Chapter 75 The Sister of Nature
The doorway hummed with a faint, pulsing glow. Runes carved into the walls breathed in and out like living things, and in the center of it all stood Dorcas. Her long hair lifted gently, stirred by the restless magic swirling through the room. The look on her face wasn’t surprise it was something older, sharper. A quiet ache carved by centuries of watching the same wounds reopen between the people she loved.
Michael inhaled slowly, as if every breath cost him effort.
A tired smirk pulled at one corner of his mouth. “You arrived at the right time.”
Dorcas folded her arms, her gaze sweeping over him. “It’s been many centuries, brother. Why do you look… worn?”
The light teasing in her voice didn’t disguise the way her eyes tightened, narrowing with worry the moment he shifted his weight.
She stepped inside. The air curled around her ankles in small spirals, responding to her presence like old roots unfurling toward sunlight. Her footsteps made no sound on the floorboards; the house itself seemed to make room for her. When she sank onto the sofa, the cushions dipped with a soft sigh, almost grateful.
Michael sat rigid in the glowing circle carved into the floor. The light around him pulsed unevenly, flickering whenever his focus faltered. His shoulders rose and fell in tight, controlled breaths. Dorcas watched the tremor in his fingers barely there, but enough for her to notice.
“Do you need help?” she asked softly. “I can give you some of my energy.”
Michael didn’t look up. “No, sister. Save your strength. How did you even know I was here?”
Dorcas plucked an apple from the table and turned it between her palms, her fingertips sinking into the cool, smooth skin. “I was at a coffee shop,” she said, taking a slow bite. Juice ran down her thumb; she wiped it absently on her sleeve. “Enjoying tea. Then the sky cracked open with thunder so heavy the windows shook.”
She lifted the apple in a small gesture toward him. “That kind of storm doesn’t belong to nature. It belongs to you.”
Her eyes softened, studying him the way someone studies an injured animal careful, concerned, afraid to push too hard.
“Your anger was all over it, brother. So I followed it.”
Michael exhaled sharply, the kind of breath meant to steady a fraying temper.
Dorcas let her gaze wander. Shelves lined with mortal trinkets. A book left open on the armchair. A blanket folded with almost human neatness. This place didn’t carry his energy it carried resignation.
“Why are you living on Earth?” she asked, voice low. “You never cared for humans. You never stayed long enough to even pretend you did.” Her eyes flicked back to him. “You deliver Father’s messages, you fight His wars… but now you have a house?”
She placed the half-eaten apple on the table with a soft thud. “In a forest? Alone?”
“I’m busy, Dorcas,” Michael said, dragging the words out through clenched teeth. “I’m trying to restore myself my power. I’m purifying my staff. It was defiled.”
She lifted a brow slowly, thoughtfully. “By who?”
The answer came before Michael spoke.
Lightning slithered up his arms like living chains, cracking through the air with a sharp snap. The runes on the floor shuddered, dimming and flaring, dimming again.
Michael rose from the circle, the glow surrounding him swelling like a breath held too long. His eyes burned with a cold brightness, cutting through the dim room.
“Lucifer,” he said, the name scraping through the air. “He tainted my staff with his blood. And the blood of Hemilune.”
Dorcas’ laugh was short, incredulous. “Of course. You and Lucifer again.”
She shook her head, strands of hair drifting with the motion. “You two have been fighting since the dawn. You’re brothers, Michael.”
“He is darkness,” Michael growled. “I am light.”
Dorcas leaned back into the sofa, rubbing her thumb over the apple’s bite mark as if grounding herself on something simple, something mortal. Her expression softened into something sadder, older than the galaxies that birthed them.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she murmured. “Why are you here, brother? Why stay among humans you cannot stand?”
She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, her eyes locking on his. There was no teasing now. No veil.
“And don’t tell me what the Prince of Light whispered is true that you lost your power. That Father punished you. That you stabbed Lucifer and this” she gestured around the room “is the consequence.”
Michael’s patience thinned until it snapped like a thread pulled too tight. The runes along the wall pulsed harder, reacting to the shift inside him.
“Are you here to greet me,” he said, his voice dropping to a colder register, “or to pass judgment?”
Dorcas didn’t flinch. A soft, unhurried smile curved her lips the kind that soothed storms and coaxed trees into bloom. “I bring peace, brother. That is my nature.” Her fingers brushed the arm of the sofa, and a tired plant beside it straightened subtly, as if touched by spring. “Challenging the mighty Michael?” She let out a quiet, airy laugh. “No. That was never my purpose.”
The corner of Michael’s mouth twitched upward not in amusement, but in calculation. He watched her the way a strategist watches a piece on the board finally land where he needs it. Dorcas, with her gentle hands and ancient patience… Dorcas, who spent centuries stitching harmony between beings who only knew how to tear it apart. Dorcas, whom Lucifer fearsome, arrogant Lucifer treated like a rare flower he could never bring himself to crush.
She was the one person Lucifer had never built a wall against.
And that made her valuable.
Michael rose from the glowing circle. The air crackled at the movement, thin ribbons of lightning spiraling up his arms like living threads eager to taste destruction. His gaze locked onto hers steady, unwavering.
“I want you” his voice sharpened“to help me destroy Lucifer.”
Dorcas went still, so still the entire room felt as though it paused with her.
The half-eaten apple on the table tilted, then rolled an inch across the wood, bumping softly against a glass. Magic in the walls dimmed, as if drawing back in disbelief.
“Michael…” Her whisper barely stirred the air.
The shock widening her eyes wasn’t rooted in fear. It was rooted in heartbreak an ancient ache of someone asked to break her own balance, someone forced to stand between light and shadow and choose which brother she must lose.