CHAPTER 60: CRADLE OF CALM - 3

Azareel knelt, his bare knees pressing into the cracked stone, ash smearing his fingertips as he touched the ground.

"...He was part of this place," he murmured, his voice barely audible, his silver eyes tracing the desolate ruins. "Or this place was part of him."

Sylvara nodded behind him, her amber eyes softening.

"His soul was knotted into every stone," she said, her voice a quiet acknowledgment of the destruction they’d wrought.

"We unraveled it," Nyxsha said, her voice low, her golden eyes still averted, her tail twitching with a mix of pride and guilt.

Azareel turned back to them, rising slowly, his silver eyes steady but filled with a quiet awe.

"You turned into monsters to protect me," he said, his voice soft, carrying a weight that made the garden’s hum falter.

They didn’t speak, the silence stretching, the blooms pulsing faintly as if waiting for his judgment.

Then Azareel smiled—just faintly, his silver eyes warm despite the ash-dusted ruins behind him.

"Thank you," he said, his voice heartfelt, cutting through the tension like a gentle breeze.

Nyxsha blinked, her golden eyes widening.

"What?" she asked, her voice cracking slightly, her tail stilling.

"I mean it," he said, brushing ash from his palms, his smile growing. "You didn’t run. You didn’t hesitate. You protected me. I don’t care what you looked like doing it."

Virelya squinted at him, her coils shifting as she leaned forward, her golden eyes narrowing behind her mask.

"You’re not the least bit disturbed?" she asked, her voice a breathy tease laced with genuine curiosity.

Azareel stepped back into the garden, sitting on the moss with a soft grunt, his torn robe pooling around him.

"You think I haven’t seen monsters?" he said, his voice philosophical, his silver eyes tracing the crimson petals above.

"This whole Abyss is made of them. But you—you’re not what’s wrong with this place. You’re the only thing holding it together."

Sylvara watched him in silence, her expression unreadable, her vines curling softly toward him, brushing his ankle like ivy reaching for sunlight, their touch warm and grounding.

Nyxsha stared at him, her tail twitching with visible conflict, her golden eyes flickering with something raw—guilt, fear, and a flicker of hope.

"You don’t get it," she muttered, her voice rough, her claws flexing. "I enjoyed it. Ripping them apart. Burning that city to ash. I wasn’t scared. I liked it."

"I think," Azareel said slowly, his silver eyes meeting hers, "that maybe you were finally fighting back."

She opened her mouth—then closed it again, her golden eyes widening, her tail stilling as his words sank in, a quiet truth piercing her defenses.

Sylvara sat across from him, tucking one leg beneath her, her amber eyes softening as she watched him.

"We didn’t want you to see what we are," she said, her voice a melodic whisper, her flowering hair drooping slightly.

"I already have," he said simply, his smile unwavering. "And I’m still here."

Virelya smirked, walking her fingers up her arm, her golden eyes glinting.

"Careful. Words like that make girls fall for you," she teased, her coils shifting playfully.

"Too late for that," Nyxsha muttered, barely audible, her golden eyes darting away as her cheeks flushed faintly.

Azareel raised an eyebrow, his smile turning curious. "Hmm?"

"Nothing," she snapped, her tail thumping the moss, but the softness in her eyes betrayed her.

Sylvara plucked a berry from the vines, its crimson glow shimmering in her palm, and passed it to him.

"Eat. You’ll need strength. The Abyss rarely lets rest last long," she said, her voice gentle but firm, her amber eyes steady.

Azareel took the fruit, biting into it slowly, the sweetness grounding him again, the earthy tang lingering on his tongue like a memory of life amid ruin.

He glanced at the three women—warriors, monsters, protectors—and smiled, his silver eyes warm with gratitude.

"I don’t care what the Abyss throws next," he said, his voice soft but resolute. "As long as I’m with you."

There was silence—not heavy this time, but warm, the garden’s blooms pulsing brighter as if in agreement, the crimson petals unfurling like a promise of something enduring amid the ash.

________

The garden was quiet, its crimson petals blooming brighter in the hush, casting a warm, ethereal glow that pushed back the Abyss’s encroaching shadows.

The wind had forgotten how to howl, the air still and heavy, as if the Abyss, startled by its own silence, dared not breathe.

Beyond the garden’s edge, nothing moved—no whispers from cracked archways, no shuddering sighs from stone-throated crypts.

Just a stillness thick as dust, the ash-coated ruins of the city lying like a scar under the skyless canopy.

And yet, something else had bloomed in its place.

The garden had grown—not by force, but by presence, Sylvara’s roots moving like breath through the stone, curling into forgotten gaps, pulling warmth from ruin.

Crimson petals opened across the blackened ground, trembling faintly with each pulse of the soil, their glow a defiant whisper of life amid the desolation.

Azareel stood barefoot on the threshold, his toes dusted with ash, the hem of his torn white tunic darkened from kneeling beside the roots.

His linen wraps fluttered in the low breeze, and for the first time since waking, he wasn’t cold, the garden’s warmth seeping into his bones like a memory of sunlight.

"It’s spreading faster," he said softly, his silver-gray eyes, flecked with rain-blue, tracing the vines’ quiet advance.

Sylvara knelt beside him, her vine-laced fingers resting on the moss-covered edge of a crumbled stair, her amber eyes steady.

"The earth here is hungry," she murmured, her voice a melodic hum. "It remembers being bound. Now it’s only waiting to be filled again."

Azareel nodded, his gaze drifting past the garden’s edge, where the light did not reach, to the shadows of the city.

He didn’t ask to go further.

Not yet.

Behind them, Virelya coiled around a crimson tree, half-draped in soft vines, her long pale tail shimmering faintly with runic script—weathered, faded, like prayers forgotten mid-sentence.

"We killed all the noisy neighbors," she murmured, her golden eyes lidded, her porcelain mask glinting faintly.

"Now it’s quiet. A bit too quiet, if you ask me."