Fallen Angel's Harem in the Abyss
Chapter 44: The city of despair - 3

Chapter 44: The city of despair - 3

Sylvara tilted her head with a faint smirk, her amber eyes glinting.

"Perhaps," she said, kneeling beside the fountain, her fingers pressing into the dry roots.

She turned her face up to the skyless dark, her breath steady and slow.

"Here then," she murmured, her voice a song under her breath. "Let something bloom again."

Her fingers dug into the dirt, her glowing skin veined with gold and green reacting to the stone’s chill.

And the earth answered, roots uncoiling from her palms like living threads, weaving through the cracks with a faint rustle.

Crimson-leaved vines slithered across the courtyard stones, blooming into cushions of soft moss.

Flowers unfurled mid-air, their petals glowing gold and soft violet, casting a warm light that pushed back the crimson gloom.

Thick moss swelled from the fractures, cushioning the dead stone, while a canopy of faintly glowing blossoms formed an umbrella above the fountain, their light pulsing gently like a heartbeat.

Sylvara’s eyes fluttered closed, her vines wrapping gently around the base of the broken statue beside the fountain, cradling it like a lost child.

"You may rest here, Angel," she said, her voice soft, her amber eyes opening to meet Azareel’s.

Azareel watched in silence, his silver eyes wide with awe as the courtyard transformed, the once-barren space now alive with color and light.

It was beautiful, a pocket of life in the city’s decay.

Nyxsha grunted, her arms crossed, her golden eyes narrowing at the blooming display.

"Show-off," she muttered, but she didn’t move away, her tail flicking once before settling.

Soon, they camped, the courtyard’s hush wrapping around them like a fragile truce.

Azareel laid out the remaining supplies—scavenged berries from Sylvara’s vines and scraps of cloth—his movements careful despite his lingering pain.

Nyxsha sharpened one of the bones they’d scavenged for tools, her claws scraping rhythmically, her gaze distant but vigilant.

Virelya coiled herself neatly around a stone pillar, motionless like a ghost forgotten in the gloom, her porcelain mask tilted toward the canopy.

Sylvara remained rooted, humming softly as her garden pulsed faintly with red-orange glow, the blooms casting warm shadows that danced across the stone.

Azareel’s voice broke the silence, soft and thoughtful.

"Thank you for this," he said, his silver eyes meeting each of theirs in turn.

No one answered with words.

But Nyxsha’s tail curled lightly toward him, brushing his leg.

Virelya shifted one coil to cover part of his foot, a subtle anchor.

And Sylvara let one petal drift down to rest in his lap, its glow soft and reassuring.

They didn’t need words.

Just as Azareel leaned back, a presence in the Abyss blinked to life—like a watcher behind a cracked stone eye, ancient and hidden, stirring in the shadows of a crumbling tower beyond the courtyard, high above where the buildings leaned like drunken sentinels.

It watched.

For a moment.

Its gaze lingered on Azareel, cold and dark, before vanishing into the gloom, leaving only the faint echo of its presence, unnoticed by the group below.

_________

The crackle of a conjured flame cast long shadows on the ruined wall, its soft orange glow making the broken stone look almost warm, flickering like a heartbeat in the Abyss’s perpetual twilight. _{fr\eewebno vel .c(o)m}

The scent of crushed leaves and lingering ash filled the air, a strangely comforting mixture after the chaos they had escaped, mingling with the faint sweetness of Sylvara’s blooms that had taken root in the courtyard’s cracks.

Azareel sat cross-legged near the edge of the blooming garden, the moss cushioning his bare feet, his torn robe pooling around him.

Behind him, Sylvara’s vines coiled gently around old pillars, sprouting blooms that opened slowly, drinking in the stale, sour air, their petals unfurling like sleepy eyes.

Virelya coiled loosely on the ground nearby, her tail twitching idly, her chin rested on her arm as she watched the flame with half-lidded golden eyes, her porcelain mask reflecting the fire’s dance.

Nyxsha sat across from Azareel, her arms crossed tightly, her tail swishing in that agitated way of hers, though her ears were perked just slightly forward—not quite hostile, but vigilant, her black fur absorbing the light like a shadow given form.

The atmosphere was... oddly domestic, the group’s silence broken only by the flame’s soft pops and the distant, muffled groans of the city settling around them.

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, there were no things trying to kill them—no crumbling sky, no collapsing floor—just silence, firelight, and the subtle sounds of breath and life weaving a fragile truce.

Azareel looked around quietly, his silver-gray eyes, flecked with rain-blue, wide with gentle wonder.

"This place... feels soft," he said aloud, without really meaning to, his voice a soft murmur that blended with the flame’s crackle.

Sylvara smiled from behind him, where she knelt on a blooming pad of red leaves, her amber eyes softening.

"The Abyss has very few soft places," she said, her voice a melodic whisper, like wind through petals. "But when one comes, we should let it stay."

"Spoken like a poem," Virelya murmured, her voice low and airy, a breathy tease that fogged the air slightly, "or a trap."

Azareel laughed softly, rubbing the back of his neck, his silver-white hair catching the firelight like strands of moonlight.

"I trust you," he said to Sylvara, his tone earnest, his smile warm and unassuming.

"You shouldn’t," Nyxsha muttered under her breath, her golden eyes flicking toward him, her tail thumping the moss once.

Sylvara only turned her head, amused, her flowering hair rustling faintly.

"Would you like something sweet, Heartwood?" she asked, her voice light as a drifting petal, her amber eyes glinting with a quiet invitation.

Azareel blinked, his head tilting slightly. "Sweet?"

She nodded, her lips curving faintly, her vines shifting subtly behind her. "A gift. Something... rare in the Abyss."

He hesitated, his silver eyes curious but cautious. "What is it?"

She didn’t answer directly, her gaze shifting to the other two women—Virelya watching with a half-smile, her golden eyes gleaming behind her mask, and Nyxsha squinting suspiciously, her tail flicking harder.

Then, with a languid gesture, Sylvara raised a hand.