The piano never stopped. Its notes kept seeping through the streets, rolling like waves that pressed down on every living being. The air seemed to hum with it, heavy and low, a lullaby that smothered all thought.
One by one, the crowd had folded into the music, heads bowing and knees giving way until eventually, the plaza was nothing but a field of slumbering bodies. Kael slumped against Pheo, his hand slipping from his shoulder as he collapsed to the ground, breathing softly.
But Pheo...
Pheo remained standing. His chest rose and fell too quickly, his heart pounding against the pull of the melody, his skull throbbing with each key stroke, but his eyes refused to close.
Above, Elion raised his hands, his words ringing out against the melody, cutting through it like a sermon woven into the song. "And when you wake," he declared, "only the true believers will rise again. The rest... will become sacrifices to the flame!"
Those faithful to the Emberlight roared to that promise, but their cheers had been swallowed by the tune, their bodies crumpling where they stood. Now there was only the soft melody that played throughout the city.
Elion's gaze swept across his conquered flock. His triumphant smile faltered. Slowly, his eyes narrowed, fixed on one lone figure upright amid the tide of sleep. "You..." His voice, so smooth and commanding moments ago, cracked.
The piano filled the pause, echoing across the city, wrapping tighter. "No. That is... impossible." He took a step forward, studying Pheo as though seeing an illusion. "Nothing can escape the binds of the melody. None can resist it."
His words were edged now with disbelief, maybe even fear. "Even the strongest person can't defy the melody. At least, not anymore." The tune surged, as if the unseen pianist pressed harder on the keys, reverberating in Pheo's bones.
His knees wavered, but still Pheo stood his ground. Elion's hands curled into fists. His voice hardened, swelling in fervor to drown out his own doubt. "Then what are you? An insult carved into the world? A heresy walking on two legs?"
Elion descended from the stairs, the piano's phantom tune still echoing across the city. The melody was like a blanket of sleep that was put over the entire city, keeping everyone in it trapped in slumber.
Everyone but Pheo.
Elion's eyes narrowed, his steps slow and deliberate. "It seems that even with all the preparations I've made, there are some things out of my control." His tone was caught between awe and disgust. "Nothing a little fire can't fix, though."
He raised his hand, and his body began to glow. First, faintly, like a candle at dusk. Then brighter, until the every surface of the plaza shimmered in the pale imitation of dawn. Heat rolled out from him in waves, the air warping around his frame.
Pheo shielded his eyes, sweat already beading across his skin as he began to back off. "You mock inevitability," Elion murmured, his voice quiet but edged with fury. "The Flame's chosen fall into slumber, the unworthy are culled, and yet you stand defiant of the way of the world."
His glow sharpened into a blinding flare. "What sustains you, child? What are you?" He thrust his arm forward. A searing arc of ultraviolet light snapped through the air, cutting across the plaza.
Pheo dove aside, rolling behind a broken statue. The heat kissed his back, burning through his clothes, but he forced himself upright. He grabbed a loose shard of stone and hurled it at Elion. It disintegrated midair, reduced to dust in the flare's light.
Elion's laugh soft, hollow. He burned brighter, until looking at him directly was agony. His voice carried through the haze, each word tumbling out like a ritual. "No pact binds you. No mark of the Flame You are not of the Ember, nor the Concordists."
"You do not inherit the mark of an apostle, you possess power that should not exist. You are a fracture in the order." He raised both arms, his form blazing like a miniature sun. The plaza groaned, marble cracking beneath the heat.
"Perhaps, you are not meant to exist at all."
Pheo squinted through the glow, his chest heaving, grabbing whatever he could from the ground. A torn banner, a metal rod, anything at all, and hurling them to disrupt Elion's aim.
He fought with desperation, with the environment itself, because against someone with a gift, what else could he do? And through it all, the piano never ceased its melody, the notes digging at the edge of his mind.
It was as if the world itself begged him to surrender, yet he moved. For the first time, Elion's certainty faltered. The fire in his voice cracked, replaced by something sharp and shaken.
"Why won't you fall?"
The heat pressed down on him like a mountain. The piano's endless melody clawed at his skull. Every breath seared his throat, every blink scorched his eyes. The plaza was a prison of fire and sound, and he was its last prisoner awake.
Pheo staggered behind the broken remains of a wall, his legs trembling, lungs burning.
Why is it always like this?
The thought hissed through his mind. Ever since he could remember, the world had been against him. His mother's curse, his father's insanity. The cavers, the bandits, there was always something against him, always a force that crushed him down.
He had clawed free each time, only to find that another wall, another obstacle, another hand ready to drag him under.
Is it so wrong that I want to live?
The melody gnawed deeper in his mind, threatening to smother him in drowsy surrender. Elion's glow flared, scorching closer, demanding his collapse. The weight of it all pressed against his chest until he thought his ribs might shatter.
He fell to one knee. His hands dug into the stone, nails splitting, blood streaking the cracks. For a moment, his vision blurred, not from the light, or from the heat, but from the crushing thought that maybe, Elion was right.
Maybe the world itself had no place for him.
And then–
Clarity.
The world would never give him a place, never give him peace. The world had chosen to fight him at every turn, to call him wrong, impossible, unwanted. If the world was made to reject him at every turn, then why should he bend to its will?
If the world won't change for me, won't give me a place... Then I'll change the world.
Pheo rose, step by step, despite the weight of the tune, despite the heat radiating from Elion's blazing form. His eyes sharpened, no longer frantic but resolute, like something had cracked inside and been reforged in the fire.
Elion froze at the sight. For all his glow, all his heat, he saw not a boy staggering against inevitability, but a will that refused to bow, a presence that had no right to exist yet forced existence anyway.
"You..." Elion's voice trembled, light flickering for just an instant. "What do you aim to achieve, standing so futile?"
Pheo's voice came low, hoarse, but unshaken.
"To defy the world."
His words hung in the air like a wound torn open. Elion's radiance pressed down on him, scorching and unrelenting, yet something within Pheo refused to collapse.
Then–
A crackle tore the silence. From deep within him, a heat unlike any he had ever known surged forward. It felt different, ancient, unbound, alive. Golden fire erupted from him in a sudden, blinding light. It roared upward like a pillar, scattering sparks that streaked across the city sky. Each ember carried itself to different places, both near and far.
Elion staggered back, eyes narrowing at the impossible sight. "No... you're still too young for a gift." He couldn't understand what was unfolding. But Pheo did not falter, the fire culled around him, dancing like living stars.
The golden fire coiled around Pheo, shielding him from the oppressive weight of Elion's false sun. Each breath came ragged, but in every exhale the flames around him burned brighter, answering his will.
Elion descended in fury, his body incandescent, skin fissuring with molten cracks as if his very being was tearing itself apart to hold the sun's core inside. "Do you think light belongs to you?!" He roared, hurling searing arcs of ultraviolet fire.
Pheo didn't dodge. He thrust his hand forward, golden fire erupting in a tidal wave. The blaze consumed Elion's flame, not sniffing it out but devouring it, reshaping it, turning the false sun into scattered motes that fizzled harmlessly in the air.
"Impossible, there is no greater flame, none more brilliant than mine."
They clashed again and again, golden sparks against burning plasma. Each strike rattled the stone beneath them, each wave of heat setting the air alight. Yet with every passing moment, Elion's brilliance dimmed, his strikes growing weaker, his glow less blinding.
Pheo advanced, steps unyielding. "You speak of flame as though it were yours to own. But your fire is hollow. Mine..." he flung his arm, sending a torrent of golden fire that split the plaza apart. "Was born to remake the world."
Elion staggered, his radiance flickering violently. The miniature sun within him was failing, its core collapsing under the pressure. His breaths came ragged, each one laced with desperation. "No... no, not now...!"
He tried to force it, but Elion's body shook, cracks of fading light streaking across his skin. The fire that had once blazed like a star now sputtered like dying embers. Light bled from his eyes and mouth like molten tears.
Pheo stood tall amid the golden storm, his flame still roaring, his gaze fixed. Elion's temporary sun had run its course, his power collapsing under its own weight, while Pheo only burned brighter as time passed by.
Elion's hands trembled, yet he still raised them, pulling every last scrap of fire from the dying sun within. "I will not–" his voice broke, strangled by both fury and despair, "Fall to a nameless wretch like you!"
He hurled himself forward, his body blazing so violently it threatened to tear apart the plaza itself. The ground split under the surge, walls melting into slag as ultraviolet arcs slashed the air.
Pheo met him head-on. Golden fire surged, shaping itself around his movements, striking and deflecting with a power that shook the city's bones. For every strike Elion made, Pheo's flame swallowed it whole. For every surge of light, Pheo's blaze outshone it.
Yet still, Elion fought. Even as cracks split deeper through his skin, even as his flesh turned translucent with the burning core inside, he pressed on, roaring like a beast in its final death throes.
"You think you've won?" His laughter cracked, hollow and desperate. "This... is only the beginning... the flame does not end with me–"
The miniature sun inside him collapsed. His body convulsed violently, light pouring out in a blinding column. He screamed, a sound caught between triumph and agony, as the very gift he wielded devoured him from within. Light tore through him in one final, catastrophic blaze, drowning his voice in fire.
In the end, there was no body left, only shards of scorched stone, blackened earth, and lingering red glow that flickered before fading into nothing. Pheo stood amidst the ruin, golden embers still dancing around him.
His breath came heavy, yet his eyes burned steady. Elion had given everything to prove his supremacy, and in the end, it was that very pride, that false sun, that consumed him. The city was silent save for the haunting echo of the piano still playing, as if mocking the fallen tyrant's fallen blaze.
Pheo stood there, chest heaving, golden sparks still clinging faintly to his skin. His vision swam, every muscle screaming from strain. The weight of what had happened pressed down on him.
His knees buckled, everything... it was all like a dream. The last thing he saw before the darkness closed in was the sight of Elion's ashes drifting on the air, glowing faintly like dying embers.
Pheo collapsed, the world falling away with him.