The chapel's back wall dissolved at Vladmir's touch — bricks shifting like obedient insects, revealing a hidden spiral stairwell that descended deep into the ground.
Torches lit themselves. The air grew colder. Denser.
Ramiel entered first. Vladmir followed beside him while Alec.Then the shadows swallowed the chapel's last light.
"You look tired," Vladmir finally said.
"I am," Ramiel replied. "But not enough to die."
"I also thought they would come for you"
Ramiel looked over. "Didn't they?"
Vladmir smiled faintly. "Hell thrives on Power balance, They didn't want to face Eloyn's attention"
They reached the bottom.
The vault was a hexagonal chamber carved from obsidian and veined with pale gold. It looked like it wasn't locked but an average supernatural knew otherwise. Whatever resided here did not want to be taken — and did not expect to be needed.
In the center hovered a glass prism suspended in air, humming softly. Inside it floated something alive:
A single droplet of light, flickering like a dying star.
Alec stood at the threshold, his breath shallow. Even from there, he felt it: sadness, awe, heat, and something else—
Loneliness.
Ramiel approached slowly.
"This is the last one," Vladmir said behind him. "The others... dissolved with the fall. I kept this because I didn't know what it was. Only that it was formed when you die..... was sealed."
Ramiel placed a hand over the prism. The glass did not resist — it melted away, absorbing into his skin like smoke.
The Memory-Tear hovered before him, pulsing.
Vladmir spoke gently. "Once you touch it, it becomes yours again. Whatever's inside... you'll remember it as if it never left."
Ramiel said nothing.
He reached forward — fingers brushing the droplet — and it vanished into his palm.
A shudder rippled through his body.
His eyes closed.
[Flash Memory — Fragmented]
A silver palace beneath two moons.
Laughter. Djinn children racing beneath crimson-leafed trees.
A woman made of light, touching his cheek — "Ramiel, they sing your name in Heaven and below."
Fire. Screams. Ash falling like snow.
A horned figure ripping through the palace doors.
Ramiel reaching for a child —
—and losing him to a demon.
[Return]
Ramiel staggered. Alec reached out, but didn't touch.
Vladmir steadied him by the shoulder.
"You saw it."
Ramiel nodded once, jaw clenched.
"I remember... everything" he said softly.
Then his eyes lit gold, alive again.
"And I remember what they took."
Vladmir met his gaze. "Then you're ready."
Ramiel exhaled slowly, like a man learning to breathe with lungs made of fire.
"I'm going to Shrak."
"Is it wise?" Vladmir asked.
"No," Ramiel said. "But it's time."
He turned. Alec fell into step beside him, silent.
They stepped out into the cold night.
Rain had thinned, but the fog was thicker now — curling low along the ground like coiled breath. The bus that brought them was gone. The fields stretched silent in every direction.
Then—
A sound. Too precise to be wind.
Click.
Ramiel stopped.
Figures emerged from the mist — five of them, armor-clad, bearing etched rifles and iron stakes. Their insignia was not the Council's. This was Ashborne Order — a militant splinter sect that viewed Djinn as volatile relics of an age better buried.
"Ramiel of Shrak," one of them said. "By decree of the Ashborne Accords, you are to be detained. Surrender now."
Alec shifted behind Ramiel.
Ramiel sighed, selfish bastards.
"I'm tired of being summoned. Who's next? The cherubim?"
The lead hunter raised a weapon. "Last warning—"
But the shadow behind Ramiel moved.
Vladmir appeared at his side — noiseless, sharp. His eyes glowed red in the fog. He didn't look at the hunters. He looked at Ramiel.
"Go," Vladmir said. "They're not yours."
With that he placed a hand on Alec's shoulder, and the boy felt the heat of portal magic stir in the air.
The hunter shouted — "Engage!"
Too slow.
Vladmir vanished.
Then one of the hunters screamed — his throat blooming red, dropped before he even fell. Another spun, weapon gone. A third convulsed, spine cracked sideways.
Fangs. Silence. Speed like thought.
By the time Ramiel and Alec stepped through the portal, the fourth hunter was alone — frozen — weapon shaking. Vladmir stood behind him, whispering something only he would ever hear.
And then—
Darkness.