A hush fell over the hallway, broken only by Theo's rapidly fluttering heartbeat. The entire world felt frozen, a snapshot of the moment before everything shattered into pieces. Theo's hands gripping Zenith's cape. Zenith standing above Darian. Cyrias watched in silent astonishment.
Then time ticked forward. Cyrias's voice pierced the silence, high and shaking with disbelief.
"What...what did you say?"
Zenith lifted the blade off Darian's chest. It was still glowing, but no longer as brightly as before. He raised his head to face Cyrias.
"I won't do this. Prince Darian...my liege. If I ended her life, I would have no right to ever call myself a knight again."
"Zenith." Tears fractured Theo's vision into a colorful blur, but it didn't matter. Not when he could finally sense Zenith's Levia again. A weak, tiny spark, like a shard of crystal, but it grew stronger and steadier with every pulse of Theo's heart.
"Wh...wh...what...what the fuck is happening here?" Cyrias shrilled, tangling his hands in his hair. "This isn't – this shouldn't be possible. Did I, was it not enough Levia?"
He swept out his arm and his Levia surged again. Its searing heat blinded Theo, and he cried out when his hands slipped away from Zenith's cape. Zenith froze, every muscle snapping taut. It was grotesque, like he was a marionette whose strings had been pulled to maximum tension.
The sword trembled, descending a fraction. But then it froze in place again.
"You damn useless tool!" Cyrias's shout lashed like a whip. "Carry out my will! Follow my orders! Perform your duty!"
"You...are...wrong," Zenith hissed, his shoulders straining. "This...is not...my duty. My duty...is to...the liege I...have chosen!"
With that, Zenith tore his sword away from Darian's chest. His arms trembling the entire way, as if he was fighting through quicksand, he lifted the sword and pointed it straight ahead – at Cyrias.
Cyrias blanched. Then his eyes narrowed into slits of anger and he flung out his hands. His Levia erupted in a flood so intense and powerful that Zenith's head snapped back and beams of golden light burst out of his eyes and mouth.
"Zenith!" Theo screamed.
Caught within the grip of Cyrias's power, Zenith thrashed and jerked like he was suffering a seizure. Back arching into a near-perfect curve, limbs contorting at angles that shouldn't be possible. Every second Theo watched made him feel sicker and sicker.
He had to do something. He reached for his fallen staff, but even that meager distance gaped like an unbridgeable canyon.
And he couldn't do anything before another wave of golden light blasted down the hallway. It swept him backward, slamming him to the floor so hard all the air fled his body. Even as it bore down upon him, Theo fought against it with all his might. Clawing his hands, kicking his legs. Anything, anything –
A small but strong hand closed around his wrist. Gasping for breath, Theo gratefully let it haul him to his knees.
Darian nodded at him. Beneath the glow of Cyrias's Levia, the dark blue of her eyes seemed oddly washed out.
Yet the pressure gripping Theo's body no longer felt so intense. Experimentally, he tried to lift his head. The movement sent nausea swirling through his stomach, but he bit it down and made himself stare down the hall.
Zenith was lying in a heap at Cyrias's feet. With every twitch of his body, golden sparks crackled around his joints. Cyrias glared down at him, his face a cold, terrible mask.
"My finest creation indeed...." Devoid of every last trace of warmth, his voice was almost unrecognizable – yet it sounded terrifyingly familiar. Just like the Infernal Lord...no, Astraeon.
"You've spent far too long away from me. Long enough to become corrupted...and since you were the first, it's possible your system might have a few small defects here or there. Defects that make you more...suggestible...than I'd like."
Zenith convulsed harder, but didn't speak. The golden light blazed brighter around him, almost obscuring his outline.
Theo had to do something. Help him out. Or maybe Darian. He turned toward her –
But that was when a new power resounded inside his chest. A ray of light as pure and untainted as if it had been refracted through crystal. It sliced through Cyrias's Levia with liquid ease, scattering it into golden scraps.
The breath caught in Theo's throat. He could only watch, wonder seizing his heart, as Zenith drove his knuckles into the floor and began to rise.
Cyrias's Levia still crackled around him, but it grew weaker by the second, overwhelmed by the steadily intensifying white light. Instead of obscuring Zenith, it threw the stark lines of his body into sharp relief. In its glow, every inch of the confusion – and horror – twitching across Cyrias's face was clear as day.
Now Theo saw the seraphim for what he truly was. In the end, he was just like Oliver Enson, Ulrich Ziegler, and General Hellebore. A small, petty man who abused his ill-gotten power over those who could not fight back.
Then Cyrias's face twisted into a snarl and his Levia deepened again. The new onslaught of golden light drove Zenith flat to the floor once more. Horror surged through Theo, but before he could move white light blazed anew from within Zenith.
Beneath its sheer radiance, Cyrias's power sputtered into nothing. And the light only kept shining brighter, becoming so concentrated around Zenith's back Theo could no longer look at it directly.
But he more than felt it when the power erupted in every direction. For an exhilarating moment Theo found himself soaring through a pure white void – the very opposite of the Infernal Lord's Levia.
It felt so familiar, so comforting, Theo almost cried out in longing when it began to fade. But as he blinked colorful afterimages out of his eyes, he realized that the light was still glowing from Zenith's back – and it was beginning to form distinct shapes.
They unfurled from Zenith's shoulders like twin flags, edges lined with the distinct scalloped shape of feathers. Theo's heart froze in his chest.
The wings spread to their full length, spanning the breadth of the hall. As they did, something sparked inside Theo's Levia like the echo of a shooting star. Judging by Darian's sharp breath, she had felt it too.
Breathing hard, Zenith rose to his feet. His stance was shaky, unsteady, but he gazed at Cyrias without the slightest hint of fear.
"No," Cyrias whispered. He took one step back, and another, his own wings swaying. Though he had six of them, and they were flesh-and-blood instead of light, they somehow seemed so much smaller than Zenith's. "No. This isn't possible. You're a – a homunculus. A machine, a tool! You can't produce your own Levia. You can never grow wings."
"I am Sir Zenith, sworn to the service of Prince Darian of Miria, and familiar to Theo Hua." Zenith's voice rang through the hall, clear as a crystal bell. "I will never bend to you again."
"This is a trick, a fluke, it must be," Cyrias kept ranting, his voice becoming shriller. "I'm imagining things. Haven't been sleeping well, that must be it. Fuck you, Astraeon, making me do this shit – "
Theo had never seen a more miserable sight in his life. Not even Oliver at his whiniest could have been this pathetic.
And when Cyrias tripped over the hem of his robes, landing flat on his ass, Theo almost wanted to laugh. Zenith, however, never removed his gaze from the fallen seraphim. Though Theo couldn't see his face, he could perfectly picture the serene expression Zenith must be wearing. Not that of an emotionless machine, but a man who had nothing left to fear.
Zenith's wings flapped once, twice, shedding motes of brilliant light. Then they curled and folded flat to his back before vanishing altogether.
The sudden dimness made Theo blink – but he regained his senses when Zenith sank to his knees and pitched face-forward. The ensuing crash shook Theo's bones.
Panic surging through his nerves, Theo rushed toward Zenith's side. He wrapped shaking arms around the knight's torso, but the prospect of lifting him seemed as impossible as moving a mountain. With all his armor on, Zenith was heavy at the best of times, and now he was totally unconscious. Eyes shut, lips slightly parted, hair pooling across the floor.
But even as his worry wound to a fever pitch, Theo realized he couldn't sense a single spark of Cyrias's Levia. No, the only Levia emanating from Zenith was a pure white light. The power that belonged to him alone.
He had done it. All on his own, he had broken free.