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.
He tried to breathe, but his lungs were empty.
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 instantly soured with the sharp, metallic tang of ozone.
Vesperyn felt the hair on his arms stand up a second before the world tore open. The wooden table didn't just move; it disintegrated into fine, golden dust.
The light exploded outward. It wasn't a flash; it was an erasure. The walls didn't fall—they simply stopped being.
Vesperyn gasped as the familiar scent of breakfast was replaced by a sterile, crushing heat.
Suddenly, he wasn't standing on a floor. He was suspended in an endless field of golden radiance that felt thick, like treading through warm honey.
The silence was so absolute it made his ears ring.
Darian shouted something, but the sound felt distant, muffled.
The man grimaced.
"Inara," he said, louder now. "Stop this."
She didn't
Suddenly something changed.
The light was still there—bright, filling everything—but it felt… wrong. As if it had lost its weight.
Inara staggered.
Her breath broke into short, uneven gasps. The glow around her flickered, no longer steady.
"Kaiden—" she started, and stopped.
He took a step forward.
And suddenly, the light didn't matter anymore.
Inara screamed.
Not in pain.
In fear.
Vesperyn felt it then.
Not heat.
Not pressure.
An emptiness spreading outward, swallowing the edges of things. The golden field dimmed, thinning like mist under sunlight.
His mother clutched her chest, barely staying upright.
"Inara," Kaiden said quietly, almost gently. "Enough."
She turned sharply toward her sons.
Her eyes were wide.
"Listen to me," she said, voice shaking. "Both of you. Listen."
She stumbled toward them, forcing herself forward as the light around her cracked and fractured.
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 urgently. "When I tell you. No matter what you hear. No matter what you see."
"Mom?" Darian said, panic rising in his voice. "What are you talking about?"
Kaiden moved.
Too fast to follow.
The barrier around them splintered like glass struck by a hammer.
Darian was gone.
One moment he was beside Vesperyn, reaching toward their mother—
The next, he was lifted off the ground, held effortlessly in Kaiden's grasp, his feet dangling uselessly above the floor.
"Let him go!" Inara screamed, lunging forward.
Kaiden didn't look at her.
He looked at Darian.
Then—slowly—his gaze shifted to Vesperyn.
"Choose wisely," he said.
The space around them twisted.
The walls shuddered. The floor warped, stretching and folding like fabric pulled too hard.
Inara turned back to Vesperyn, terror and resolve colliding in her expression.
"Now!" she shouted. "Ves—now!"
His hands were shaking.
"I—I don't—" he started.
"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 in his hand.
He closed his fingers around it—
—and squeezed.
The space where Vesperyn had been standing was empty.
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 steadier now. Too steady.
She raised her hand.
Light condensed—sharp, focused—forming spears that hummed with restrained force. They tore forward in a blinding arc, aimed straight at Kaiden.
At Darian.
Darian screamed.
"Inara," Kaiden said calmly, almost tired, "this is my world now."
He lifted his free hand.
The spears twisted.
Not deflected—rewritten.
Some veered upward, tearing into nothing. Others slammed downward, embedding themselves uselessly into the fractured ground. One shattered midair, dissolving into harmless fragments of light.
"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 around her face like pale smoke.
Kaiden's eyes widened.
"Inara," he snapped. "Don't."
She smiled faintly.
Not at him.
At Darian.
Kaiden moved.
He crossed the distance in an instant, driving the spear through her before she could finish whatever she had begun.
The impact was quiet.
Inara gasped—not loudly,—just a sharp intake of breath as the weapon pierced her chest.
Blood bloomed across her clothes, dark and real.