fight, aiming for my knees. I jumped—awkward, but effective—and barely managed to land on my feet. His follow-up kick caught my shoulder, the pain radiating outward like a burst of fire, as a jumped back.
Levi sensed it instantly. The tension in his body shifted in sync with mine. Without a word, we pivoted, swapping positions telepathically. I felt his shoulder brush mine—the briefest contact an understanding that transcended words.
The first mercenary lunged again. Levi met him head-on, driving his shoulder into the man’s chest before launching upward, his knee cracking against the attacker’s jaw, then twisting in midair to kick him back into the fog.
The second mercenary came for me in the same breath. I caught his wrist, pulled him past me, and used his own momentum to send him stumbling. He spun, recovered, and surged forward. My shoulder met his chest, but he absorbed the blow better than I expected—his fist slammed into my stomach. The air tore from my lungs in a hard gasp, pain blooming deep.
I staggered back—just in time to see the glint of his blade cutting toward me.
Levi moved instantly, hooking an arm around my shoulder and yanking me behind him. I saw it—the flash of steel, the poisonous green glow—and then the blade bit into his side. His face tightened, jaw locking as if to swallow the sound, but I caught the flicker of pain in his eyes.
It’s because of me. If I were stronger—if I could fight like him—
My chest locked tight. I can’t lose him. The thought rooted me, slowing my limbs as if the fog had seeped inside.
Levi didn’t break stride. His stance shifted, angling his wounded side away, but every movement was still perfect. He stepped in, driving his knee into the second mercenaries ribs, then spun to kick the first mercenary back before he could close on me.
I tried to keep pace, pulling the second man’s weight past me and shoving him into the fog, but Levi was everywhere—intercepting strikes before they reached me, bracing his legs before each explosive kick.
The fog closed in around us, slowing them, but not enough. I felt my breath start to quicken as the feeling of panic descended on me. I ducked one slash, only to be sent sprawling when the mercenary’s boot slammed into my sternum. The cobblestones met me hard, the air whooshing from my lungs. Stars burst behind my eyes.
Through the blur, I saw the first mercenary raise his blade for a killing strike. The fog swelled desperately, trying to hold him back, but he forced his way through.
Levi was there before it could fall. Even now, his stance leaned toward me, guarding me. He caught the blow, twisted hard—bone cracked, and the blade hit the ground.
The second mercenary lunged, his weapon aimed at Levi’s wounded side. The green glow flared, hungering for his magic, for him.
Rage and terror locked together in my chest. I snatched up the fallen blade and drove it into the man’s chest. His scream broke into a gurgle as his body went limp.
For a moment, the fight was still. The fog pressed close, my heartbeat loud in my ears. My body moved without thinking, but the weight of what I’d done settled heavy.
I killed him.
Levi’s rugged breathing snapped me back to reality.
His blood seeped through his fingers, black in the moonlight, yet even now he stood angled toward me.
The first mercenary backed away, unarmed. “This isn’t over, mutt,” he spat, before vanishing into the fog.
Mutt?
Levi’s knees buckled, I reacted in enough time to catch him. The fog curled around us as I let him lean on my body awkwardly, his height making it hard to support him properly.
“Let me see,” I said, pulling his hand from the wound. The cut wasn’t deep, but the edges glowed sickly green, the fog refusing to touch it.
"It's not deep," his voice strained confirming my thoughts. "Just bad placement. And... tainted."
"Tainted?”, My voice broke.
Levi's jaw tightened. "Dark magic. It grows if left untreated. Poisons the magic in our blood." His voice dropped lower.
"Why didn't you tell me?" The question burst out, thick with betrayal. "The fog—whatever this is—you could've told me."
His laugh was bitter, ending in a grimace of pain. "When, exactly? 'Hey Risa, by the way, I'm not entirely human'? You'd have thought I was insane." His eyes met mine, searching for understanding. It reminded of the doubt that consumed me, I swallowed the familiar taste of guilt for not telling him about my dreams.
In the distance, sirens wailed—too late for Edith, and too far in the real world for whatever realm of shadows and magic we'd stumbled into.
Blood continued to seep through his shirt, reminding me of more immediate concerns. I tore a strip from my own hem, wadding it against the wound, the fabric immediately darkening with his blood.
"I would have believed you," I said quietly, pressing the fabric against his wound. "I would have taken the training seriously if I'd known what was out there. Instead of complaining every time you corrected my stance or made me repeat a move fifty times." Regret colored each word.
Levi's eyes found mine, moonlight reflecting in their depths. Something vulnerable flickered there,"You weren't ready."
"That wasn't your call to make," I snapped, pressing the makeshift bandage more firmly. "I could have been prepared. I could have—" My voice caught, the words choking in my throat. The knot in my chest swelled, tight and heavy, and I couldn't get past it. "I could have..." The grief and despair hit me all at once, swallowing my words, and I couldn't breathe through the suffocating sense of failure.
Levi's hand covered mine.
"I never wanted you to have to deal with any of this," he said, his voice rough with regret.
The fog shifted around us, sympathetic in its movements and made me more sure it was Levi controlling it.
"Can you walk?" I asked, swallowing past the lump in my throat.
He nodded, jaw clenched. "We need to go to my house. It should be safe." The effort in his voice was audible, determination wrestling with pain.
As I helped him to his feet, his blood warm against my hands, I realized how little I truly knew about the boy who'd caught a dagger mid-flight. Who controlled fog with his thoughts. Who'd stepped between me and death without hesitation.
"I still trust you," I whispered, his weight against my shoulder both a burden and comfort. "But when we're safe, you'll tell me what in the twilight is happening here." The words were both promise and demand.
His smile was tired but genuine, transforming his face back into the Levi I recognized. "You know me, Risa. Magical creatures trying to kill me on a Thursday night. Really adds that special something to my college applications."
"Right," I replied, my voice dust-dry despite the mist surrounding us. "Because Harvard has a special scholarship for 'surviving attempted murder by supernatural entities.' Very competitive.”
A ghost of his usual laugh escaped him as we limped through the swirling mist. I could feel the heat radiating from his wound, the green tinge beneath his skin growing faintly brighter. We needed to hurry. The fog followed, wrapping us in its protective embrace, guiding us toward whatever uncertain sanctuary awaited, and what might save Levi from the darkness spreading through his veins.
xoxo
Until your shadow meets mine again—
Simxn
Author, Crown of Thorns: Desert Rose • Editor, The Alchemxst
