The silence that followed Caelus's words felt alive—like the space between two heartbeats, stretching, trembling. Illyria's breath caught. The air in the sealed realm was heavy, saturated with a power she now realized was not just mana, but her father's life force, worn thin.
"Read it," Caelus urged, his voice both a plea and a command. "You've carried mind magic since the day you were born. Now is the time to use it—on me."
Her fingers trembled as she touched the edge of one deep crack running across his scaled chest. It pulsed faintly, as if a heartbeat echoed within the wound.
The moment her magic slipped into him, her vision fractured—light and shadow folding into one another until she was no longer in the cavern with her father. She stood in a different time.
---
She saw the beginning—not of the world, but of him. Caelus was not born; he was forged. The gods shaped him as they might shape a blade, stripping away all warmth, all choice, until only purpose remained. He was to be the ruler above rulers, guardian of the three realms, keeper of time and space's fragile thread.
For centuries, he obeyed without question. A weapon does not dream, does not doubt.
Then… she appeared. A spirit woman, her presence like sunlight breaking through the stone vault of his existence. Her laughter was not loud, but it lingered in the air like the memory of spring. And Caelus—weapon, guardian, dragon—felt something ignite in the hollow where his heart should have been.
He sealed himself away to protect her from the gods' wrath, but sealing came with a cost. The first cracks split his body then, thin at first, but deepening every time he allowed himself to feel.
---
The vision shifted. Illyria now saw herself—not as she was now, but as a small infant wrapped in silvery cloth. Her mother's hands were gentle, yet her eyes were shadowed by fear. Spirits, Caelus's voice echoed in the memory, conceive differently. They name their chosen, and from that name life takes form. She was born of love… and of defiance.
But her birth was not celebrated. The gods whispered the word "curse" as if it were a sentence, not a name. The child of a weapon and a spirit could not be allowed to live freely—they feared what she might become. Caelus fought them in silence, hiding her away, bending reality itself to keep her from their sight. Every battle left another crack in his body.
---
Illyria's breath shuddered in the memoryscape. She saw the wars he fought—not for conquest, but for her safety. She saw him stand alone before the rift storms when time itself faltered. She saw him bleed, his great wings torn, his scales shattered, but still he stood.
Then, she saw the moment he let her go—the day she had been taken to the palace. Not because he wanted to, but because the gods had forced his hand. It was either lose her entirely… or place her in the one position where they would not dare destroy her outright.
His voice returned, echoing around her in this vast expanse of memory:
"These stories are not you, my child. They are mine. Do not drown in them. Be the illusion, not the puppet. Your life is your own, even if it began as a curse."
---
The memory shattered like glass, and Illyria gasped back into her body. Her father was watching her, his golden eyes dimmed, but burning with an unshakable love.
The cracks across his body glowed faintly, and she understood—each fracture was a mark of his defiance, of his choice to feel when he had been made to be empty.
"Father…" Her voice broke.
Caelus smiled faintly, though pain flickered at the corners of his mouth. "I was never meant to love. But I did. Twice. And it was worth every break in my shell."