Hand in his hair, Cyrias tossed his head back and laughed. It was a horrible sound, high and shrill, each peal scraping across Theo's skin like sandpaper.
"Oh, I should've done this from the beginning! Would've made everything a whole lot easier. Well, it's usually fine to let my knights think for themselves, they aren't capable of much to begin with...but when he's being stubborn, nothing beats taking things into my own hands!"
Theo had been standing there, frozen to the very core, but Cyrias's horrible words finally managed to shatter the ice gripping him. He lunged, staff raised. "Let him go! Right now!"
"Eh...?" Cyrias craned his neck to fix Theo with a single disdainful eye. "You think you've got any leverage over me?"
Theo squeezed his staff tighter, but it wouldn't stop trembling. As much as he hated to admit it, Cyrias was right. The seraphim would never listen to a single word he said.
Well, Theo would just make him listen. He took a deep breath and reached for his Levia, prepared to send it across the contract to Darian. The stars inside her cosmos flashed, a wordless acknowledgment.
But with a clank of armor, Zenith stepped in front of them. Slow and deliberate, he raised his sword and pointed it at them.
Sick with despair, Theo stared into Zenith's inhumanly glowing eyes. "Zenith, please...," he whispered.
Too late. Cape flashing behind him, Zenith lunged.
Darian's elbow slammed into Theo's chest, knocking him back. Even as he spilled breathless to the floor, he tried to keep his eyes on her – and Zenith. With a tremendous clang of metal, their swords met. Darian snarled as she was pushed back a few feet, heels grinding against the marble.
Quick, Theo had to help her out. Drawing on his wildly sparking Levia, he cast a basic strengthening spell. As its pink glow wreathed Darian, she shoved against Zenith hard enough to make him lurch. Then she slashed out her saber, sending him stumbling to the side.
But Zenith recovered almost instantly. Cyrias's Levia deepened, his eyes flared with light, and the next time he jabbed his sword the blade was aglow with the same harsh golden power.
Wrong, this is wrong, Theo thought as he flung up a shield diagram in front of Darian. This shouldn't be happening. Not after he'd finally broken through to Zenith. Not after he and Darian had already thrown everything they had into fighting Zenith earlier.
Were they going to have to go through that whole ordeal again? No, it would be worse this time, because Zenith was no longer acting under his own will. They couldn't convince him with words alone.
All the same, Theo had to try. The shield diagram went up in sparks, but Theo followed with a speed spell that let Darian dodge Zenith's latest swipe. Golden Levia trailed after his sword, shedding a hail of sparks.
"Zenith!" Theo yelled at the top of the lungs. "Don't let him do this to you! Please, fight back!"
Every instinct screamed that this was hopeless. Back then, he hadn't been able to break Zenith free from Oliver on his own either. He'd only managed it after breaking Oliver's ring, taking away his shard of the Star of Miriel. And Oliver had just been one boy, a human wizard. Now he was facing a seraphim, Zenith's creator himself.
Still, Theo wouldn't give up. He never would. Even without a contract, his bond with Zenith was the strongest it had ever been. He held nearly the complete Star of Miriel, and he knew his true identity, the source of his power. Just like Cyrias, he was also a seraphim.
"Zenith!" he yelled again. "Listen to me! I know you don't want to do this! I told you before, didn't I? You have your own sense of right and wrong, your own will. Don't ever let anyone take it from you! Please – "
His voice cut off when Darian crashed onto her hands and knees in front of him. Breathing hard, she shook the hair out of her eyes before jumping back to her feet with her saber raised. "Theo, I appreciate the sentiment, but I don't think it's working. We have to – gh!"
She threw herself low to dodge Zenith's latest wild swipe. When the blade swept above her head, Theo felt Cyrias's power singeing his hair. He flung himself back, heart lodged in his throat.
Gritting his teeth, he raised his staff and got ready to cast another strengthening spell. As his Levia thrummed in his core, Darian shouted, "That's not enough. Theo, an elemental spell!"
"R-right," Theo stammered. He pictured the diagram easily enough, but to his alarm infusing it with his Levia took more effort than expected. Grabbing hold of his power felt like trying to scoop up water with his hands – possible, but slow and taxing.
No! He had to do it, no matter what. With a strangled scream, he tore every scrap of Levia he could find from his veins and poured it into the spell. The diagram erupted beneath Darian, flickering at the edges but otherwise glowing strong.
Darian immediately thrust her lightning-wreathed saber at Zenith. The explosion of light as both swords clashed nearly blinded Theo. He lurched back, dark spots dancing in his vision.
With every rasping breath, he felt more of his power ebb away. Pretty soon, he'd barely have enough to send Darian. But while it was there, he needed to give her everything he could muster.
Darian's latest attack glanced off Zenith's shield. The lightning fizzled and sparked, but didn't dissolve, and Darian rounded on Zenith from the right.
More, more! Clenching his teeth until his skull ached, Theo hurled another wave of dawn light across Darian's cosmos. But even as it crawled its way across, it was beginning to flicker and fade.
Darian raised her saber high, prepared to meet Zenith's sword – and that was when the flow of power sputtered to nothing. The lightning vanished, leaving the blade bare steel again. Before Darian could react, the blades clashed and the saber snapped out of her hand, spinning across the hall.
"Darian!" Theo screamed. He lurched forward, but too late. Zenith swiped out with his shield, knocking Darian flat to the floor, before looming over her and raising his sword above her heaving chest.
All the blood froze in Theo's veins. Terror crushed his heart like an iron fist. He could only watch as the sword lowered inch by deadly inch.
"That's right," Cyrias called. "Do it, Sir Zenith. Get rid of the intruder."
"No, Zenith! Don't!" Finally Theo's voice returned. "You know you don't want to!"
"Are you still talking like that?" Cyrias sounded bored. "It doesn't matter what he wants anymore. He's going to do it, because it's his mission."
"Because you're forcing him! If he had a choice, he'd never do this!"
"'Forcing'? What a dreary way of putting it." Cyrias smirked savagely. "You can't force something that never had a will to begin with."
"What do you – "
"Don't be so offended now." Cyrias raised an eyebrow. "I'm only stating the truth. This is a homunculus. A tool that exists only to serve the desires of its user. Sometimes it's most convenient to allow the tool to function autonomously. Other times, the hands-on approach is the best way."
With every word, Theo's anger burned hotter. This wasn't even the first time someone had talked about Zenith like this. Ryan, Oliver, even Victor, had all said similar things. But every time, Theo and Zenith had proven them wrong.
"Shut the fuck up!" Theo lunged toward Zenith and Darian. "Zenith! Listen to me! You'll never be able to live with yourself if you do this! You know that, so stop!"
"Boo hoo, cry some more," Cyrias sneered. "You can't do anything about it. He won't listen to your words, that's for sure. The only way you can stop him is by overwhelming my Levia, and that isn't going to happen anytime soon."
He chuckled, low and wicked, but Theo didn't give a damn about him anymore. By now he had closed the distance between Zenith and Darian. He seized Zenith's cape, tugging as hard as he could, but Zenith didn't move an inch. As Darian squirmed beneath him, he ground his foot into her stomach and pressed the tip of his sword directly over her heart.
"Zenith, please," Theo groaned, almost sobbing, as he twisted Zenith's cape beneath his hands. "Stop it. You have to stop."
Deep in his heart, he knew Cyrias was right. His best hope was driving the seraphim's corrupting Levia out of Zenith's body – but could he even accomplish that? His own Levia was little more than a few weakly sputtering sparks. Even if he tried to send them toward Zenith, Cyrias's overpowering light would swallow them whole.
Still, it was better than nothing. Squeezing his eyes shut, Theo dug into the deepest crevices of his soul, trying to drag out even the tiniest remnant of power that still existed inside him.
"Come on!" Cyrias's bark scattered his concentration. "Do it already!"
He sounded impatient – which made Theo's eyes snap wide open. Heart pounding, he stared at Zenith's armored back. Though he couldn't see the knight's face, he saw well enough that the sword had frozen in place atop Darian's chest. It didn't lift an inch, but it also didn't descend either.
Hope lanced through Theo, sharp and painful.
"I haven't got all day! How hard can it be to run someone through?" Cyrias's Levia brightened until it seemed to blaze from within Zenith's armor, making tears sting Theo's eyes.
Yet the sword didn't move.
"Sir Zenith," Darian whispered, her face bloodless.
Then another voice bloomed in the hall – just as quiet, yet it reverberated through Theo's entire body.
"No."