The night passed strangely. The night-Henry didn't try to escape, nor did he revel in his power within the Solstice Tower. Instead, he sat in silent meditation, a mocking imitation of the practices he imagined the Solari monks followed. Helia watched, her presence a constant pressure of light in the room.
He wasn't meditating to find peace. He was exploring. For the first time, he turned his formidable will inward, not to crush his daytime counterpart, but to examine him. He probed Henry's memories—not the ones of fear and trauma, but the ones from Joseph's training. He felt the discipline, the fluid motions, the physical strength the boy had built through sheer hard work. It was a different kind of strength than his own, one not from a divine gift, but one that was earned. It was… respectable, in a clinical sort of way.
Then, he poked at the light. That chaotic, reactive power. When his day-self touched it, it exploded in a panic. But when he, the master of shadows, approached it with cold intent, the light flinched away. It was like a scared animal, lashing out with aggression born from fear. He couldn't hold it, but he could feel it: a well of pure, unrefined potential.
*Her toy is more powerful than the boy knows,* he thought, the idea solidifying in his mind. *He's afraid of it. That's why he can't use it. He thinks it's a bomb; I see it's a star waiting to be commanded.*
When the first light of dawn crept through the window, the change was less a battle and more a reluctant handover. The night-Henry didn't fight it. He receded, leaving a single thought for his waking counterpart.
*The light isn't your enemy. Your weakness is.*
Henry woke with a jolt, the message echoing in his mind. It didn't feel like an insult from his other self; it felt like an observation. A cold fact. He sat up, feeling strangely… clear. The despair from the day before had been replaced by a tired resolve. Helia's idea—integration—still felt impossible, but for the first time, it didn't feel like a defeat. It felt like a path.
His new training regimen started that morning. Helia led him not to a training yard, but to an empty meditation room in the heart of the tower. The room was a perfect circle, the walls made of the same glowing white material, with no windows to the outside world.
"Your body and mind are the battlefield," Helia said, her voice echoing softly in the quiet room. "In here, there are no distractions. No rival to provoke you, no friend to save you." She sat cross-legged on the far side of the room. "Your homework. It starts now. Close your eyes. Find the two forces inside you. Don't try to pull on either of them. Just… feel them. Acknowledge they're there. That's the first step."
Henry did as he was told. He sat, closed his eyes, and looked inward. At first, there was only chaos. Fear, anger, confusion. But then, following Helia's advice, he searched deeper. And there they were.
To his conceptual left, he felt the darkness. It was cool, calm, and vast like the night sky. It had a gravity to it, a pull that promised power and silence. It didn't feel evil, not when it wasn't being used for violence. It just felt… stable.
To his right, he felt the light. And his other self was right. It was a scared animal. A buzzing ball of energy, vibrating with panic. It was hot and chaotic, lashing out as if it were caged.
"They are both you," Helia's voice was a soft murmur. "You were born of Sun and Moon. Both legacies are your birthright. Stop treating one like a treasure and the other like a poison."
Henry took a deep breath. He focused, not on controlling them, but just on feeling them. He reached his awareness out to the darkness, and it met him calmly. Then, he reached for the light, and it recoiled, its energy spiking in panic.
*Don't fight. Just watch,* he thought, trying to apply the same cold logic his counterpart had used.
Slowly, so slowly, the light stopped flinching. Its chaotic energy still buzzed, but it wasn't attacking him anymore. He was just there, suspended in the void of his own mind, between an ocean of dark tranquility and a miniature sun of panic. It was the most crushing weight he had ever felt. The weight of two souls.
He held it for maybe three seconds before his focus shattered. The strain was just too much. He gasped, his eyes flying open, sweat dripping down his forehead. He'd failed.
"No," Helia said, as if reading his thoughts. "You didn't fail. You held. That is more than you have ever done before." She stood up. "Class is over for today. Rest. This afternoon, you'll go to your normal classes. And tomorrow, we will do this again. And the day after. And the day after that. Until holding for three seconds becomes holding for a minute. And a minute becomes an hour."
As Henry got to his feet, legs shaking from the mental strain, he realized the truth in her words. The journey wasn't going to be about big victories or flashy power-ups. It was going to be about seconds. Won one at a time, in the quiet of his own warring soul.