Missing Crown *Contin*

[Zeik]

Valir kept his composure, though the weight of the moment pressed against his ribs like a vice. He leaned close to Ava, his voice a breath against her ear, heavy with dread.
“He’s desperate,”*he murmured, his voice nervous and cold. “If he’s chosen such a show of force… without Odu’s protection, Ava—we're exposed.”

Ava didn’t answer. Her face said enough. A vivid mask of disbelief, terror, and a fury too long buried. Her eyes darted between Valir and Odu, searching for a lie or a lifeline. All she found was a battlefield in bloom. Her knuckles turned bone-white as she clenched her fists, barely containing the storm unraveling inside her. Odu’s sobs cut the air like broken glass. He knelt, shoulders quaking under the invisible burden of too many wars and too much silence. He wasn’t a boy. He’d walked the charred fields of three nations, buried friends in frostbitten soil, tasted every flavor of fear—and yet, still he wept. A veteran’s cry. Not weakness, but a requiem for what was about to die.

“Ava,”Valir said again, more urgency now, his calm cracking like thin ice. “Listen to reason. His reinforcements could arrive any moment. Ours... won’t come for days. We must—”

“It’s always like this,” she snapped, voice serrated. “Always on his terms.”

She turned her gaze on Zeik—her old flame, her oldest betrayal.
“Zeik… just tell me what’s going on. Don’t lie. Don’t pretend. I know you. I know you know more than you’re saying. I know you know why we were sent here.”

Valir froze. His mind clawed at choices he hadn’t the heart to make. Leave them both behind? Drag Odu away, save at least one soul from the coming storm? Neither was thinking clearly. Neither could be saved by words anymore.

He moved toward Odu slowly, carefully, his hands raised—palms out, a sign of peace. He didn't dare make a wrong move in Zeik’s presence. That man’s silence was a blade, and it was already at their throats.

“Just tell me the truth,” Ava said, voice trembling but hard. “I don’t care if it hurts. Hate me, damn me, call down the gods—I don’t care. But this silence?” She stepped closer, her fury beginning to churn the air itself. “This hurts. Knowing you know and choosing to say nothing—it’s a cruelty I never expected from you.”
Her voice dropped, hollow and dark. No parables. No riddles. No riddled metaphors. Just tell me. Why did the Holgurd Crown sent me to kill you?”

Valir flinched. Her tone wasn’t anger anymore—it was venomous grief, the kind that rotted from within. He’d heard that voice once before. He knew what came next.

Zeik opened his mouth, the words reluctant.
“Tell me why you accepted th—”

“Stop! Hiding!!!” Ava’s voice cracked the air like thunder. “You ran from the Acrix! You abandoned your duties as crown! You sent your daughter to dismantle our entire foothold!” Her voice shattered as her pain surfaced. “You stole the Boundless Runes. You plundered the Vudaian scrolls. Arcturu doesn’t just lie in ruins—it’s defiled! Nothing grows. The air is poison. The stench—Zeik, oh gods, the stench!”

Zeik’s eyes lost their edge. Her words knocked the breath from him. Of course he knew. He had known for a long time. But truth was a chain he couldn't break, not without tearing the world apart.
“Ava,”he whispered, almost pleading, “just leave.”

Tears slipped from her eyes, but they carried no softness. They burned down her cheeks like acid. “Getting over how you left was hard,”she said, voice raw. “You...just do shit. Move' stay' quiet, loud. Whatever....however you want. No rhyme, no explanation. Just.....you doing SHIT! I accepted it. Being torn apart after decades of giving...of union… that nearly killed me.”
She wiped her face.
“But this?” Her fists trembled, the skin stretched tight. Her eyes turned red with rage. “Watching you look at me like I’m a stranger—like I’m nothing—that’s worse than death.”

She inhaled.

It was a breath that didn’t belong in this world. A breath that drained light from the air, pulled color from the trees, stillborn and starving. And with that single, terrible exhale, Ava released her Draining Kiss.

She was the reigning Crown of the Ahkia, the oldest wielder of that cursed anthem—and her mastery was absolute.

Within seconds, the forest began to die.

Leaves curled inward, blackening like burnt paper. Trees groaned as their sap turned to dust. Insects dropped in clouds, birds fell mid-flight. Even the sky dimmed, as if recoiling from her hunger.

Zeik's naten burned like a candle in a hurricane, consumed by the kiss. The cursed flames that clung to him evaporated into oily smoke, offering no defense. His eyes widened as he realized too late: he had underestimated her will to hurt.

Valir and Odu had anticipated it—or perhaps Odu had acted instinctively, shield rising just in time to spare them from the brunt. But even within the barrier, they felt it. The agony of the world dying around them. Within fifty miles, the forest was gone—stripped bare, turned to a desolate wasteland of hollowed life.

A country’s worth of naten, devoured in a single act of fury.

Valir collapsed, gasping, barely alive. His eyes found Ava—and he saw not the woman he once knew, but something else. A creature twisted by grief and power. Confusion and sorrow fought for place on his face… and lost.

Ava’s body convulsed. The volume of naten within her pushed past mortal limits. Her flesh twisted violently. Her feet tore through her boots. Her limbs grew long, her fingers now talons. Feathers once soft and emerald turned crimson and blade-sharp, sprouting from her arms and legs like armor. Spikes erupted from her elbows. Her face stretched into something hawkish—something *feral*.

Her voice became a screech of anguish.
“Who are you protecting?!”

She screamed and ripped feathers from her own scalp, where green strands were quickly overtaken by black and blood-red.

Zeik, on his knees, burned by the aftermath, still did not answer.
Not out of defiance—but because whatever answer he held…

…was far too monstrous for even Ava to survive.

[Zeik]

It was a horrific sight—trees desiccated into husks, rivers boiled to mist, creatures of the forest reduced to silent piles of ash. And through it all, Zeik knelt in the heart of the devastation, spared by his own cowardice—a quick and selfish retreat inward, muting his Naten just long enough to let Ava’s anthem pass him by. An action the forest would not look kindly on. The draining kiss swept through the battlefield like a reaper, stripping life from all it touched, feeding Ava until her wings shivered from the weight of stolen vitality.

Valir didn’t hesitate. Neither did Odu. Their plan, practiced in secret for weeks, took form.

Ferrosilk screamed through the air—Valir's will made tangible by the magnetic pull of Obius essence. The threads wrapped around Zeik with impossible force, binding him to the ground with a weight that dragged even his cursed flame down toward the soil. The gravitational field warped the earth beneath them, lines of force radiating in iron-colored arcs.

Zeik struggled, black and red smoke lashing from his body in sputtering bursts, but his transformation was stunted. The ferrosilk muted access to naten, suppressing the gate that fed his cursed form. He couldn’t fully ignite. Not yet.

“This is what we practiced! Finish it, Ava!” Valir shouted, his voice cracking as his eyes welled. It wasn’t just hope—it was heartbreak.

But Ava didn’t strike.

She twitched, staggered—sweat rolled down her temples as her arms shook uncontrollably. Her anthem should have left her empowered, sharp, focused—but instead, her body trembled as if it were about to fall apart. The energy she gained from Zeik’s cursed flames was no blessing. It came with the essence of the curse itself.

And it was tearing her apart.

Cursed flames were sacrificial—each ignition of the cursed fire burned his flesh and soul in exchange for power. The smoke it released was saturated with suffering, saturated with self-annihilation. When Ava inhaled it, absorbed it with her anthem, she didn’t just feed—she inherited the toll.

Her wings darkened. Once vibrant feathers curled into ash at the edges, blackened by invisible fire. Her voice faltered, the seduction lost. Her pupils dilated unnaturally, and when she opened her mouth, her voice was no longer her own—it was wrath incarnate.

She let out a feral cry, and lunged at Zeik.

Too late.

He opened the pentagram beneath his feet—jagged red lines of blood spiraling outward, drawn with reckless precision of his intent. Neither Valir nor Odu dared stay close. They dropped the Vesta Crown restraint, retreating just as Ava’s wild strike whistled past Zeik’s head.

But he didn’t escape cleanly.

They surged again—Valir moved first, his silk threads whipping around to tear Zeiks Glyph breaking the seal of the pentagram before it could take form. He rushed for Zeik’s limbs with his silk’ wiping the strands in a manner to unpredictable for the crown to react.

The Obius swordsman followed, blades gleaming with kinetic energy, slashing in calculated, swift bursts meant to disable Zeiks footing and abilty to cultivate Naten, not kill.

Ava followed, maddened still’ but her fists rained down with speed and rage of a focused warrior. She struck Zeik’s blind spot again and again. Their attacks were perfectly coordinated. They had to be. Their target was no ameture. Her hits were devastating. Bones cracked. Naten trembled.

Zeik faltered.

Odu, ever the bulwark, formed a tri-ringed barrier of gleaming sapphire light behind them. The Holgurd was a master of defense, his energy flowing like liquid stone, unbreakable. He kept the battlefield from spiraling out of control—pushing Zeik’s flames back, reinforcing the terrain, muting the worst of Ava’s growing instability.

But Zeik didn’t fight fair.

He carved new sigils with his fingernails into the ground—each one brimming with corrupted wisdom of His Curse. The ancient runes on Zeik’s arms blazed with corrupted light—Boundless Runes that once shone golden over the temples of Acrix, Myotian, Vestian, Hellgate relics, now twisted into a maddening cacophony of power. These sacred incantation, once meant to unify and protect, were perverted by Zeik’s fury into a weapon of pure chaos. He carved the air with them in swirling, infernal arcs: one moment the world clung to its foundations, the next Zeik snatched that grip away.

Ava’s boots tore free of the dirt as the battlefield yanks her upward, stones and shattered earth spiraling her like frightened birds before plummeting back to smash her down. She hit the ground hard—jaw rattling, eyes wide—blood sizzling where hot grit met her skin. The air crackled and the runes’ song shifted: phantom chains of fire erupted at Valir’s side, ghostly whip-lashes coiling through the air like serpents. Valir slammed a sword into the dirt to brace himself, but a coil of searing flame arced around his arm, biting to the bone. A horrid snap echoed as Valir’s shoulder dislocated under the heat and pressure; he howled, clutching the joint with one hand while the other dropped his weapon, suddenly too heavy for his numb fingers.

At the same moment, Zeik exhaled a black mist that exploded into false clones of himself—smoky specters with mirroring eyes. One such shadow lunged at Ava’s back, jaws agape and hands twisted into claws, but it dissolved into ash before it could strike, leaving only the scent of brimstone in Ava’s nostrils. The illusions were maddening; Ava whirled, sword slashing through empty air, heart pounding with betrayal that the monster before her had once been a friend. Behind her, Odu’s rune-carved barrier buckled under the onslaught. Zeik unleashed a vortex of scorching air that blasted against Odu’s shield in an eruption of scorched earth and molten ash, the very heat singing through the barrier’s crystalline strength. Odu felt the blast rock him to his knees, sweating as his magic smoked; embers drifted like malevolent fireflies along the surface of his barrier, blackening it at the edges. He roared a defiant curse, burying his fear under raw determination, and slammed his palms into the ground to reinforce the failing shield.

All around them the battlefield convulsed with Zeik’s sorcerous anarchy: gravitic tides lifting them off balance, infernal chains lashing, phantom doppelgängers taunting with voices like snarling demons. The air tasted of iron and ozone, charged with dread. Ava spat out a lungful of dust, her knees scraping gravel as she pushed herself up, chest burning, eyes blazing with fury and grief. Valir gritted his teeth against the agony radiating from his ribs and shoulder, molten rage eclipsing the white-hot pain. Odu coughed ash from his mouth and felt fury shatter the last of his fear: he would not let Zeik’s betrayal break them. Each new spell sent a shiver through their muscles and a spike of adrenaline in their chests. Yet even as their world was turned inside out by Zeik’s hellish perversion of the Boundless runes, they did not waver. They leaned on each other’s bravery, hearts pounding, breaths ragged but defiant in the chaos of their enemy’s making. His attacks became unpredictable, wild—gravity reversals, phantom chains of fire, false clones born from vapor...

Still, they fought.

[Zeik]

And Ava… Ava was slipping further. The cursed flame had broken something in her mind. She stopped calling Zeik by name. She stopped coordinating. Her anthem pulsed again, unbidden.

Draining Kiss: Full bloom

She inhaled deeply, pulling in all ambient Naten—enemy or ally. Valir’s silk collapsed as his reserves were ripped from him. Odu screamed as his barrier flickered, then shattered.

“No! Ava!” Valir stumbled forward, reaching for her. “It’s me—Valir! We’re—”

She turned on them.

Eyes black. Wings ragged. She released her anthem in full glory stunning valir and Odu in its wake. She lunged for him.

Valir barely parried the first blow. The second landed squarely in his chest, and he went down. In her hand was him, every drip of naten, stolen, crushed into a swirling mass of condensed naten, to which she drank.

Odu raised a panicked shield of holgurd glyphs, but Ava’s corrupted Naten twisted the sigils, forcing them to shatter in his hands and devoured him as well.

She didn’t recognize them anymore everything was to be consumed.

She was chasing hatred—not justice. Wrath. Fury and all because the cursed flame inside her called for death. She met Zeiks eyes and lunged for him.

Zeik, bloodied and shocked from her anthem drain, knew what had happened. He had seen this before—in himself. He rose to meet her, their fists colliding with the sound of thunder. Her strength was titanic now. She was faster than before—stronger than she had any right to be. She was burning herself to keep up with him.

Odu and Valir falling into the cracked earth.

“She's lost to it…” Odu whispered, voice shaking.

“No,” Valir coughed, gripping his broken ribs. “She’s still in there.” He said, barely holding on to life. “I just don’t know if he’ll reach her before she dies…” Odu said softly as they fell.

And in that moment—Zeik, dodging with broken instincts, fighting his former love—wept under his curse.

Ava was no longer Ava.

She moved like a storm set loose from sense—driven by madness, betrayal, and the cursed flame she had absorbed. The black feathers of her wings cut the air like razors, and her eyes, once radiant with grace, had been reduced to soulless pits glowing with infernal light. Her Anthem, Draining Kiss, was no longer just a siphoning technique—it was an addiction. She fed on Zeik’s power. She fed on everything and was consumed in return. Each breath she took reeked of charred flesh and burning sorrow. Her laughter, once lyrical, now cracked with static and shrill wrath.

Zeik stood his ground, arms lowered, runes etched across his skin glowing like a curse written in flame. He could feel her approach—not with his eyes, but in the way the air tore around her, the heat of her pulse, the sheer force of her descent.

She struck like a beast.

Her first blow rocked his head back, snapping his jaw sideways with a crunch of bone. The second found his ribs, caving them with a thunderclap impact. She moved like liquid hate—feral, fast, and brutal. Claws tore at his cloak, feathers raked his skin, and her wings struck with the force of a warhammer. Zeik stumbled, coughing blood and smoke. He grinned.

“She’s gone,” he muttered. “And it’s my fault.”

But guilt was a slow poison. What surged through him now was survival—and rebellion.

He pressed his palm to the ground and summoned the Boundless Runes. They responded like wolves to a howl, springing to life in mad, spiraling configurations that glowed red and gold beneath the shattered earth. Glyphs spun up his arms, then flared outward, forming a shield of burning script. Ava dove again, talons poised for his throat—but slammed into a wall of floating runes that erupted like a nova, blasting her back through a half-collapsed pine.

Zeik staggered to his feet. “You neeed to stop Ava. Its killing you.”

[Zeik]

He raised both hands—and the runes followed. Fire twisted into the shape of a serpent and shot toward her, wrapping around her limbs, not to bind—but to brand. She screamed, shrieked, and *ate* the flame with her Anthem, drinking in his curse and laughing with a mouth full of ruin. Her skin blackened. Her teeth cracked. Her body strained beneath the weight of what she had stolen—but still, she charged.

Zeik adjusted his stance.

His shadow flickered—and split. Illusory doppelgängers stepped from his sides, each rune-birthed clone shimmering with heat distortion. Ava tore through them, screaming his name—cursing it—slashing through smoke and fire. But she was slowing. Her madness was burning too hot, too fast. Her veins glowed with stolen hellfire, and her Anthem could no longer contain it.

Seizing the moment, Zeik called upon one of the Boundless Runes long sealed by Acrix’s kings—Uskir, Boundless Rune. It spun around his chest like a third heart, pulsing with judgment. He carved it into the air with a flourish and thrust it toward her. A shockwave burst forward—not to kill, but to cast away. Ava slammed to a halt mid-flight, struck not by power but by memory.

The rune echoed what they were. The halls they ruled. The oaths they swore. The love they buried. For a second, she hesitated—hand trembling, eyes flickering like candles in the wind.

Then she screamed, tearing at her own skin, her Anthem cracking into a shriek so powerful it shattered the remaining trees around them. Zeik howled in pain, shielding his ears as blood ran from them. The flames on his body warped, splintered—and then reshaped.

She lunged again.

And this time, Zeik didn’t defend.

He countered.

A dance of ruin began. Flame met claw, rune met wing. He reversed gravity, and she skidded into the air. She spun and punched him through a boulder. He conjured molten chains from the ground, she shattered them with her voice. Their strikes blurred to streaks of light and cinders. The forest was gone—only ash remained. Ava’s fists struck like comets, Zeik’s retaliation like stars imploding.

But the longer they fought, the more Ava decayed. Each time her Anthem stole from Zeik, it took another piece of her. Her feathers fell like black snow. Her voice faltered. The curse writhed inside her like a parasite, and her strikes began to miss, wild with desperation.

She was breaking.

And Zeik, though battered and bloodied, remained whole.

He watched her sway. Her breathing ragged. Her mind unspooling.

He did not rejoice.

He only said her name—softly, once—“Ava…”

He said her name again.

“Ava.”

And her mind broke.

She lunged with a sound that wasn’t human—raw, primal, choked by fire and grief. Her claws scraped across his ribs, tearing cloth and drawing blood, but Zeik didn’t flinch. He caught her eyes as the madness flared, seeing nothing but the curse. Only its grip.

Then—his cursed flame stopped lashing out and turned inward, folding like a hand into a fist. The fire curved against his spine, dragging across muscle and bone and returned to its home-inside lf him. It resisted. It hated him for it. But it obeyed.

The heat ebbed. Control returned.

Zeik stood slowly, the runes drifting to life around him again—slow and mournful like ash falling in water. His eyes didn’t burn anymore. Just watched. Quiet. Heavy.

The earth beneath him pulsed once—then the glyphs of Uskir emerged in a wide, sweeping spiral. Layered symbols bloomed around Ava, drawn by the closeness of her spirit to the cursed flame. But this time the runes did not attack

They unmade.

Ava’s Anthem sparked to life, a shriek welling in her chest—but fizzled out before it even touched the air. Her voice failed her. Her wings stuttered in mid-beat. Naten drained from her body like a dam split wide.

“No,” she gasped. “impossible—how can you manifest Uskir rune?!…”

She stumbled forward, hands grasping at nothing, as if trying to reach for something in the air—him, the song, the power. Anything. But the runes drew closer, locking into place, spelling her silence.

Her knees hit the ground hard.

Zeik walked toward her, blood still running down his side. He didn’t say anything. There was no lecture. No warning.

Just grief.

Ava reached up, fingers curling around his coat like a child waking from a nightmare. Her wings—burnt and broken—hung at her back in silence. The Anthem no longer sang. Naten no longer answered.

“I can’t feel it,” she whispered, terrified. “Zeik… I can’t feel Vescrutia’s pulse....”

He knelt.

Not out of victory. Not to gloat. But because she was falling apart, and once—she meant everything.

The glow of Uskir dimmed, sealing the banishment with finality. No healing. No curse. No Anthem. Just her…just Ava.

And Zeik.

She fell into his chest, hollow and shaking, and he let her.

Because for a moment, neither of them were Crowns or monsters.

They were just people. And the war was still not over.