By fifteen, I had mastered silence.
Not just the silence of sound—but the silence between expectations. Between every respectful bow from the temple priests, between every glance of awe from younger initiates, between every whispered mention of prophecy when they thought I wasn't listening.
They all spoke of me like I was already divine.
But I knew better.
I was sharpened, not sanctified.
Perephone's training had carved the weakness out of my body. Each scar along my arms told a story—less about pain, more about precision. Each bruise from a failed stance, each dislocation from a misstep, every dawn where I vomited from overexertion—these became prayers in motion.
But I never beat her. Not once.
And she never stopped mocking Solviel.
My studies grew deeper too. The ancient languages, the constellational ethics, the forbidden tomes of the First Era Prophets—I memorized them not out of love, but because ignorance was vulnerability. And I could not afford to be weak—not anymore.
Vareon still visited. Less frequently. Always watching. Never interfering.
Whenever I passed by him, I could feel his eyes not on me, but on what I was meant to become.
On the fifteenth day of the Frost Reign, I was summoned to the Mirror Hall—where only high initiates were allowed entry.
Not as a student. But as a named successor to the Celestial Vanguard.
And as I walked past the temple halls, past the golden arches and the kneeling pilgrims, past the young girls who still whispered my name with hope—
I wondered if they would still kneel if they knew how many times I had begged a silent spirit to speak.
I walked through the eastern sanctum—barefoot, as the old ways demanded—toward the stone-walled quarters carved into the high ridges behind the temple. No one else lived this far out.
Only her.
The scent of pine, wind, and faded incense clung to the halls. And beneath it… something bitter, sharp.
"Master Perephone, are you there?" I called gently, knocking twice.
A pause.
Then—
"Hmm… the lady is here?"
"Yes…"
"Sure. Come in," she said, the casual drawl unmistakable.
I pushed the old wooden door open.
The scent hit me first.
"The smell of alcohol is strong…" I said softly. "Have you been drinking through the years, Master?"
Perephone sat by a circular window cut into the stone wall, back to the dim sky. One leg over the other. Her long silver hair was loose, and the bottle in her hand had been half-drained.
She looked at me—not surprised, not ashamed.
"Drinking through the years?" she echoed, amused. "Dear Luna, I've been drinking since the Golden Time. The bottle's the only thing in this place that doesn't expect me to train it."
I frowned slightly. "You're not like this in front of others."
"Because the others aren't you."
She took a sip. Let the silence linger.
"Still chasing answers, aren't you?" she added, eyes glancing toward me. "Let me guess. This is about Solviel."
I nodded. "Why do you still mock her?"
Perephone tilted her head.
"Mock?" she repeated. "Oh, Luna. I don't mock Solviel. I provoke her."
I stayed quiet, unsure if that was supposed to comfort me.
She rose slowly and walked to a chest by the wall, placing the bottle down. Her movements were sharp, purposeful, even now.
"Solviel was never meant to be passive. Third Circle Spirits are not guides. They are shapers. They take their vessels and carve them into destiny. But Solviel? She watches. She waits."
She turned back to me, eyes more sober than her breath.
"I've fought alongside spirits who burned cities to protect their vessels. Spirits who spoke in dreams, who whispered through bone. But Solviel?""She let you bleed."
My jaw tensed. "She heals. She helps during ceremony."
"And what of the day I nearly shattered your spine?" she said. "Did she speak then? Did she burn my lance in divine rage?"
Silence.
I didn't know what to say.
Because she was right.
"You think I mock her because I hate her," Perephone said. "But the truth is… I once admired her. Once."
She walked back to her seat and stared out the window, toward the distant peaks.
"But admiration faded the day I saw her falter. The day she failed."
"Against Gren Leviyatan," I whispered.
The name tasted like ice.
Perephone nodded slowly. "That name still stings, doesn't it?"
"Solviel reacted when you said it. That was the first time she ever…" I hesitated. "Felt alive."
Perephone didn't look at me.
Instead, she said, almost to herself—
"Raksha always told me Solviel was the brightest among us. The most resolute. But spirits are bound by will—and when that will breaks…"
She trailed off.
"What happened?" I asked, stepping forward.
She met my eyes. For once, there was no teasing, no mockery.
Only a truth she'd never wanted to speak.
"Solviel didn't just lose to Gren Leviyatan.""She begged him for mercy."
"A spirit begs for mercy…?"The words stumbled out of me, half in disbelief, half in awe.
"Right. You wouldn't know," Perephone replied, standing with a creak of her knees. "It's one of the lost histories. Erased—or buried—like many truths that make gods look mortal."
She gestured toward the old couch draped in lionhide.
"Sit. I'll tell you what I can."
She poured a small cup of steaming tea and handed it to me.
"You can't drink the strong stuff yet."
"Thanks…"
I held the cup in both hands, though the heat didn't quite reach my fingers. My mind was elsewhere—already tumbling down questions I never thought to ask.
Perephone sat across from me and stared at the flickering lantern light on the wall, her expression unreadable.
"So… where should I even start?"
She clicked her tongue, thinking.
"Hey, Raksha. Manifest for her, will you?"
Without warning, a bolt of blue lightning cracked through the air, not from the sky, but from nothing—a vertical rip of raw energy that barely left scorch marks on the stone.
From the center stepped a massive figure:
A lion—but not of fur or flesh. His body was scaled like a serpent, each scale etched with ancient runes, shimmering with electric light. Three tails, each swaying in different rhythm, and eyes… not a beast's. Reptilian, cold and knowing—one eye a shade of pale gray, the other burning red.
"Hmm… telling the story to the vessel of Solviel, are we?" Raksha's voice echoed, not with a roar, but with a controlled, thunderous tone—like the hum of a coming storm.
"You see, Luna," Perephone began, nodding toward him, "Spirits are born of concepts. The deeper the concept, the more profound the power. Some spirits were once humans who ascended. Others are born from emotion, idea, or even myth itself."
"Yes," I said. "I studied that."
"Good." She leaned back. "Because Solviel is… special. She wasn't born of chaos or vengeance or wisdom."
"Solviel," Raksha said, stepping forward, his paws silent, "was born of the domain of hope and salvation. A rare kind. That's why she's the only spirit that has ever inherited across bloodlines. She grew within the house of Gadriel—cultivated over generations."
"Then… what does it mean she failed her purpose?" I asked.
A pause followed. Heavy.
Then Raksha spoke again:
"May I speak, Contractor?"
Perephone nodded once.
"Solviel was once given a divine mission. Not by kings. Not by prophets. But by the gods and goddesses themselves. Her task—was to vanquish a spirit named…"
He paused.
"…Gren Leviyatan."
The name chilled the air.
Even the flames in the lanterns flickered, as if in recoil.
"He's not like us," Raksha continued. "Not bound by the natural order. Gren Leviyatan is… a spirit of untamed nature—not in balance with the world, but in defiance of it. A concept so primal and ancient it tears through the rules we are born under."
"But all spirits can take human form, right?"
"Yes," Raksha said. "But Gren Leviyatan's form is not taken. It is made. A body woven from the fabrics of reality. He doesn't imitate humanity—he rewrites existence in his image."
"Spirits like us," Raksha added, "we manifest, yes. But we cannot touch the world without you—our awakeners. Our vessels. Our contract bearers."
"But he?""He walks without chains."
I couldn't breathe. This wasn't just some corrupted spirit.
This was anomaly. Blasphemy.
"During the Age of Silence," Raksha continued, "the era five hundred years after the Mourning of the World, and just before the Golden Time—you know of it?"
"Yes," I nodded.
"Then you must know it as the most devastating century of spirit-kind. That was the era Solviel and others—First Circle included—stood alongside their awakeners, your ancestor among them, to fight Gren Leviyatan."
"And they lost?" I asked, voice small.
"They fought for seventy years," Raksha said, his tails curling behind him. "A war not of nations, but of domains. Solviel burned. The First Circle bled. The skies cracked."
He paused.
"And still… Gren Leviyatan stood. He lost his physical body in the end, yes. But he emerged victorious."
My breath caught. Then how was he stopped?
Raksha turned toward me, slowly.
"He wasn't slain. He was sealed—by the Great Sage of the Silent Age. The only mortal who ever came close to understanding him. And then… history buried the truth."
Perephone spoke next, voice softer.
"That's why I mock Solviel, Luna. Not because she's weak."
She looked me dead in the eyes.
"But because she survived."
"We were all dead," Raksha said, his voice now low—far heavier than before. "But because Solviel… in her defeat… begged—we exist again."
His glowing eyes didn't blink. Didn't falter.
"Before Gren Leviyatan was sealed, he engraved a rune deep within the ocean, pouring into it a piece of his will. And when Solviel fell to her knees… she offered her own fragments in exchange for our restoration."
"Fragments… of herself?" I asked quietly.
"Yes," Raksha replied. "Solviel gave away a part of her divine self—to him. To the very anomaly she was created to destroy."
"In his amusement, Gren Leviyatan accepted. He used her fragment as an anchor… and began shaping a body."
I sat frozen. Words couldn't reach the horror I felt.
"It was a foolish choice," Perephone said coldly, arms crossed. "She saved us… but ensured his survival. Even in ruin, he endured."
"Then where is that body now?" I asked, my voice hoarse.
Raksha turned to Perephone. She nodded.
"The body was recovered by the Second King of the Mourning," she said. "But it was no easy task. That body was… alive."
"Alive?"
"It was infused with Solviel's divine fragment. It healed endlessly. Flesh that would not die. Bones that reformed. A corpse… without soul or spirit… but stubbornly unwilling to rot."
The thought chilled me more than any winter storm.
"The Second King called it a treasure. And planned to infuse his own soul into it."
"Why?" I asked. I already knew—but I had to hear it.
"The path to immortality," Perephone said.
She leaned back, staring at the flame-lit ceiling.
"That king was a vile man—nothing like his father. Greedy, prideful. When his years grew thin, he sought forbidden means to cling to life. Even attempted to force his claim over the Great Sage of the Silent Age—for her knowledge, and her bloodline."
"She exiled him. Humiliated him," Raksha added. "And crowned the offspring of the First King's second wife as the Third King."
"The body of Gren Leviyatan," Perephone continued, "was lost in the chaos of that exile. Some say it was burned. Others say it was stolen. No one knows."
I gripped the edge of the teacup. My fingers were pale.
"So it's still somewhere," I whispered.
"Maybe," Perephone said. "Maybe not. But understand this, Luna."
She stood. Raksha stood still, silent now.
"Only those of us who lived through that age remember these things. The Great Silence, the War of Domains, the sealing of Gren Leviyatan… and Solviel's shame."
She looked past me—directly at the quiet glow that still lingered inside my chest.
"You won't find these truths in scriptures. Only in us."
Her voice dropped to a near whisper.
"And you, Solviel… shameful spirit of silence… you watch your vessel drink poison with every word, yet say nothing?"
I felt a flicker within me. No voice. No light.
But… sorrow.