CHAPTER 339: OVER THE YEARS

Vaelthor/ Vincent~

That night, as Sylthara clung to me in the reeking shadows of the ruined hall, I felt her small body tremble like a leaf caught in a storm. Her arms were cold, thin from hunger, but her grip on me was desperate, unrelenting. And in that moment, the weight of my vow didn’t just press against me—it carved itself into my bones, molten and unshakable.

The whispers of those demons still echoed through the cracks in the walls, sneering promises of torment. They’d lit a fire inside me, hotter than any pit in this cursed realm. But revenge... revenge wasn’t a sword you swung blindly. It wasn’t rage for rage’s sake. It was patience sharpened to a blade, a shadow that stalked until the perfect moment to strike.

I tilted her chin up just enough to see her eyes—gray, wide, still shimmering with tears she hadn’t let fall.

"Syl," I rasped, my voice raw from dust and fury. "We can’t just run at them like fools. Those names—Natalie, Zane, Cassandra, Sebastian—they aren’t just killers. They rule their world. They walk with crowns while we crawl in chains. Right now, we’re nothing. Scraps. But scraps can grow teeth. And one day, we’ll be more."

She sniffled, rubbing at her dirt-streaked cheek with the back of her trembling hand. "How, Vaelthor? Look around us. This place is rotting us from the inside out. The hunger, the whips, the endless nights—I don’t know how much longer I can keep holding on."

I cupped her face, forcing her gaze to lock with mine. My hands were filthy, bloodied, but steady. "Listen to me. Escaping the Demon Realm isn’t like crawling through a crack in the wall. You need a Void Key, forged from the abyss itself. And only Uncle Krelth holds them. He gives them to his favorites—his lapdogs—the ones he sends to the mortal world to spy, to kill, to bargain in shadows. He’d sooner feed us to the hellhounds than trust us with one."

Her brows knitted, and for a heartbeat, a spark of something darker—something we both inherited—flickered in her eyes. "Then we take it. We steal the key. Right now. We could slip through the shadows, sneak into his chambers—"

I shook my head, and a rough, humorless laugh broke out of me despite the ache in my ribs. "And die before the moon sets? No, Syl. That’s not a plan. Krelth’s palace is wrapped in wards tighter than Shadow’s chains. Guards that don’t sleep. Spells that sniff out betrayal like bloodhounds. Charging in now is just suicide."

Her lip trembled, but I saw defiance warring with fear in her eyes.

"We play the long game," I went on, my voice firm, each word hammered like an oath. "We survive. We grow. I’ll sharpen my shadows until they can swallow armies whole. You’ll weave your nightmares until they shatter minds. And when the moment comes—when the smallest crack appears—we’ll strike. Even if it takes twenty years, Sylthara. We’ll wait."

She bit down on her lip, doubt spilling into her tone. "Twenty years? That’s forever, Vaelthor. What if we don’t make it that far? What if they break us first?"

I pulled her close again, wrapping her against my chest until I could feel the frantic beat of her heart. "Then let them try," I growled into her tangled hair. "We’re still breathing, Syl. That means we’re already winning. They can beat us, starve us, chain us—but they’ll never take this." I pressed her hand against my chest, against the rhythm of my vow. "As long as we have each other, we are stronger than all of them. Promise me you’ll fight with me. Every day. No matter what."

Her breath was shaky, but her voice carried a fragile edge of steel as she whispered into my shoulder, "I promise. For you, always for you."

And in that ruin, beneath the weight of blood and smoke, a fragile pact was sealed.

The years that followed blurred into one long stretch of agony and stubborn survival. Time didn’t feel like days anymore—it was just fire, ash, and the steady grind of being beaten down and forced to rise again. Every sunrise was a test. Every nightfall, a reminder that I was still breathing, still refusing to break.

We existed in the underbelly of the Demon Realm, in places no one sane would willingly go. The slag heaps became our hunting grounds, mountains of ash and shattered steel where broken blades lay forgotten. Among the ruins, we scavenged. Those shards of obsidian—black, jagged, still warm from the fires that had birthed them—were worth more to us than gold. We shaped them with our bloodied hands, carving crude knives, weapons small enough to conceal but sharp enough to spill blood if the moment came. To others they were trash. To us, survival.

When scavenging wasn’t enough, we bent our backs in the forges. That was hell itself. The air there scalded our lungs, thick with smoke and molten iron until every breath felt like it scraped fire down my throat. The clang of hammers was relentless, a grim rhythm that never stopped. Bang. Bang. Bang. It was the heartbeat of that place—cold, merciless, like the toll of a funeral bell.

I carried ore so hot it scorched my skin, muscles tearing under the weight. They healed, then tore again, over and over, until even pain became a dull companion. And through it all, the shadows began to stir. At first, they were only faint—thin ribbons coiling around my fists like smoke, curious, restless. I thought I was imagining them, some trick of exhaustion. But they grew bolder. They lingered. They whispered.

They weren’t just shadows. They were alive.

Every time I bled, they pulsed. Every time I clenched my fists in rage, they tightened, wrapping me in something colder, sharper, more dangerous than my own strength. They were loyal in a way flesh and bone never could be, hungry in a way I couldn’t yet understand. They whispered of freedom, of vengeance, of the day I would stop holding them back and finally let them loose.

And deep down, I knew they were right. That day was coming.

Sylthara found her path elsewhere. She slipped into dreamscapes, the fragile veil where demons laid their heads and their arrogance bare. Nightmares were her weapons, and she wielded them with quiet precision. She’d leave them gibbering, drenched in sweat, clawing at unseen horrors. And then she’d take what she needed—scraps of food, secrets whispered through cracked lips, stolen tomes inked with forbidden runes. She was becoming something terrible, something beautiful.

But misery never left our side. Hunger stalked us like a beast with too many teeth. Our ribs showed, our limbs shook from weakness, and still we endured. The cruelties of Xyra and her brood made sure of that. They haunted our days, turning our torment into entertainment.

"Look at the little stains," Xyra would laugh, her voice shrill as she dragged Sylthara by the hair. Her nails dug into my sister’s scalp, and I’d see red, fighting off her sycophants with nothing but bloody fists and rage. "Still clinging to life? How quaint." Her laughter always stayed with me, burning, feeding the vow I carried like a second heart.

One night, after a raid so reckless we almost didn’t survive—stealing a haunch of hellbeast meat from the kitchens—we hid in a forgotten crypt. The air was thick with rot, and the stone walls wept with damp, but it was shelter. We tore into the greasy flesh like wolves, though every bite tasted of ash and smoke.

Sylthara’s eyes were hollow as she gnawed her share, her voice small, broken. "Vaelthor... do you ever wonder if it’s worth it? Revenge. All this suffering. Mother’s gone. Father’s chained. What if we just... stopped? Found a hole in this realm and hid until it all passed us by?"

The meat turned to poison in my mouth. Her words cut deeper than Xyra’s claws ever could. I had thought them myself, in the dark hours when despair pressed close—but I buried them, smothered them, because weakness was death.

I forced the bitterness down and met her gaze. "Worth it? Syl, they took everything from us. Everything. And we’re still breathing. That means we’ve already won. Look at you—you’re weaving nightmares that could topple kings. And me? My shadows, they don’t just follow anymore—they obey. This isn’t hiding. This is building. And when the time comes—when we hold that Void Key—they’ll wish they had killed us when they had the chance."

Her shoulders slumped, and for a moment she wasn’t the nightmare-weaver, the girl who made demons tremble in their sleep. She was just Sylthara, tired and fragile, leaning against me. Her voice cracked as she whispered, "I just... miss feeling safe. Even for a moment."

I pulled her close, pressing my chin into her hair, the stink of sweat and ash mixing with the faint trace of her. My voice came out low, rough, but fierce. "You will. I swear it. Not here. Not in these chains. But in the mortal world—we’ll be free. No masters. No hounds at our heels."

Ten years passed in that furnace. Ten years of pain shaping us into something new. My body grew, taller, broader, the muscles corded with strength forged in fire and blood. My silver eyes sharpened until I could see the world through every veil and lie the realm tried to cloak itself in. Sylthara changed too—her beauty became cold, edged, the kind that made others shudder when she entered a room. Her nightmares were no longer whispers but storms, breaking minds like brittle glass.

And then, one night, like lightning ripping the abyss open, the chance we’d been waiting for finally struck.