Chapter 9: Embers of the Mirror Flame

Darkness rushed in. The sudden silence was deafening.

Elise collapsed against the Coinbearer, who likewise sank to one knee, breathing hard. The clearing was utterly empty now save for them. The standing stones lay toppled or cracked. The ground where the Mirror Flame had stood was scorched in a perfect circle, smoking gently. Of the witches, there was no sign at all. Not a cloak, not a footstep. They were gone.

The cloak unwound itself gingerly from the stone it had gripped. "Ow, ow… I think I tore a seam," it complained faintly, then fell quiet, as if even its irreverence was muted by the gravity of what had just transpired.

Elise's vision swam. The adrenaline that had kept her upright subsided, and weariness crushed down on her. "They… they banished the devils," she whispered, hardly believing it. "B-but… they banished themselves too, didn't they?"

The Coinbearer rose shakily and helped Elise sit down on a flat stone. "It appears so," he said softly. His eyes swept the ruined clearing, a mixture of sorrow and admiration in them. "They sacrificed themselves to cast the devils out. Likely pulled them into a pocket realm or the void beyond the Veil."

Elise wiped her eyes, realizing tears were streaming down her cheeks. She hadn't known these witches, but they had fought and given their lives partly for her sake, so she and the Coinbearer might escape Hell's clutches and learn the truth.

"It was their choice and they didn't leave us empty-handed," the Coinbearer added after a moment. He gestured to the center of the scorched circle. There, glimmering faintly amid the soot, was a small shard of what looked like glass or crystal. It flickered with a residual golden light.

Elise mustered her strength and together they limped to the spot. The Coinbearer knelt and picked up the shard. It was a fragment of the Mirror Flame, cooled into a solid mirror-like glass. Within its depths swirled a tiny lick of orange flame.

The Coinbearer tilted the shard in his hand. "This is a key. "He tucked the shard carefully into a pouch inside his cloak.

Elise closed her eyes, overwhelmed. The witches didn't tell what she was but only hinted at it. It felt unreal.

The Coinbearer gently placed a gloved hand on her shoulder. His infernal contract had not been severed, but it felt looser, its chains shaken by his defiance. "Elise," he said quietly. "We must go. More of Hell's forces will eventually track the disturbance here. And without the witches' wards, we cannot stand against another wave."

Elise nodded weakly. She felt utterly drained, in body and spirit. "Where… where will we go now?"

The Coinbearer was silent for a moment. The mask hid his expression, but his voice held a new sense of purpose. "The witches gave us clues. Hell will not relent, so our path can only lead one way now."

He looked upward, through the charred opening in the canopy to the lightening sky, where the first hints of dawn were appearing. "If your soul is touched by something else then hell," he continued, "then perhaps the only refuge and the remaining answers lie there, in the Library. 

Elise followed his gaze upward and felt both hope and fear stirring anew.

She struggled to her feet, and the Coinbearer steadied her. The cloak wrapped around them both in a protective, familiar manner. "One step at a time," she murmured, almost to herself.

She looked around at the empty clearing, whispering a soft thank you to the brave sisters who had saved them without telling 'Why'. The Coinbearer retrieved his silver coin from a patch of soot, sliding it back into his pocket along with the Mirror Flame shard. He offered Elise his arm, and she leaned on it.

Together, they left the circle of stones, stepping into the quiet forest beyond. The mist was gone, and above, the sky was turning the pale gray of early morning.

As they walked slowly into the new day, Elise glanced at the Coinbearer. "Do you think… Does anyone know what is going on me?" she asked tentatively.

His pace did not falter. "Perhaps. Perhaps not. But I serve the coin and it did notdecide on your fate, so neither Hell nor Heaven can tell us otherwise."

Elise managed a small smile at that. In the space of a day, her life had been irreversibly altered: she had sought out Death and instead been thrown onto a path that might lead to something else itself. And by her side was a man who, hours ago, she might have called a monster or a myth, but who had risked everything to keep her alive.

The forest began to thin, heralding open lands ahead. The Coinbearer paused at the edge of the trees, looking back just once, toward the witches' clearing, where a few wisps of enchanted smoke still rose to the sky like a final farewell.

Softly, he murmured under his breath words only the cloak and Elise, standing so close, could hear: "Heads or talis… we'll make sure the coin finds its truth in the end."

Elise reached out and gently took his hand, the one that held the coin. The Coinbearer turned his masked face to her, and though she couldn't see his expression, she felt a mutual understanding pass between them.

Side by side, the Coinbearer and the woman whose soul defied destiny journeyed onward, toward whatever the breaking of the fate would bring next.

*

In the sulfurous depths of Hell's Bureau of Collections, the air rang with the clatter of infernal typewriters and the shuffling of parchment made from cured mortal sins. Normally, the bureaucracy churned on indifferently to the dramas of the living world. But today, a rare disturbance had halted the routine.

Ashriel, the horned devil who had led the failed mission in the mortal realm, knelt on the obsidian floor before his superior's towering desk. Black blood oozed from the burn on his forehead and the myriad wounds speckling his charred robes. His once-booming voice now quivered as he recounted the night's debacle.

"...the witches of the Mirror Flame intervened," Ashriel growled through clenched teeth. "They... banished me and my squad before we could secure the anomaly." The word tasted foul in his mouth.

Across from him, behind the desk, sat Archdevil Malgrath, Hell's High Adjudicator of Souls. Malgrath's appearance was deceptively civilized a corpulent figure in a pinstriped suit, with ebony skin etched by thin veins of lava. Small horns peeked through his balding pate. He steepled his clawed fingers and glared down with eyes like burning coals.

"So," Malgrath rumbled, his tone dangerously calm, "not only did you lose the target, but you also allowed our Coinbearer to go rogue and consort with those accursed witches."

Ashriel bowed his head lower. "Y-yes, Archdevil. The Coinbearer defied direct orders. He struck me and aided the girl's escape. He is a traitor." The word echoed in the marble hall beyond the desk, where a few lesser demons peeked from their cubicles in morbid curiosity.

Malgrath leaned forward, smoke curling from his nostrils. "A Coinbearer... hmm, why his name is scrubbed? Thousand years in service... has not broken contract in... let's see..." He flipped open a massive ledger on his desk, pages fluttering by themselves. "Ever." He slammed it shut, causing Ashriel to flinch. "This is unprecedented. Unacceptable."

Ashriel risked a glance upward. "Archdevil, the girl... she's no ordinary mortal. Her soul..."

"I am aware," Malgrath interrupted icily. He tapped one long talon on a scroll that glowed with golden script, the emergency report the witches' banishment had triggered in Hell's records. "A 'special thread,' is it? So the rumors say." His lips peeled into a sneer. "Humans meddling brats always find a way to make life complicated."

Ashriel's tail twitched impatiently. He cared little for cosmic implications; he wanted retribution. "The Coinbearer made a fool of us. Of me," he snarled. "Give me leave, Archdevil. I will hunt him down and rip that contract out of his treacherous hide."

Malgrath regarded the lesser devil coldly. "You? You've done quite enough, Ashriel. Your incompetence has cost us a valuable asset and thrown the Collections Division into disarray. What will other Coinbearers will think of you?" He gestured to a trembling imp secretary to his left. The tiny creature hopped forward with a fresh parchment stamped in red.

Malgrath signed it with a flourish of flame. "Effective immediately, the Coinbearer is to be classified as a rogue entity. Termination order." He practically spat the words. "A retrieval team from the Inquisition will be assembled to hunt him and the girl down. Discreetly, of course, we don't need Heaven's lapdogs intervening before we secure the prize. Get me his name real name too."

Ashriel's face fell. The Inquisition. That meant Hell was sending its most elite and ruthless hunters. They would claim the glory (and souls) he had hoped to seize. Still, he nodded dutifully. "As you will, Archdevil."

Malgrath tossed the signed order to the imp, who scurried off to distribute copies through pneumatic tubes that led to every hellish department. "As for you, Ashriel..." The Archdevil smiled without warmth. "I think a demotion to the Soul Pit archives for the next century or two is fitting, while you... recover from your failures. You can spend the time counting the souls you failed to deliver."

Anger and humiliation warred on Ashriel's face, but he bowed low. "Yes, Archdevil," he bit out, barely keeping his tone respectful.

Malgrath waved a dismissive hand. "Begone."

Ashriel rose and limped away, each footstep echoing in the vast hall. Malgrath watched him go with a curl of distaste. Then the Archdevil snapped his fingers. Another demon, a slender, shadowy figure with burning green eyes, stepped from an alcove.

"Fetch Inquisitor Sorieth from the Ninth Vault," Malgrath ordered. "Tell him we have a most urgent hunt at hand. A renegade Coinbearer and a certain girl. High priority."

The shadowy demon bowed and disappeared in a wisp of smoke.

Alone in his office, Archdevil Malgrath turned to gaze at a wall map etched with the mortal world's ley-lines. His molten eyes narrowed at a pulsing dot of light on the surface, residual energy from the Mirror Flame's final spell. It marked the last known location of his target.

"Run while you can," Malgrath murmured, drumming his claws on the desk. A predatory smile stretched his fat lips. "Head... or tails... it matters not. In the end, all souls belong to Hell."

With a snort, he reopened the massive ledger and began planning the hunt, confident that fate, fractured or not, would soon be set right under Hell's dominion.