Chapter 166 ATTEMPTED SACRIFICE
The blade moves before I finish inhaling.
Kael does not hesitate.
There is no theatrical pause, no dramatic declaration. He steps forward and strikes with clean, trained efficiency, aiming not wildly but precisely angled for the space just below my ribs where a single, decisive thrust would end it quickly.
He means it to be fast.
He means it to hurt as little as possible.
Damien moves at the exact same moment.
Shadow erupts from him, everything condensing into violent density around his arm as he slams into Kael’s shoulder mid-strike.
Steel meets Shadow.
The impact detonates outward in a brutal shockwave that fractures the already-split earth beneath us. I am thrown backward several feet, my spine hitting the ground hard enough that my vision whites out for a second.
The blade never reaches me.
Kael and Damien crash into each other instead.
Shadow and celestial force collide in a way that is not balanced or graceful. It is unstable. It feels wrong, like two incompatible elements forced into the same vessel.
The ground caves inward under their combined weight and power.
For a moment, I cannot breathe.
Kael regains his footing first, dragging the blade free from the lock of Shadow that had wrapped around it. Damien is already back on him, shoving him backward with a roar that is more animal than human.
“You do not get to decide she dies!” Damien shouts.
“I am not deciding!” Kael fires back, blocking another strike. “She is!”
He pivots, redirecting Damien’s momentum, trying to break free again.
Damien slams his forearm across Kael’s throat and drives him into a cracked stone pillar. The structure splits under the force.
“You said you would carry it,” Damien says through clenched teeth. “So carry this.”
He punches him again.
Kael absorbs it, blood spilling fresh from his mouth, but he does not lash out with the unfamiliar power I know he carries. He is fighting almost entirely with physical strength, refusing to escalate this beyond control.
“I would rather you hate me,” Kael says, straining under Damien’s grip, “than watch the world burn.”
The words are not shouted.
They are forced out between breaths.
Another crack splits the earth beneath them as Shadow surges again, reacting to Damien’s rising fury.
The Blood Moon above us pulses.
Once.
Deep red.
The pulse rolls through the battlefield like a heartbeat.
The Moonfire inside me answers it.
The ground trembles.
They separate violently as the tremor forces space between them. Kael uses that opening. He turns back toward me again.
Every movement he makes now is directed at completing what he started.
My chest feels hollow.
I push myself upright, knees shaking, and force the Moonfire inward. If I let it erupt uncontrolled now, it will take both of them.
“Stop,” I say, but my voice is raw.
Neither of them listens.
Kael closes the distance again.
Damien intercepts again.
Shadow and the celestial current that trails Kael’s resurrection strike each other head-on. The explosion is blinding. The air itself compresses. I feel pressure slam into my eardrums and then release with a ringing whine.
They are thrown apart in opposite directions.
Kael hits the ground hard and rolls, but he does not drop the blade.
Damien lands on one knee, Shadow flickering erratically around him now, less controlled, more reactive.
I realize something with a cold clarity.
Kael rises slowly.
His gaze finds mine again.
There is blood in his eye now, streaking down his cheek. His breathing is heavier than before. One of his ribs is likely cracked from the earlier impact.
He looks at me like he is memorizing my face.
“I am sorry,” he says.
It is the first time his voice breaks.
Damien hears it too.
“You do not get to apologize for murdering her,” Damien says hoarsely.
Kael’s grip tightens around the hilt.
“If this works,” he says to me quietly, ignoring Damien entirely now, “it will be immediate. The correction will collapse inward. The Moonfire will extinguish.”
“And if you are wrong?” I ask.
He does not answer that.
That silence is worse than any declaration.
Damien lunges again.
This time he does not aim to restrain.
He aims to end it.
Shadow condenses into something dense and edged along his arm, and he drives it straight toward Kael’s center mass.
Kael pivots at the last possible second, letting the strike glance along his side instead of piercing through. Fabric tears. Blood sprays.
He counters but not at Damien’s throat or heart rather, at his shoulder, a disabling strike meant to slow him.
They are not fighting like gods.
They are fighting like men who know exactly how to dismantle each other.
The Moonfire begins to rise in response to the escalating violence.
I can feel it climbing my spine.
Stop, I think. Please.
But the Blood Moon pulses again.
Stronger.
Approval.
The pulse sinks into my bones.
The fire surges higher.
Kael sees it.
His eyes flick upward briefly, then back to me.
“It’s responding,” he says.
Damien hears that too.
His expression shifts.
“If you die now,” Damien says, voice low, dangerous, “it will not end.”
Kael hesitates.
Just enough.
Damien uses that hesitation to slam into him again, driving him flat onto his back. The blade skids several feet away across the fractured ground.
They grapple bare-handed now.
Punches. Elbows. Fingers digging into torn fabric and flesh.
“I will not let you decide she is expendable!” Damien roars.
“I am trying to stop extinction!” Kael snaps back.
They roll dangerously close to the blade.
I move without thinking.
I step between them.
The Moonfire flares sharply, forcing both of them back several feet in opposite directions.
The heat is unbearable now. My skin feels too tight, like it might split.
“Enough,” I say.
They freeze.
The Blood Moon pulses again.
Harder.
The pulse slams into my chest like a second heartbeat.
Kael pushes himself up slowly.
Damien rises too, Shadow coiling defensively.
Kael looks at the blade on the ground.
Then at me.
He understands something in that instant that I do not fully grasp yet.
The sky approved the attempt.
Not the outcome.
The attempt.
His jaw tightens.
He steps toward the blade again.
Damien shifts immediately to block him.
And above us the Blood Moon pulses in unmistakable approval.