CHAPTER 117 — THREADS THAT BLEED
The silence after the Crescent's withdrawal was worse than the assault itself.
Pearl felt it settle into the Citadel like a held breath—too quiet, too deliberate. The silver glow around her wings dimmed to a restrained shimmer, but the tension in her body did not ease. Experience had taught her this truth early: when something ancient stopped attacking, it was not retreating.
It was repositioning.
Around her, the others moved carefully, checking wounds, reinforcing fractured sigils, whispering to one another in low, uncertain tones. The scout leaned against a broken pillar, hands shaking as he wiped blood from his mouth. The crystalline-armed woman stood rigid, her gaze unfocused, as though listening to something no one else could hear.
Pearl noticed immediately.
"You feel it too," Pearl said quietly, approaching her.
The woman nodded once. "It's not gone."
"No," Pearl agreed. "It's changed tactics."
As if summoned by the admission, the air grew heavier. Not with pressure—but with weight. Emotional. Invisible. Oppressive. Pearl's chest tightened, not from fear, but from a sudden, unplaceable sorrow that didn't belong to her.
She staggered half a step.
Then she understood.
The Crescent wasn't attacking bodies anymore.
It was attacking bonds.
A sharp gasp echoed behind her. Pearl turned just in time to see the scout collapse to his knees, clutching his head. His breath came in ragged sobs, eyes unfocused.
"I can hear them," he whispered. "My parents. They're calling me. They're afraid. They're—"
His words dissolved into broken sounds.
Pearl moved instantly, kneeling before him, silver light wrapping gently around his temples. She felt it then—a thin, almost invisible thread stretching from him into the void, vibrating with чужd emotion.
The Crescent had found the connections.
The things that made them human.
"Everyone listen to me," Pearl said sharply, her voice cutting through the rising panic. "Do not follow any voice you hear. Do not trust any memory that suddenly hurts more than it should."
The staff-bearer swore under his breath. "It's inside our minds."
"No," Pearl corrected. "It's inside what connects them."
The Citadel groaned softly, stone grinding against stone as if reacting to the unseen manipulation. Pearl stood, wings lifting as she expanded her perception—not outward, but between them.
And she saw it.
Threads.
Hundreds of them.
Faint, luminous strands of memory, loyalty, fear, love—binding the group together. The Crescent wasn't severing them outright. It was pulling them. Testing tension. Waiting for one to snap on its own.
Elegant, Pearl thought grimly. Cruel.
A whisper brushed her awareness again, deeper now, intimate.
You are the center of the web, the Crescent murmured. Every bond tightens through you. Break, and they unravel.
Pearl's jaw clenched.
"You're wrong," she whispered. "They don't rely on me because I'm strong. They stand with me because they choose to."
The pressure increased.
The scout screamed.
Pearl reacted instantly, channeling silver energy not as force, but as stability. She poured calm, grounding presence into the thread binding him, reinforcing it instead of cutting it. The Crescent recoiled slightly, surprised.
Around them, others began to falter—knees buckling, breath hitching, eyes glassy with memories weaponized against them. Pearl felt the weight of all those threads tugging at her core, pulling harder with each second.
This was the true test.
Not endurance.
Leadership.
She spread her wings fully, silver light flooding the chamber—not blinding, but warm, steady. "Look at me," she commanded. "Not your past. Not your fear. Me."
One by one, eyes lifted.
Pearl reached inward, deeper than she ever had before—beyond power, beyond instinct—into the quiet certainty that had carried her from a farmer's field on a distant world to the heart of a war beyond reality.
She anchored herself.
Then she anchored them.
The threads trembled, then steadied.
The Crescent pushed back hard.
The Citadel shook violently as shadows surged through the walls, not forming shapes, not striking physically—just pressing, like a storm against glass. Pearl cried out as pain flared through her chest, each bond tugging simultaneously.
Blood trickled from her nose.
Still, she held.
"Now!" she shouted. "Sever the false connections!"
The staff-bearer slammed his weapon into the floor, releasing a controlled wave of sigil-light that rippled outward—not cutting bonds, but clarifying them. Illusions screamed as they collapsed, false memories burning away like mist in sunlight.
The Crescent recoiled sharply.
For the first time, Pearl felt something unmistakable ripple back through the void.
Not anger.
Displeasure.
It withdrew its pressure, but not its presence. The threads slackened, but did not disappear. The chamber fell into ragged silence once more, broken only by labored breathing.
Pearl staggered, wings trembling violently.
The crystalline-armed woman caught her before she fell. "You took it all on yourself," she said quietly. "That wasn't strategy. That was sacrifice."
Pearl shook her head weakly. "No. Sacrifice would've broken the web. This… this was reinforcement."
She straightened slowly, wiping blood from her lip. Her silver glow was dimmer now, strained—but not extinguished.
The Crescent lingered at the edge of perception, watching again.
Learning again.
But something had shifted.
It had expected bonds to be weaknesses.
It had not accounted for shared resolve.
Pearl lifted her gaze toward the unseen horizon beyond the Citadel's broken ceiling. "You can pull at us all you want," she said softly. "But every time you touch us, you reveal yourself a little more."
The whisper faded.
Not retreating.
Reconsidering.
As the Citadel settled, Pearl felt the threads between her companions strengthen—not because of her power, but because of what they had survived together.
And somewhere outside reality, the Crescent adjusted its calculations.
The Silver Heir had endured the unraveling.
Next time, it would not test connections.
It would try to cut them.