It was filled with "Darkness".
Not the cozy kind that tucks you into bed. No, this was the kind of darkness that devours light, quiet, and sanity. An emptiness that probed against my skin like frozen fingers.
I pinched my eyes open, but the reality surrounding me didn't change.
"Where am I…" I exhaled to nobody.
No reply. Not even an echo.
Until—
"Beware where you're looking, young man," a voice, mocking but royal, wafted through the emptiness.
There was light. Not light but her.
There was a woman standing before me. No, standing was the wrong word. She glowed, shimmered like the moon on dark water. She had pale skin, dull fuchsia-colored eyes with black void-shaped pupils, and long, wild silver-moon hair with purple undersides.
She smiled at me, tilting her head.
"Okay?" she said, her eyebrow raised. "Is it ethical in your opinion to ponder a married woman in that manner?"
I stood there, my mouth agape. Then shut. Then opening again.
She laughed, gently. "Adorable."
I blinked in surprise. I had not uttered a word, and already she was walking towards me, boots thudding out onto the invisible ground as if this darkness were home.
"Don't worry. I'm not here to flirt. I'm here to make an offer."
"An offer?"
"Yes. An offer, Lucifer Ashenford. Or perhaps I should say. Lucifer of Night Veil?"
My breath caught in my throat.
She knew.
No one had ever spoken that name out loud since I reincarnated. Not even the god who cast me into this world.
"Who are you?" I growled, my voice like a croak.
Her smile cracked. For an instant, she was older. Wiser. More substantial.
"I am Syrelle. Region Commander of the Order of Queens."
She stopped to allow the words to sink in. I was unfamiliar with the name, but the way she said it….like a blade pulled out of its leather sheath, silent. It was clear that this was not a generic title.
"I saw you," she continued. "Not in incantations or crystal balls. I felt your desperation. Eight falls in four months of your eight years, and still you rise to hold a sword that shuns your flesh. A heart that remembers flame, trapped in bodies of ash."
Her voice hit my deepest wound.
"I can heal you, Lucifer, only if you'll join me."
I was frozen. My heart thudded harder than her words.
Join her?
I looked at her. The black headgear on the left side of her hair with a few blue elements looking like feathers decorating it.
I had not answered her. Not because I feared her.
But because. everything would be different then.
---
In the silence of that moment, my thoughts turned to my grandmother Valestra. Her warm lap, comforting, the soft scolding, the way she'd say to me, "You need not shine for the world, only for yourself."
To my cousin Seris. The genius with Monster Compatibility even without waking up her soulpage. She would definitely become a legendary Beast Tamer. But even she had pitied me rather than priding in me.
And my Uncle is Headmaster of Valkarion Academy, the only prestige academy in this region defined by the purple miasma. I wanted to be accepted there with my cousin. But, I was barely a shadow of the person I was meant to be.
The god whom I had once trusted. No, believed; hadn't shown up since my awakening.
Cast aside after all?
Or maybe forgotten?
It did not matter now.
I looked up at Syrelle. At her calm, steadfast stance. At the force that radiated from her without arrogance or violence.
She was real. Here.
And she was providing something the gods were not:
Freedom.
Not vengeance. I did not want that. Not anymore.
Just… the right to breathe and not be ashamed. To live and not break.
I took a step closer and bowed.
"Agreed," I told her. "No gods to follow. Just me."
She smiled, dazzlingly. "Good boy."
Then she leaned in close, her eyes staring into mine.
"Remember me, Lucifer. For all the days of your life, remember that it was I, Syrelle, who delivered you from despair."
I didn't even have a chance to say anything before the air around us trembled with a chill.
Abruptly, a churning whirlpool opened up behind her as if the world had been cut with a giant, invisible knife.
Syrelle spun around, cloak billowing behind her, and leapt into the vortex of stars.
She pondered on the edge and looked back over her shoulder
"Well, coming?"
I took one last breath, and stepped forward.
Into the whirlpool of unknown and reputed liberty.