Sixty-Four: Straight Down

The sound of the Broken Sword piercing flesh rang sweet, like a silver bell cleaving velvet.

A fierce thrill surged in Lilith. She didn’t hesitate. She swept her blade through the dark violet vortex at her side and drove it into Eve.

She churned the edge like a storm in a riverbed, widening the wound into a gaping crater.

The black Demon snapped to, like a shadow flinching from lightning.

She was a heartbeat late. As she dragged her body free, the White Dragon jammed the Broken Sword between her ribs like a rusted wedge.

Surprise bloomed inside Lilith, bright as a falling star.

She’d expected only a crippling hit; Eve would cut distance like wind, and the next strike would be a mountain to climb.

Then the Shattered Ark helped, like an old relic waking under dawn.

The Broken Sword had to parry to briefly release its own power.

Lilith had wasted time trembling, like a leaf in cold rain.

So after the blade pushed into Eve’s chest, its glow sank like sunset.

The edge that cut iron like mud turned blunt and mottled, a rusty, rounded Broken Sword.

Wedged in Eve’s ribs, it became a shackle, the best iron clamp on a raging beast.

“Damn it!” Eve’s snarl rolled like thunder in a sealed cave.

The Demon tried to yank the Broken Sword free, but the stubborn metal wouldn’t budge from her ribs.

They locked eyes across the swirling vortex, two predators stalled at a river’s brink.

With Eve pinned, a clear chill of opportunity opened like a door in winter.

It was time for Lilith’s killing blow.

Lilith gripped the Broken Sword with her right hand.

She lifted her pale left, shut her eyes, and let the memory flood back—first realizing she’d become a dragon, a tide of awe mixed with fear.

White scales crawled up her left hand like frost spreading over glass.

Her slender fingers thickened like roots, nails stretched, then hardened into ivory cones.

They gleamed as keen as ice, hanging from the scaled paw of a little White Dragon, proud and terrible.

She kept it to her hand and half her forearm, a dam on a rising sea.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t go deeper; deeper dragonform would unseal other powers like doors swinging to a storm.

Ash-gray specks already stained the back of her hand, grim as soot on snow.

Lilith glanced at them, a worry pricking like thorns.

She wouldn’t turn this place into a wasteland by carelessness; this much was enough, a bridle on a wildfire.

The Black Swordsman rose at the White Dragon’s flank like a shadow twin.

Blade in hand, he and the raised left claw aimed at the Demon pinned to the spot.

Lilith beat her wings once, and dove like a hawk toward prey.

“Hey!” Her cry cracked like a pebble on ice.

Her left claw speared for Eve’s chest, ready to yank the Demon’s heart out like a crimson fruit.

The Black Swordsman’s edge angled for Eve’s skull, another vital target cold as a headsman’s verdict.

Could Eve, pinned by Lilith’s Broken Sword, dodge both storms at once?

No. She stood still, a black statue in the gale, watching the rusty blade and dragon claw fall like twin meteors.

But did she truly do nothing?

The swordsman’s edge kissed Eve’s skin before the claw, a whisper before a scream.

Lilith saw the rusty blade tear flesh and the blood explode, red as paint poured from a jar.

In midair it gathered into a dark crimson card, a sigil shaped by a spilled sea.

Then she saw the Demon named Eve smile, a crescent moon carved in shadow.

“Bad,” flared Lilith’s heart, alarms ringing like bells under storm.

The aura rolling off Eve spiked by degrees, a tide heaving against cliffs.

Lilith paused for a blink under that weight, but she still brought her claw down.

Even with Eve’s presence surging, Lilith stuck to the plan like a blade to oath.

Her claw didn’t catch the heart as she’d pictured in a blazing instant.

A black hand closed around her wrist like night clamping iron.

Lilith looked up in shock, breath snagging like a fish on a line.

Eve had slipped the Broken Sword.

The dark violet vortex she carried had shattered at some unknown moment, like glass drowned in ink.

The dim Broken Sword lay in Lilith’s hand like a dead star.

Cracks spidered across the blade of the Shattered Ark, stark as scars.

“Huh?” was all the little dragon managed, a small sound on cold air.

Then there was no time left for words.

Black letters in Ancient Draconic crawled over the curtain of blood, like worms in wet clay.

Twisted, sodden script leapt the air and etched itself into Lilith’s mind, a brand on soft wax.

“What a dreadful Night of Curses.”

That was the last frame in Lilith’s consciousness, a candle snuffed by a gust.

She felt herself flung away, a leaf torn free by a gale.

Half her body turned numb, cold as stone in snow.

The Black Swordsman vanished beside her like smoke.

In his place stood the towering Knight-Captain, a wall raised in a flood.

When Lilith turned, shock pricked her—his shield was missing half, a broken moon.

Her head swam, fog thick as river mist.

Then it clicked: Eve had swatted her away again, a hammer to a nail.

The Knight-Captain had appeared at the last heartbeat and took most of the force, an oak between her and the storm.

But why did her body hurt so much, knives under skin like a nest of thorns?

She couldn’t solve it now. She just knew she couldn’t keep flying backward like chaff in wind.

Lilith beat her wings to slow the fall, a moth fighting a tempest.

Her left wing didn’t answer, dead as a cut cord.

She turned.

The white membrane wasn’t there.

Only half a bloody wing-root remained on her back, a torn branch weeping sap, and the pain she’d tried to ignore stabbed like a hot brand.

Lilith’s breath hitched for a heartbeat, caught like a thread.

She stared blankly, and with one half-wing she bled off speed, drifting down like a feather to the dark violet platform’s edge.

She looked to the blurred black figure not far away.

In Eve’s hand gleamed a silver-white framework, frost bones under night.

It was her wing.

Pain hadn’t even arrived; shock held it outside like a wolf at the door.

Eve moved again, an arrow loosed—too fast.

Lilith’s mind only had time for a single thought.

Eve was already in her face with a long blade, a lightning stroke.

No room to dodge; she raised the Broken Sword on instinct, a shield against a wave.

The Shattered Ark’s broad blade caught Eve’s sweeping cut, an anvil against steel.

The dim Broken Sword flared pink again, a cherry blossom in ash.

Lilith tightened her grip, ready to bat the attack away and strike back—when suddenly—

The blade shattered.

“Eh?”

The Broken Sword in her hand burst into shards, glass rain in a storm.

Eve’s keen long blade slid past the wreck of the Shattered Ark and carved Lilith’s soft belly, a cold moon scythe through silk.

Eve didn’t settle for one stroke.

She thrust at the fresh wound, a snake biting the same place twice.

Her keen blade slammed into Lilith’s blue-and-white cape.

Freshly charged, the cape blazed with pure holy light, a dawn shield that took the hit for her.

But the cape couldn’t swallow the impact’s weight.

Lilith stumbled back under Eve’s cut, pebbles kicked to the brink.

She was already at the edge, nowhere to retreat.

Her foot slipped, and she fell from the platform, plunging straight down into the dark.