"You wanna play with magic!?" a young girl of about sixteen years growled while walking towards Zeal.
The air around her plunged into sudden cold as she raised her palms. And in that instant, her skin paled, mist curling over her body like snow born from nothing, yet the true magic had not revealed itself.
At first, it was subtle, a shimmer in the air like frost catching moonlight. Then came the sound of a crystalline whisper, delicate and sharp, as if the wind itself had begun to freeze mid-breath.
From the center of each palm, a single pixel of ice blinked into existence, no larger than a grain of sand, but impossibly bright that pulsed with ancient energy.
They multiplied, spiraling outward in fractal patterns with each shard locking into the next with mechanical precision. Thin veins of frost raced up her forearms, glowing faintly blue beneath her skin like rivers of magic, reflecting the moonlight somewhere deep in the silent forest.
The snow around her feet lifted, swirling in a slow cyclone, drawn into the forming weapons as the spears began to take shape.
"I am your witch. You will obey every word I speak." Her voice cut the air as she stepped toward Zeal.
Zeal was frightened as he staggered back, the cold biting through his clothes, through his skin, and through the marrow like the silent spells of a Grim Reaper.
He retreated, frost splitting the earth at his feet, ice snapping at his heels like a predator. But soon his escape ended when a strange cabin wall pressed hard against his back, seemingly appearing out of nowhere.
"Huh..." Zeal found himself chuckling as he looked at Irine in disbelief.
This was supposed to be their night.
A night carved from the bones of old grudges, where witches and warlocks stood shoulder to shoulder with the beasts they once feared.
Not to cast spells. Not to summon storms, but to learn how not to destroy each other.
Seventeen years of uneasy peace had led to this camp, this fragile experiment in coexistence of vampires, werewolves and witches.
And tonight, after a year of silence, restraint, and watching their kind walk tightropes over buried rage, they were meant to celebrate.
Mostly, Zeal, and Irine.
Their witch-warlock bond. Sacred. Rare. A tether spun from trust and chosen fate, like a mate among werewolves.
A vow that said: I see you. I stand with you. I will not turn away. But she just couldn't keep the promise anymore.
She had been fooling around with Derek, the liquid alpha of the Silver Moon Pack. And when Zeal reached for her, when he tried to pull her back from the edge of something that could never be undone, the moment shattered.
Not with fury. Not with fire. But with the quiet cruelty of disappointment, and now the night held its breath.
Now the stars blinked cold and distant. Now the bond they forged meant nothing, and it was evident allover Irine's aura.
"It has really come to this," A bitter words escaped his throat, but this only added petrol to an already furiously burning flames.
"You don't get to speak!" Her voice cut through the frozen air like a blade. "I chase power. You are nothing." She screamed, her voice piercing through Zeal's heart like a thousand of sharp blades.
The spears in her hands trembled, then rose, lifted by unseen force and hovered above her shoulders while spinning slowly.
Their tips glinting with moonlight and menace. And with a single wave of her hand, they shot forward, tore through the air with a hiss so sharp that it sounded alive, like something venomous and vengeful had been unleashed.
Zeal gasped, throat tight, eyes wide as the spears were upon him, swift, inevitable and inescapable.
All he could do now was to clench his jaw, squeeze his eyes shut, and brace for the agony.
The first spear struck his thigh, then the second his chest, lifting him off the ground in a blur of motion and pain.
He slammed into the cabin wall, wood exploding into splinters as silence shattered.
The cabin groaned, then folded in on itself, collapsing in a haze of frost and dust.
Zeal lay trapped beneath the ruins, broken and bleeding. But Irine did not flinch.
Instead, she clasped her hands together and frost erupted from her palms like a tidal wave of winter. It surged toward the ruins, engulfing the shattered cabin in a cocoon of ice.
The wood froze mid-collapse, locking Zeal in place, trapped, bleeding, silenced.
He blinked as he watched her walking away. The mist partying for her like a curtain, and the moonlight following her steps.
The celebration was still alive, music, laughter, flickers of firelight in the distance and that's all she cared about.
He had hoped, prayed maybe that Irine would turn back. That something in her would flicker. That the bond they shared would whisper to her soul and remind her of who they were. But she didn't turn.
She walked away. And that broke him more than the spears ever could.
She had been his world once. His childhood friend. The only light in the orphanage's gray corridors. The only one who saw him, not as a burden, not as a shadow, but as someone.
They had together laughed beneath broken ceilings, shared stolen bread and whispered dreams.
She had held his hand when no one else dared, and even when she suggested for the witch-warlock bond, he had said yes without hesitation because to him, it wasn't just sacred. It was her.
Zeal couldn't imagine how fast she had changed. A year ago, she was warmth wrapped in mischief, but six months later after being summoned to the camp, she had become a frost wrapped in firelight.
His vision blurred, the edges of the world softening like melting snow.
The stars above him pulsed and faded.
Zeal's eyelids sank, heavy with pain, his breath thinning as life slipped away quicker than his breath could hold. But just before the final shadow could claim him, something strange happened.
The wreckage groaned, then fell silent again as if to confirm that nobody else was watching.
Then, about 10 seconds later. From the splintered beams and frozen shards, purple shadows began to seep out in fury, thin at first, like smoke curling from a dying fire. But they thickened, twisting into coils that writhed as if alive, slithering across the ruins with a hunger that bent the air itself.
The Moonlight faltered, the mist swallowing it whole, bending it into warped shapes that flickered like broken glass.
Every tendril of shadow snapped inward, folding with unnatural precision until the forest itself seemed to hold its breath.
Then, it collapsed. The darkness condensed into a single marble, no larger than a pearl, glowing with a violent purple aura.
It pulsed like a heartbeat, each throb radiating dread, each flicker whispering death.
The sphere hovered, trembling with ancient hunger. And before Zeal could draw another breath, it lunged , a streak of violet fire, piercing his lips and plunging down his throat in an ancient fury.
His body convulsed as the marble sank into him. Fire tore through his veins, boiling his blood until his skin glowed like embers that send him to a total agony.
Every breath scorched his lungs, every heartbeat hammered like molten iron against his ribs. His bones cracked under invisible pressure, his muscles shredded and stitched back together by flame.
He clawed at the ground, nails splintering, but there was no escape his body was a furnace, his marrow boiling, his nerves shrieking in unison. The purple glow spread across him like rivers of lava, each pulse a thousand knives.
It was not just pain. It was annihilation. A hellfire that consumed him, and as if reshaping him into something ancient, something born of death, but this whole was unbearable to Zeal who had started to lose his consciousness.
But just before his eyelids could completely shut.
{Merging: 100/100 complete}
{The curse of the bloodline triggered }
{Congratulations on teaming the stone of...}
But just before he could maintain his consciousness long enough to read the last words. Zeal dully passed out.