His body hit the floor with a hollow, wooden thud.
His head followed.
It rolled once… twice… and came to a stop near the leg of the chair Vesperyn was sitting on.
There was no blood.
Vesperyn stared.
His mind rejected what his eyes were showing him.
Vesperyn's legs felt like they were made of some porcelain.
Only when his mother moved did his body snap back into reality...
Suddenly-
He was behind his mother.
He didn't know how he got there.
His hands were clutching the back of her clothing, fingers shaking so badly he couldn't feel them.
"What is wrong with you?" Inara shouted, her voice cracking as the light around them trembled. "Why can't you leave me alone?"
For the first time, the man's expression broke.
Just for a moment.
Pain flickered across his face—raw, before it vanished, replaced by the same calm certainty as before.
"Inara," he said softly. "Come with me."
She laughed, sharp and brittle. "You still ask that? After everything?"
"You knew the cost," he replied.
"And you knew my choice!" she snapped. "I cannot betray my people again!"
He tilted his head slightly.
Her breath hitched.
"I chose a side thirteen years ago, Kaiden. I'm still on it," she said. "My people. They matter more than you ever did."
The words came out too fast.
"You were never anything more than a role I played for my nation."
The man's eyes darkened.
"I knew," he said quietly. "And I let you."
Silence pressed in around them.
"I searched for you," he continued. "Thirteen years. Across the realm and I found you hiding in this... gutter. This 'Earth.'"
His gaze shifted.
It landed on Darian.
"…It's been thirteen years since I last saw my son."
Darian stiffened. "What?"
Then the man looked at Vesperyn.
His gaze traced the shock of red hair, then flicked toward Inara's white strands.
For the first time, uncertainty crept into his voice.
Inara inhaled sharply.
"Enough," she whispered.
The air in the kitchen soured instantly.
Not smoke. Not fire.Ozone—sharp, metallic, wrong.
Vesperyn felt the hairs on his arms rise a heartbeat before the world ruptured.
The wooden table disintegrated, breaking apart into fine golden dust that scattered and vanished before it could hit the floor.
Light exploded outward.
Not a flash.
An erasure.
The walls didn't collapse. They simply ceased to exist.
Vesperyn gasped as the smell of breakfast was stripped away, replaced by sterile heat that pressed in from every direction. The floor was gone. The ceiling was gone. He was no longer standing on anything.
They were suspended.
An endless field of golden radiance stretched in all directions, thick and resistant, like wading through warm honey. Every movement felt slowed, weighted.
The silence was absolute. So complete it made his ears ring.
Darian shouted something.
Vesperyn saw his mouth move—but the sound arrived dulled, distorted, as if the world itself was swallowing it.
The man grimaced.
"Inara," he said, louder now. "Stop this."
She didn't answer.
Something shifted.
The light was still there—blinding, all-consuming—but it felt wrong now. Thin. Unstable. Like a structure held together by strain alone.
Inara staggered.
Her breath broke into short, uneven gasps. The glow around her flickered, no longer smooth or whole. Lines of light fractured across her body, cracking like stress fractures in glass.
"Kaiden—" she started.
Then stopped.
He took a single step forward.
And the light stopped mattering.
A black mist bled into existence around him.
It didn't surge or spread violently. It leaked, seeping outward like ink through water. Wherever it touched the golden radiance, the light dimmed—not pushed back, not shattered—just… erased.
Inara screamed.
Not in pain.
In fear.
Vesperyn felt it then.
Not heat.
Not pressure.
Emptiness.
The golden field thinned as the black fog advanced, eaten away at the edges, collapsing inward. The resistance vanished. The weight disappeared.
His mother clutched her chest, barely staying upright.
"Inara," Kaiden said quietly. Almost gently. "Enough."
She turned toward her sons.
Her eyes were wide—not with panic, but urgency.
"Listen to me," she said, voice shaking. "Both of you. Listen."
She forced herself forward, each step labored. The light around her cracked further, splintering in jagged lines as the black mist gnawed at it.
She grabbed Vesperyn's wrist and pressed something into his palm.
Cold.
Solid.
Real.
A ring.
His fingers curled around it instinctively.
"Break it," she whispered. "When I tell you. No matter what you hear. No matter what you see."
"Mom?" Darian said, panic breaking through. "What are you talking about?"
Kaiden moved.
Too fast to follow.
The barrier around them shattered—not explosively, but cleanly, like glass struck at its weakest point.
Darian vanished.
One moment he was beside Vesperyn, reaching toward their mother—
The next, he was suspended in Kaiden's grasp, lifted effortlessly, feet dangling uselessly above nothing.
"Let him go!" Inara screamed, lunging forward.
The black mist surged.
Her light recoiled violently, collapsing inward. The glow around her guttered like a flame deprived of air.
Kaiden didn't look at her.
He looked at Darian.
Then—slowly—his gaze shifted to Vesperyn.
"Choose wisely," he said.
The space twisted.
The remaining fragments of reality buckled. The golden field warped, folding in on itself like fabric pulled too far.
Inara turned back to Vesperyn, terror and resolve colliding.
"Now!" she shouted. "Ves—now!"
His hands shook violently.
"I—I don't—"
"Break it!" she screamed. "Trust me!"
The world pulled.
Darian reached out. "Ves!"
Vesperyn looked at his brother.
Then at his mother.
Then at the ring.
He closed his fingers around it—
—and squeezed.
The space where Vesperyn had been standing collapsed inward.
He was simply… gone.
Kaiden's eyes lingered on the emptiness.
"…Will you tell me," he asked quietly, "whose child that was?"
Inara didn't look at him.
"It doesn't matter anymore," she said.
Her voice was steady now.
Too steady.
She raised her hand.
What remained of her light condensed—thin, sharp, unstable—forming spears that trembled as they took shape. They tore forward, not graceful, not controlled.
At Kaiden.
At Darian.
Darian screamed.
"Inara," Kaiden said calmly, almost tired. "This is my world now."
He lifted his free hand.
The black mist surged.
The spears didn't deflect.
They unraveled.
Some bent upward, dissolving into nothing. Others slammed downward, embedding themselves harmlessly into fractured space. One shattered midair, scattering into pale fragments before fading.
"It's futile," Kaiden said. "You know that."
Inara exhaled slowly.
Her shoulders relaxed.
"I see it now," she said.
Her white hair lifted, drifting as the last of her light bled away into the fog.
Kaiden's eyes widened.
"Inara," he snapped. "Don't."
She smiled faintly.
Not at him.
At Darian.
Kaiden moved.
The distance vanished.
The spear drove through her chest.
There was no explosion. No flash.
Just a quiet, brutal impact.
Inara gasped—not loudly—just a sharp intake of breath as the weapon pierced her.
Blood bloomed across her clothes.
Dark.
Real.
And her light finally went out.