Chapter 44 Brother's Keeper
MIREYA'S POV
The blade bites into my throat—not deep enough to kill, just enough to promise death.
Cain's grip is iron around my waist, his breath hot against my ear. "Don't struggle, little witch. I'd hate to accidentally slit your throat before I claim you properly."
Through our dying bond, I feel Azraeth's anguish like physical pain.
"Let her go, Cain," he gasps, trying to stand despite his body shutting down. "This is between us."
"Is it?" Cain laughs, and the sound is Azraeth's voice twisted into something cruel. "You stole everything from me, little brother. Father's love. The throne. Even Morwenna looked at you with more respect than she ever showed me. So I made sure you'd lose it all—helped the angels imprison you, watched you suffer for five centuries. And now?" He presses the blade harder, making me whimper. "Now I'll take this one too. Your bonded mate. Your salvation. I'll claim her the moment your curse completes."
"You can't," Seraphina says, surprisingly. "The soul bond only forms between true counterparts—"
"Oh, but it can be transferred." Cain's smile is poisonous. "If the original bond-holder dies before completion, and if someone of the same bloodline is present at the moment of death, the bond can be... redirected. Demons figured that out millennia ago. We just never had reason to use it."
Horror floods through me. He's not lying. Through the bond, I feel Azraeth's recognition—this is real demon lore, ancient and terrible.
"So here's my offer," Cain continues. "Die peacefully, brother. Let the curse take you quietly. And I'll keep your little witch alive—as mine. Or fight me with your last breath, and I'll kill her just to watch you die knowing you failed."
The prison shakes harder. The Old Gods are rising, tearing through reality itself.
We're out of time.
Azraeth meets my eyes across the chaos. Through our bond—weak and fading—I feel everything he wants to say. Every regret. Every wish for more time.
Every word of love he never got to speak.
"I'm sorry," he whispers.
Then he closes his eyes and stops fighting.
The curse surges forward, devouring him.
"NO!" I scream, pulling against Cain's grip. "Azraeth, don't you dare give up!"
But he's already going gray, his form flickering like a candle in wind. The bond between us stretches thinner, thinner—
And snaps.
The pain is indescribable. Like someone ripped my soul in half.
I feel the exact moment Azraeth dies. Feel his presence vanish from the space in my mind where he's lived for weeks. Feel the horrible, crushing emptiness that's left behind.
"Perfect," Cain breathes. His hand covers my chest, over the soul mark. "Now, little witch, let's see if the transfer works—"
Power explodes from my body.
Not demon power. Something else. Something that's been sleeping inside me since birth, waiting for this exact moment.
The soul mark on my chest doesn't fade with Azraeth's death. Instead, it blazes brighter, burning through the angel chains like paper. Pure chaos magic erupts from the mark—wild, uncontrollable, ancient.
Cain screams and stumbles backward, his hand smoking where he touched me.
I collapse to my knees, power pouring from my body in waves. The prison cell disintegrates around us. Angels flee. Witches scatter.
And through the chaos, I hear a voice—not in my ears, but in my soul.
"Twice born, twice bound, the chaos child will shatter the crown of false light."
Morwenna's prophecy. But it's not Morwenna speaking.
It's me.
My past life's memories crash through me all at once. I remember everything—being Morwenna, loving Azraeth, casting the curse to save him from himself, dying in his arms, choosing to be reborn specifically for this moment.
I remember planning all of it.
The curse wasn't meant to control Azraeth. It was meant to protect him until I could return strong enough to finish what we started.
And now, with his death, the final seal breaks.
Not on the Old Gods.
On me.
The chaos power inside me—suppressed by my mother, locked away by Morwenna herself—explodes free. My eyes burn gold. My skin cracks with black lightning. Wings unfold from my back, larger than Azraeth's ever were, made of pure shadow and starlight.
I rise into the air, lifted by power I don't fully understand.
"Impossible," Raphael breathes. "The prophecy said demon-bonded, but you're—"
"Not demon-bonded anymore," I finish, my voice layered with ancient harmonics. "I'm something else. Something Morwenna created specifically to end your tyranny."
I look down at Azraeth's body, lying still on the broken floor.
The bond is gone. He's gone.
But the power he gave me—the weeks of training, the partial bond, the love that changed us both—remains.
"You wanted the chaos child?" I say to the angels, to the witches, to the Old Gods still clawing their way into this world. "Here I am."
I raise my hands, and reality bends.
The Old Gods freeze mid-rise, their forms locked in place by magic they don't understand.
"I am Mireya Ashcroft," I declare. "Morwenna reborn. Keeper of truths. And I'm done hiding what I am."
The power builds, ready to shatter everything.
But then Cain laughs.
"Impressive display, little witch. But you made one mistake." He kneels beside Azraeth's body. "You assume he's actually dead."
My heart stops.
"Demon kings don't die from curses," Cain continues, pulling out a vial of black liquid. "They go dormant. Waiting. And if someone knows the right ritual—" He pours the liquid over Azraeth's chest. "They can be brought back. Changed. Reshaped. Made into something better."
Azraeth's body convulses.
His eyes snap open—but they're not gold anymore.
They're black. Completely black. Empty.
"Meet my brother," Cain says proudly. "Version 2.0. All the power, none of the annoying conscience or love for traitorous witches."
Azraeth rises like a puppet on strings, his movements wrong, his face blank.
He looks at me with those dead black eyes.
And doesn't recognize me at all.