đ Mikhael's Arc â The Price of Failure
The pain was unbearable.Not physical âhe had already made peace with thatâ but something deeper.Ancestral.As if his very blood wanted him gone.As if the lineage he had once served with devotion now cursed his name.
Mikhael gasped in the darkness of his underground chamber.His body was wrapped in bandages, but they were useless:black veins of rejection spread like rotting roots across his chest, pulsing with every heartbeat.
The bond with Arisha hadn't broken because of betrayal.It had broken because of love.Because of choice.And ancient magic does not forgive those who choose the heart over duty.
A tremor shook the refuge.Not an explosion.A presence.Someone had found him.
The figure moved through the shadows âsilent, inescapable, like judgment itself.Clad in a dark cloak, face hidden behind a white mask.When they finally spoke, their voice was a blade:
â"You've grown weak, Mikhael. All for a human."
Mikhael struggled to stand, staggering.His fevered, bloodshot eyes recognized the voice before his mind did.
â"You came to kill me?"
The figure lowered the mask slightly.The face underneath was a ghost from the past.One that should have been dead.
â"No. I came to remind you of what you did."
Flashback: The Nevri Clan Massacre
The night burned red.Mikhael walked among charred bodies and screams that hadn't yet faded.His boots soaked in blood.His shadow longer than ever.
A wounded child cried among the rubble.Alone.Mikhael looked at him. Then up at the tower, where the ritual had begun.And he turned away.
â"You didn't stop it," the figure said. "You could've saved him. You could've saved all of them."
â"It wasn't my war!" Mikhael shouted, slamming his fist against the wall.But they both knew he was lying.
It was his war.He just chose not to fight.Because back thenâŠHe was still just a boy.
đŻ Present
He blinked. For a moment, the chamber walls were bleeding.The bandages unraveledâŠThey weren't bandages.They were black serpents, devouring him, whispering the names of all those he failed to save.
â"You cannot escape your legacy," whispered a voice that sounded like Arisha."I am what you destroyed."
He reached for her.But her image vanished like ash on the wind.Only silence remained.And one final echo:
"When blood rejects you⊠even gods fall."
Mikhael dropped to his knees.For the first time, he wasn't afraid for himself.He was afraid for her.
â"If Arisha finds out the truthâŠ"
â"Then the Nevri bloodline won't be reborn," said the figure, already turning away."It'll burn."
Fragment from the Past: The Promise
â"Promise me you'll always tell the truth," young Arisha had asked.They sat on a rooftop, under a starless sky.She looked at him with eyes full of hope.
He, without his mask, was just a tired boy with stained hands.â"I promise," he said, not knowing it was a lie."As long as you live."
She smiled.Innocent. Eternal.And now, in the present, those words were ash between his teeth.
Mikhael stayed kneeling, head bowed, breathing like every breath hurt.She didn't remember Baco.She didn't know what she had lost.And in that absence⊠he saw an opportunity.
â"If she can't love what she's forgottenâŠ" he whispered, voice cracking,"maybe she can still love what remains."
But deep down, he knew:any love built on lies would become a prison.
Still, he stood.Not for redemption.But for necessity.
If she came searching for himâŠThen he would become the only truth she remembered.Even if it meant destroying what little was left of himself to do it.