Chapter Eighty Five
"Kion Yeun."
The silence that followed wasn't peaceful. It was the kind of silence that precedes a mountain collapsing or a star winking out of existence. The name felt heavy as it left my lips, echoing against the flying soot of the Fire Valley.
Noctyrael didn't move. He didn't blink.
The emerald nebulae in his eyes simply stopped spinning, freezing into a hard, crystalline focus that felt like it was pinning my soul to the soot.
"Kion... Yeun," he repeated. He didn't say it like a name. He said it like a long-forgotten password to a vault he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to open.
"Elder Brother!" Ignis's voice cracked the tension, his orange hair erupting into a pillar of literal white-hot flame as he strained against his body that was still frozen. "Do not let this... this puppet weave more lies! He is a vessel sent by the Empress to mock us!"
