Chapter 32: Ambush
The chill that had settled in Liana’s bones from the brownstone didn’t leave. It walked with them, a silent third companion as she and Elmsire navigated the shadowy grid of Old Town back towards the brighter, living arteries of the city. The vision of her parents—her real parents, an Aasimar and a Nephilim—played on a loop behind her eyes. The weight of what Elmsire had said after, that she might be the only way to stop some coming “storm,” felt less like a mantle and more like a coffin lid.
“You’re quiet,” Elmsire said, his voice a low rasp against the distant hum of the ‘L’ train. He kept glancing at her, not with his usual academic curiosity, but with a watchfulness that set her teeth on edge.
“Just processing the fact that my entire life is a biographical error,” she muttered, shoving her hands deeper into her coat pockets. The golden warmth that had flared in the brownstone was gone, leaving only a dull, resonant ache in her sternum, like a bell that had been struck too hard.
“It’s not an error. It’s a strategic omission.” He paused under the flickering halo of a streetlight, his sharp features carved from worry. “The power you exhibited… it was pure. Potent. A direct celestial lineage. But…”
“But what?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he tilted his head, studying the space around her, his eyes glazing slightly with a practitioner’s sight. “Your aura. In the brownstone, it was a dawn light. Now, it’s… clouded. Faint crimson streaks at the edges. Like smoke in a sunset.”
Liana’s heart gave a hard, painful thump. Matthias. The dream-visits, the wine-dark shadows he taught her to gather, the thrilling, illicit feeling of that other, cooler power. She’d thought it was hidden. A secret between her and the darkness behind her eyelids.
“It’s probably just residue from the vision,” she said, too quickly. “All that… void energy, or whatever it was.”
“Perhaps.” Elmsire’s tone said he didn’t believe it. They started walking again, crossing into the brighter, cleaner canyons near the Water Tower. The historic stone structure stood there, quaint and stubborn amidst the glass towers, its red paint looking black in the night. The so-called ‘seat of the Municipal Concordat.’ It felt like a taunt.
That’s when the air ripped.
It wasn’t a sound so much as a sickening tear, a palpable wrongness that vibrated through their teeth. From the alley mouth beside the old pumping station, the darkness didn’t just move—it convulsed. Shadows detached themselves, not becoming solid, but refusing light, forming into sleek, low-slung shapes that moved with a insectile skittering. They had too many joints, and their eyes were pinpricks of absolute void, the same chilling absence Liana had seen beyond the Veil in her vision.
“Gods below,” Elmsire spat, already moving. He thrust Liana behind him, his hands weaving a complex pattern in the air. A shimmering ward, like heated asphalt, erupted from the pavement between them and the creatures.
The first thing hit it and screeched, a sound that was less noise and more a sudden, violent pressure in the sinuses. The ward held, but cracked, spider-webbing with lines of nullity.
“They’re drawn to you!” Elmsire yelled over the horrific screeching. “To the celestial signature! You’re a beacon!”
Panic, cold and efficient, shot through Liana. This wasn’t the controlled, theoretical danger of a book. This was teeth and void and death. One of the creatures flowed around the edge of the cracking ward, a blur of anti-light. Instinct took over—not Elmsire’s careful, formulaic magic, but something older and more visceral. She didn’t think. She rejected.
She shoved her hands out, not with a learned gesture, but with the same motion she’d use to stop a charging patient. A pulse of pure, gold-white force, hot as a solar flare, erupted from her palms. It caught the creature mid-leap and vaporized it into wishes of dissipating shadow and a smell like ozone and burnt hair.
The other two recoiled, hissing.
Elmsire seized the moment. He spoke a single, guttural word that hurt Liana’s ears to hear. The remaining ward detonated outwards in a concussive ring of force, shredding the creatures into nothingness.
Silence rushed back in, broken only by the ragged sound of their breathing and the oblivious traffic a block over. The whole fight had lasted ten seconds.
Elmsire was panting, a fine sweat on his brow. He turned to Liana, his eyes wide, but not with praise. With alarm. He stared at her hands, which still glowed faintly, the golden light now unmistakably threaded with fine, swirling veins of deep, wine-red.
“That,” he gasped, pointing a trembling finger at the crimson streaks slowly fading in her aura. “That is not celestial. That is not from my books. That is not from Sera’s defensive wards.” He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a desperate, urgent whisper. “Liana. Look at me. Has someone else been training you? Have you been reading anything else? Anything?”
The lie formed on her lips, smooth and heavy. She saw Matthias’s smile in her mind, felt the cool, empowering brush of his dream-shadow against her own. It had felt like a secret strength. Now, under Elmsire’s terrified gaze, it felt like a brand.
“No,” she said, forcing her eyes to meet his. She shook her head, pushing down the guilt. “No one. Just the stuff you gave me. It must be… a side effect. From the brownstone. From learning what I am.”
She saw the conflict in his face—the trust warring with the evidence of his own sight. He wanted to believe her. He needed to believe her, because the alternative—that something infernal or abyssal had already marked his celestial hope—was too devastating.
“It can’t be,” he murmured, more to himself than to her. He reached out as if to touch the fading aura, then pulled his hand back. “The corruption shouldn’t be able to touch a pure lineage so quickly unless… unless it was invited.” His eyes locked on hers again, searching for a crack in her story.
Liana held firm, her nurse’s face, the one she used to deliver terrible news with calm compassion, perfectly in place. “I’m just tired, Elmsire. It was a lot. The vision, those… things.”
He stared at her for a long, silent moment. Finally, he sighed, the tension bleeding from his shoulders into weary defeat. “Alright. Alright. Get home. Don’t take the ‘L’. Take a cab. I have… I have to report this breach to the Concordat. They’ll be patrolling tonight.” He looked at the Water Tower, its windows dark. “Things are worsening faster than I feared.”
He flagged down a taxi for her, his movements stiff with worry. As she slid into the backseat, he leaned in. “Rest. And be careful, Liana. The mind is vulnerable after shocks like these. Not all visitations are benevolent.”
The door shut, sealing her in silence. She gave her address to the driver and slumped against the window, watching the city blur past. Her hands shook in her lap. The echo of the golden-crimson power still thrummed in her veins, a confusing, addictive cocktail of light and dark.
Elmsire knew she was lying. He knew.
And as the taxi carried her away from the old stone sentinel, the only thing clearer than her mentor’s fear was the memory of Matthias’s voice, smooth as shadow, whispering in her dreamscape just last night: “They will try to cage your light, Liana. They always do. I can show you how to be free.”
She closed her eyes. The ache in her sternum was back. But now, it wasn’t just the echo of a celestial bell.
It was the hook of a lie, and the terrifying, thrilling pull of something else.