The Broken Halo

[A/N: This bonus Chapter is thanks to OfcSoccer4. Man, you’re amazing and the best. Thank you so much.]

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The violet light gathered into two long seams above the basin, and the seams thickened into closed eyelids.

No face appeared around them.

Each eye stretched a little farther than Velmora had from one outer wall to the other. Pale points moved across their surfaces, passing behind dark spheres surrounded by thin rings of light.

The last threads of tribulation lightning drifted beneath them.

The eyes did not flicker with the discharges.

They were not made from lightning.

Simon could see folds along the closed lids. Shadows gathered within them, giving the impossible structures a depth that made them seem horribly real.

Then the pressure reached him.

His calm and light smile disappeared.

The six wings behind his back drew closer. A tremor passed through their ivory spars, and the vents along their membranes stopped moving for an instant.

His Prime Forged Heart contracted hard.

The two completed seeds remained within it, but they also thrummed due to the pressure from above.

Something above had found what it was looking for.

Simon stood slowly.

His muscles had not weakened. Demonic energy still filled the pathways of his new body. Yet lifting his head required an effort that made his expression turn grave.

’They’re still closed.’

A sharper warning tore through his instincts.

His soul recoiled.

Even Fearless trembled beneath the pressure, holding his thoughts steady only for another wave of alarm to strike them.

For a moment, he felt himself approaching something he had almost forgotten.

Fear.

Not yet.

But close enough that his fingers stiffened.

Inside his bloodline world, the Nine-Tailed Byakko bared its fangs.

Crimson sparks crawled through its mane. Its nine tails bristled, and a growl rose from its chest.

Then its forelegs bent.

Across the silver terraces, the Uruqath had spread all six wings. Its expression had changed. Anger tightened its face as it tried to straighten beneath the same pressure.

It could not.

Simon felt exactly the same impulse from both lineages.

Rage.

Anger.

Hatred.

He did not know what they recognised. He could only feel their fury deepening with every moment those eyes remained above them.

Both wanted to fight.

Both were struggling merely to remain standing.

He looked at the closed eyes again.

In his previous life, he had confronted gods. He had learned what it meant to stand before something he could not defeat.

None of them had done this to him by existing with their eyes closed.

His experience offered no useful comparison.

Only the certainty that everything he had used to measure danger was suddenly inadequate.

And this was not the being itself.

There was no body hidden behind the clouds. Simon could feel the difference. The eyes were where an attention from somewhere else had begun entering the realm.

A manifestation.

A gaze.

The owner was still elsewhere.

His mouth went dry.

”Lilith.”

She had not looked away from the sky.

”What owns those eyes?”

Her golden scarf lay motionless against her throat.

”Is it going to attack my body? My soul? Those seeds?”

Simon glanced down at his hands, then back at her.

”What can I defend against? Tell me how I’m supposed to survive this.”

His voice came faster than he intended.

Lilith finally turned.

She had heard him curse while his body fell apart. She had watched him threaten creatures stronger than himself and laugh when the sensible response was to run.

This was the first time she had heard that edge in his voice.

Urgency.

And beneath it, something close to fear.

For a moment, it felt wrong coming from him.

Then her gaze returned to the enormous lids.

There was nothing strange about it.

She had once possessed far more strength than the young Daemon beside her, and that being had made her afraid too.

She had never known anyone who truly understood what he was and did not fear him.

”Knowing more will strengthen the connection,” she said carefully. ”What has entered the realm is not all it can bring. If I explain too much-”

”LILITH!”

Her eyes returned to his.

Simon was staring at her with an expression she had never seen on that young face.

His crimson eyes were cold enough to make the blood on his cheeks seem startlingly bright. The broken black rings within them turned once.

There was nothing careless in that look.

Only anger and a willingness to live.

”Look at it.”

He jerked his chin toward the sky.

”Then tell me what remaining ignorant is supposed to save me from.”

Lilith said nothing.

”It found my seeds. It knows what I became. It probably knows more about what can kill me than I do.”

His hands had curled into fists.

”I don’t know whether to protect my heart or tear the damned seeds out. I don’t know whether running buys time or gives it my back.”

The pressure deepened. One of his wings scraped against the ground.

Simon forced the next words out without looking up.

”You keep telling me what it costs to know. What is not knowing going to cost me?”

Lilith’s expression tightened.

”I am trying to keep you-”

”Then give me something I can use!”

The words cut across hers.

”Not its history. Not every secret you have. Tell me what I need to understand before it opens those eyes.”

For a moment, neither spoke.

A thin line of blood escaped Simon’s nose.

He did not wipe it away.

Lilith looked at the fingers he was forcing to remain still.

He was right.

Her silence could limit what the presence drew from their knowledge, but it could not teach him which part of himself he needed to protect.

And there was no longer enough time to make him learn gently.

She parted her lips.

Above them, the pair of eyes began opening.

Simon felt the movement before he saw it.

A narrow line of violet appeared beneath each lid.

Within it, stars turned.

Not scattered sparks. Vast streams of white and silver light curved around dark worlds. One sphere carried a broad luminous ring. Another vanished behind a violet cloud that spread across the iris like a storm across an ocean.

Two irises filled the sky.

Amethyst darkened toward their centres, passing through shades of purple Simon had never seen. Luminous currents spiralled through that colour, carrying constellations toward two perfectly black pupils.

The pupils were round and simple, but the emptiness inside them was not.

Simon looked into one and could no longer decide whether it was close enough to cover the sky or so far away that entire worlds lay between its surface and whatever was looking through it.

It was beautiful.

The thought arrived with such clarity that, for a heartbeat, he hated himself for noticing.

Then the two pupils settled upon him.

Simon’s expression broke.

His eyes widened. His lips parted, but the breath he tried to draw would not enter.

He reached for Fearless.

It was already there.

He could feel it resisting.

But for the first time, he was afraid.

Not merely his blood recoiling. Not an instinct warning him to be careful.

For the first time since his rebirth, Simon felt genuine fear.

He wanted to move.

Anywhere.

Somewhere those pupils could not follow.

The thought had not finished when the pressure descended.

His face struck the ground.

BOOOOOOOOOOM!

His arms never reached a position to catch him. All six wings slammed flat, their ivory spars driven into the stone beneath his body.

The cube flashed as it tried to help, but the force kept coming.

The basin sank around him.

No lightning fell. No weapon struck the earth.

Stone compressed into broad, smooth sheets, then fractured beneath the weight pressing through them. The surrounding cliffs lowered together, their upper edges breaking into dust that could not rise.

Beyond Velmora, ridges split along their foundations.

Distant forests bent beneath the same pressure. Trees did not sway. Their crowns were driven straight down, branches folding against trunks until whole stretches of woodland lay crushed beneath violet light.

The horizon seemed to sink.

Simon tasted blood and powdered stone.

He tried to raise one finger.

It did not move.

In his bloodline world, the mountain collapsed beneath the Byakko’s paws. Silver terraces dropped from the air, and the Uruqath’s wings struck the ground beside them.

Above the ruined basin, the last folds of cloud parted.

A pair of violet eyes finished opening.

Their owner had not entered the world, but enough of his gaze had.