Her golden eyes had long lost their shimmer. The radiant being who once shone like dawn itself now decayed in silence, her wings dulled to hollow feathers, patches of rot spreading like disease. Appolyth could no longer sustain herself on Reheil's consciousness alone; the vessel was weakening, her soul slipping back into the body with every breath.
So she did the most logical thing her fading divinity could whisper—she subdued Reheil completely. The woman's once beautiful green eyes turned to obsidian black, reflecting only emptiness.
But Appolyth's hunger only grew. She realized then that her power could stretch beyond a single vessel, that she could scatter herself, subdue ten souls at once—an empire of hollow shells walking at her command. Yet she knew the price. With every soul she consumed, more of her divinity withered. One final push, one more step into defiance, and the gods themselves would descend. She could not risk it… not yet.
Still, she could no longer hold herself back. Reheil's body fought against her, the mother's soul screaming endlessly inside, and Appolyth's strength was failing. In desperation, she turned her gaze to the smallest one.
Lemuel.
The child slept soundly, his breath soft, his innocence unbroken. Appolyth reached with trembling hands of shadow and touched his soul. A spark, pure and untainted, rushed into her being. Exhilaration—ecstasy. Her decayed wings trembled with the stolen life, her heart hammering with hunger. It was too sweet. Too perfect.
And so she returned, again and again, each time taking a little more. Lemuel whimpered in his sleep, his mother's soul fighting her with every theft, but Appolyth always won. Each victory left her breathless, but her reflection showed no glory restored. Her feathers fell like ash. Her fingertips blackened to charcoal. The divinity she longed to regain slipped further and further from her grasp.
She thought herself unseen. She thought the heavens had turned their eyes away.
But as she drew the last sliver of her child's light that night, silence fell across the room, deeper than death. Her name—Appolyth—whispered across the void, carried not by voice but by judgment.
And for the first time since her fall, she knew.
The gods were watching.