OPERATION WINTERSPINE (Strings Between Us Book 2)

CHAPTER FORTY SIX: OF SHADOWS, ASHES AND THE ABYSS

CHAPTER FORTY SIX: OF SHADOWS, ASHES AND THE ABYSS

THIRD PERSON POV

Xythe adjusted his hold on Riyee, lowering her against the wall like porcelain—delicate, but never disposable. His other hand never wavered from Hecate, chamber clicking once as the revolver spun into place.

Lucian's laugh slithered through the chamber. "Careful, Prince. She looks so fragile in your hands. And you've lost her once already."

The Abyss stirred with him. Red sigils ignited across the walls, shadows splitting and bending until three more Riyees stood before Xythe—one chained, one crying, one smiling with venom in her eyes.

Xythe didn't blink. His voice was ice. "Your illusions are noise."

A squeeze of his trigger—crack. The "smiling" phantom burst into dust, shredded by an Asterion round that drilled through its skull as if inevitability itself fired the shot.

Lucian's grin deepened. "Always efficient. But what happens when efficiency isn't enough?"

The floor convulsed beneath Xythe, sigil veins splitting like molten arteries. Chasms opened. He kicked off the collapsing stone, twisting mid-air as chains of dark orichalcum lashed for his ribs. Hecate barked three times—each shot ricocheting with surgical intent, tearing apart the anchors Lucian tried to drag him into. Debris exploded behind him as he landed low, coat snapping in the ash-heavy wind.

Lucian's gauntlet flared again, sigil-threads whipping at impossible angles. Xythe switched hands mid-motion, his dagger catching sparks against the serrated lash while Hecate's barrel flashed in his left. One shot ricocheted twice—once off the fractured wall, once off the ceiling—and slammed into Lucian's mask. A crack splintered across the jawline.

The chamber howled as if alive, walls closing in with crushing pressure. Runes pulsed like a heartbeat, ready to splinter Xythe and Riyee both.

But Xythe was already moving. Hecate snapped open—three bullets chambered, three paths calculated. His fingers blurred.
"Converge Fire."

The shots left from different angles—one off the floor, one off a pillar, one straight. They struck the collapsing sigil-core at the exact same millisecond. The entire wall detonated outward, light and stone bursting into shrapnel.

Lucian staggered but didn't fall, his grin feral under the cracked mask. "You burn through everything just to breathe one more second. How long before Hecate breaks you instead?"

Xythe holstered, scooped Riyee against him again, and re-aimed in one seamless motion. His voice was flat, carved from frost. "Long enough to kill you."

Lucian answered with a sweep of his arm. The ground split into a dozen crimson circles, chains clawing upward like skeletal hands.

Xythe loaded fast—click. A freeze round spun into the chamber. The bullet hissed on release, striking the ground at Lucian's feet. Ice spiderwebbed outward, locking several sigils in place and halting the advancing chains.

Lucian snarled as the Abyss cracked against the sudden frost. "Cold tricks."

Another shot rang out—this time, an Eclipse round. Darkness bloomed across ten meters, swallowing sound and light.

Lucian's laughter echoed faintly, distorted by the blackout. "Hiding? How unlike you."

But Xythe wasn't hiding. He was aligning.

Xythe's chest heaved, his arms trembling from the recoil he shouldn't have felt—Hecate was built to erase it, but his body couldn't. Every pulse of his heart felt like it was cracking through his ribs. Still, he aimed. Still, his finger never hesitated on the trigger.