Chapter 34
One of the thugs stepped forward, his eyes dilating in sudden recognition as he stared down at the small child.
"Wait..." he stammered, raising a trembling hand. "Isn't that... the Count's daughter?"
"What?" The second ruffian immediately stiffened, the color draining from his face. "You're out of your mind."
"I'm telling you, we need to get out of here," the third whispered frantically, backing away toward the mouth of the alley. "This is a suicide mission!"
"Shut up! What are you cowards so scared of?" the leader snapped, though his own voice wavered with unmistakable dread.
Elyra slowly retreated step by step, keeping her blue gaze locked on the trio.
Three hostiles... Given my current physical limitations, I might be able to neutralize one. Perhaps two if I catch them off guard. But all three simultaneously?
A rare, cold prick of unease slithered into her chest.
CRACK!
A blinding, violent arc of purple lightning tore through the dark alleyway with deafening velocity.
"AAAAAGH!"
The three men shrieked in unison as raw, high-voltage electricity violently surged through their nervous systems. Their limbs seized and convulsed violently before their eyes rolled back and they collapsed like dead weight onto the stone pavement, smoking faintly.
Silence swallowed the alley just as quickly as the flash had illuminated it.
Elyra blinked. Then blinked again.
Standing amidst the crackling, ozone-scented remnants of the lightning strike was a young boy, no older than three years of age. He possessed inky black hair and striking, luminous purple eyes. Yet what seized Elyra's attention wasn't his youthful appearance, but the terrifyingly cold, deadpan gaze he directed back at her—an ancient, calculating gaze that fundamentally did not belong to a child.
Elyra froze.
A toddler? With that level of raw destructive output? Could he possibly be... another reincarnated soul?
"Children shouldn't wander into dark alleys alone."
The boy spoke in a flat, casual tone while effortlessly pulling a coil of durable hemp rope from his coat, binding the unconscious thugs with the practiced efficiency of a seasoned professional.
Elyra's internal tactical alarms flared with absolute clarity.
Bingo.
She ruthlessly crushed the sudden surge of excitement bubbling in her chest.
If he truly is like me... I cannot under any circumstances reveal that I am a reincarnator. Not yet.
"I am Ewyra Solwv," she announced, lifting her chin and crossing her arms with feigned childish arrogance. "The dauhter of the Count who governs this tewitory."
The boy abruptly stopped working, his shoulders tensing as he visibly flinched. "What?"
Before he could react, she reached up and dramatically pointed. "I've already seen your face."
The boy froze completely.
"And I think I wike you."
His purple eyes widened by a fraction of a millimeter.
Troublesome.
The single word echoed through his mind like a death knell. Even if he vanished into the shadows right this second, the probability of their paths crossing again was uncomfortably high.
"Become my a-ly," Elyra declared, her tone leaving no room for argument.
The boy stared down at her, utterly bewildered. What kind of bizarre toddler says something like that with a straight face?
Meanwhile, Elyra felt a quiet, smug satisfaction settle into her ribs. Good. He suspects nothing about me.
Suddenly, both children snapped their heads upward as a colossal, oppressive shockwave of raw energy tore through the atmosphere above them, descending with terrifying velocity. The pressure was so immense that the ambient air instantly grew suffocatingly heavy.
The mysterious boy's expression hardened into ice—Danger. An apex predator was inbound. Without a millisecond of hesitation, he pivoted on his heel and blurred into the darkness.
"Wait!" Elyra blurted out, panic fracturing her composure. "Meet me at da Solv estate tonight!"
The boy vanished into the pitch-black night without a parting word.
"Elyra!"
A thunderous, world-shaking roar tore down from the sky. The next instant, a massive silhouette plummeted from the upper atmosphere with the force of a falling meteor.
BOOM!
The cobblestones fractured beneath the impact. Damnern landed heavily inside the mouth of the alley, a radiant, blinding wing of pure white light erupting from his left shoulder, casting a brilliant, divine luminescence across the dark stone walls.
His Semi-Angel Sigil.
Without wasting a single breath, he lunged forward, his massive arms wrapping around Elyra and crushing her against his chest in a desperate, trembling embrace.
"Elyra!" His deep voice cracked, vibrating with raw terror.
Only then did the gears in Elyra's mind click into place. He manifested his Sigil... just to track me down?
Damnern's burning blue eyes swept over the three unconscious criminals lying bound on the ground, and his expression instantly curdled into a murderous, demonic scowl.
"Did they touch you?" he growled, the temperature in the alley dropping below freezing.
"No," Elyra replied smoothly, maintaining her deadpan facade. "There's someone, an adult 'elped Eyya"
Damnern's gaze sharpened like a razor blade. But the moment he looked down and confirmed Elyra was physically unharmed, the sheer, crushing wave of relief broke his composure entirely.
"You must have been terrified..." he whispered, his voice trembling uncontrollably. "Forgive Papa."
Elyra remained entirely expressionless. I wasn't even scared...
Without missing a beat, Damnern casually scooped up all three bound criminals with one massive hand.
WHAM!
With a casual flick of his leg, he punted the three adult men out of the alleyway with enough force that their bodies sailed across the broad street before crashing violently against the opposite stone storefront.
Shocked gasps and screams erupted from the surrounding festival-goers.
Ignoring the panicking crowd entirely, Damnern pulled Elyra securely against his chest, his magnificent white wing snapping wide open. With a powerful kick off the earth, he launched them straight up into the night sky.
The glittering sprawl of Willowess City rapidly shrank beneath them. Within moments, the entire breathtaking panorama of the Remembrance Festival unfurled below—countless thousands of warm lanterns illuminating the thoroughfares, glowing golden ribbons winding through the city like constellations fallen to earth.
For a fleeting second, Elyra felt her breath catch in her throat. "It's beautifuw..." she murmured softly.
Hearing her unguarded, childlike voice, the frigid, murderous aura surrounding Damnern instantly evaporated. A gentle, profoundly fond smile bloomed across his features as he reached out, tenderly ruffling her soft blonde hair.
Fifteen minutes later, they touched down gently at the designated rendezvous point near the grand clock tower. Elina was already waiting, her face ghostly pale and tear-tracks glistening on her cheeks, while Eldern sat rigidly beside her, looking equally traumatized by the ordeal.
The instant Elina spotted her daughter, she broke into a frantic sprint, dropping to her knees and dragging Elyra into a fierce, violently trembling embrace. Simultaneously, Damnern dropped his Semi-Angel Sigil, the radiant white wing dissolving into a shimmering cascade of fading, starlight-like sparks.
"I'm so sorry, my sweet girl... Mama ruined everything," Elina sobbed, her entire body shaking against Elyra as fresh tears spilled over her lashes. "I was terrified... I was so utterly terrified of losing you."
Witnessing her mother completely unraveling from grief sent a sharp, agonizing pang straight through Elyra's ribs.
I'm sorry, Mama, she thought, a heavy, genuine wave of guilt washing over her soul. I genuinely didn't anticipate that she would react this seriously...
High above the plaza, the cathedral clock struck midnight, and a cascading roar echoed across the heavens as hundreds of festival fireworks erupted in a dazzling symphony of color. All eyes instinctively swung upward.
"It's breathtaking, isn't it?" Elina whispered, gently wiping the moisture from her cheeks with a shaking hand.
Elyra swallowed hard, fighting back an unaccustomed lump of guilt in her throat as her sapphire eyes reflected the brilliant, bursting lights of the midnight sky.
Suddenly, a microscopic shift in the barometric pressure made the fine hairs on the back of Elyra's neck stand rigidly on end.
Someone was standing directly behind her.
Her breath instantly hitched, her lungs locking up as her pulse spiked into a deafening, frantic roar in her ears. That presence. Those silent footsteps. That exact spatial distance. It was an exact phantom echo. The exact same predatory positioning.
"Happy birthday, Elyra," Damnern's deep, affectionate voice rumbled gently from directly above her head as he leaned down, carefully holding up a delicate silver chain adorned with a miniature wing pendant.
Happy birthday.
Those simple, tender words struck her chest like a physical blow—yet her shattered psyche instantly hijacked her nervous system, dragging her headfirst into a violent, bloody flashback.
In her mind's eye, the brilliant festival lights dissolved into a freezing, pitch-black abyss. She didn't perceive a loving father standing before her; she was suddenly trapped back in her past life as Ryudien. She remembered that day with horrifying clarity—the exact moment Damnern Solv had materialized from the shadows directly behind him, instantly shattering his defenses before cold-bloodedly slashing his neck.
The phantom sensation of her past self's fatal injury burned across her throat. The paralyzing ghost of absolute, helpless mortality washed over her like a tidal wave of ice.
Before her rational intellect could override her animalistic survival programming—
Slap!
Pure reflex took the wheel. With terrifying, instinctual speed forged in the fires of assassination, Elyra's tiny hand lashed out blindly, striking Damnern's wrist with a sharp crack. The impact knocked his hand aside, and the delicate silver necklace slipped from his fingers, clattering uselessly against the stone pavement.
Silence.
The universe seemed to grind to an absolute halt. Even the distant roar of the festival crowd abruptly faded into a muffled void, as if the rest of the world had ceased to exist.
Elyra's breathing came in ragged, uneven gasps.
A birthday. The anniversary of the day she first drew air—and the day she was butchered as Ryudien.
A blinding torrent of memories slammed through her mind: the freezing stone beneath her knees, the paralyzed terror of powerlessness, the razor-thin whistle of a falling blade. In one chaotic heartbeat, past and present collided, tearing her sanity in two.
"Elyra?" Damnern's voice drifted from an impossible distance. "Elyra!"
Slowly, agonizingly, she dragged her consciousness back to the surface. The bloody memories receded. The festival rushed back in—the glowing lanterns, the sprawling crowd, and the stunned, heartbroken faces staring directly at her.
"E-Elyra...?"
Damnern's face had completely drained of color. His hand remained suspended mid-air, frozen in place like a broken statue, trembling slightly. The silver necklace lay abandoned on the cold stones between them.
I knew it... A bitter, self-deprecating smile fractured across Damnern's features deep within his heart. She still cannot bring herself to accept anything from me.
The profound, devastating heartbreak pooling in his blue eyes was agonizing, but Damnern forced the shadow back. He squeezed his eyes shut for a single heartbeat, swallowing the sharp lump in his throat, and painstakingly pieced his shattered mask back together.
When he looked back down at her, a bright, cheerful smile was stretched across his features—a warm, loving facade over a bleeding heart.
"Come on, let's head home," Damnern chuckled softly, his voice remarkably light despite the slight tremor beneath it.
He didn't bend down to retrieve the silver chain. Leaving the abandoned necklace lying forgotten on the dark pavement, he turned and guided his family away.
Beside them, Eldern stood entirely motionless. His small fists clenched tightly at his sides as he stared down at the discarded necklace fading into the shadows behind them. Slowly, his hand drifted downward toward his pocket, his fingers brushing against the cold, hidden surface of the crimson crystal he had prepared for her.
If Elyra rejected Papa's gift... Will she reject mine as well?
Quietly, Eldern withdrew his hand, letting his arm drop limply to his side as he abandoned the idea entirely. Not a single soul noticed the heartbreaking shift in the young boy's expression.
The atmosphere remained suffocatingly heavy for the remainder of the night.
Several hours later, the Solv family carriages finally creaked through the iron gates of the estate, returning home under a dying moon.
There is absolute zero chance I am going to sit around waiting for that strange purple-eyed kid to show up in Damnern's territory without a plan, Elyra thought, her mind racing.
To everyone's quiet surprise, Elyra formally requested permission to sleep in Eldern's chambers for the night, and neither Elina nor a deeply subdued Damnern offered any objections.
Later that night, the two siblings lay side by side beneath a heavy goose-down blanket in Eldern's spacious room. The chamber was bathed in a soft, silvery wash of moonlight spilling through the tall glass windows.
For a long, unbroken stretch of time, neither of them uttered a sound. Then, she turned her head sideways.
Beside her, Eldern lay flat on his back, his small fingers rhythmically clenching and unclenching against the fabric of the blanket. A persistent crease marred his brow.
"Are you feeling unwell, Eden?" she asked quietly.
Eldern flinched, rapidly shaking his head. "N-No."
"Then what's wong?"
Eldern hesitated, his jaw tightening before he finally let out a defeated breath. "Didn't you like the festival?"
Elyra blinked. "Eyya did."
I just hate my birthday, she thought, the phantom chill of the blade creeping up her spine. It only reminds me of the day I died.
"Then why..." Eldern's voice cracked, dropping to a choked whisper. "...why did you reject Papa's gift?"
The direct question hit her with the force of a physical blow. Elyra opened her mouth to reply, only to snap it shut immediately. She honestly didn't have a coherent answer she could voice aloud.
"E-Eyya doesn't know..." she whispered, her voice uncharacteristically small.
Eldern stared at her in the dim light for several long seconds. Slowly, he shifted beneath the covers and pushed himself up onto one elbow.
Slowly sliding his hand into his pocket, Eldern retrieved a small, carefully polished crimson Fue crystal. Sculpted into the intricate shape of a delicate frost-flower, its facets caught the moonlight, casting a warm, ruby glow across his fingers.
Eldern extended his hand toward Elyra, holding the artifact out between them.
"This is a Fue music crystal," Eldern murmured, his voice soft and hesitant, completely devoid of his usual arrogance. "You just need to channel a little bit of your Fue energy into it."
Holding his breath, Eldern channeled a tiny, gentle spark of his own internal energy into the artifact to demonstrate.
Ting~ Ting~ Ting~
A delicate, crystalline melody echoed softly through the quiet room, sounding like wind chimes dancing on a midnight breeze.
Eldern offered a small, tentative grin, trying his absolute best to chase away the heavy shadows in the room. "Happy birthday, little sister."
Elyra looked down at the glowing crimson flower resting in his palm. For reasons she couldn't quite comprehend, an overwhelming, bittersweet warmth bloomed deep inside her chest, pushing against the cold walls of her hardened heart.
"T-Tank yu..." she mumbled softly, her cheeks flushing with a genuine, unforced shyness.
Eldern's shoulders visibly relaxed, and a wide, genuine smile broke across his face. "Hehe."
Minutes later, the haunting music faded into a gentle lull, and both children drifted off to sleep under the quiet moonlight.
Hours bled away.
Deep into the dead of night, Elyra's blue eyes suddenly snapped wide open in the dark.
She felt it.
A sharp, foreign ripple in the spatial mana outside her window.
A presence.
To be continued...