Who Are You

The darkness gripped Theo like a vice, crushing the air from his lungs and the strength from his body. All he felt, all he sensed, was its overwhelming pressure – something so intense he couldn't even call it pain. It just was.

With it came a voice, just as deep and dreadful.

"Who are you?"

Theo didn't answer. If he did, he knew he would lose – everything. Right now, perverse as it might be, at least he knew the weight of the darkness meant he still existed. That he still had a body and soul to experience sensations.

The voice came again, firmer. "Who are you?"

The darkness tightened its grip. And it wasn't just holding his body, Theo realized with mounting horror, but infilitrating his soul. Trickling down the pathways of his power like oil through pipes, forcing the dawn light to retreat in its wake....

"Who are you? Why do you have Sarieva's Levia?"

Further and further the darkness crept. Everywhere it touched, the light flickered and faded, and a heavy numb throbbing replaced it. Sooner or later, it would reach the core of his being and extinguish his light altogether....

Dread fluttered through Theo, but it already felt dim and distant. The mere memory of emotion.

No. He had to cling to it – had to cling to himself. But it was becoming almost impossible. The darkness was everywhere, inside and out. He could no longer feel even the faintest traces of his body. All that remained of himself was the light gathered in his core, blazing defiantly but beginning to flicker at the edges.

"Answer me. You, a mere human boy. Why do you have her power?"

Mindless, desperate, Theo cast about for something to anchor himself to. Something that would pull him free from this world of darkness.

Light, pure and stark white. A light that would not bend or waver for anything. More than anything, that was what he wanted, what he needed.

But no matter how hard he searched, he couldn't find even the smallest hint of Zenith's light. Of course not. He hated himself for seeking it out in the first place.

The wound in his heart, never fully healed, tore open again. And to his horror, he realized it had given the darkness an opening. It rushed in eagerly to fill the hole, and beneath the onslaught his dawn light began to sputter like a candle in the wind.

No, no, no! He couldn't let it – if not Zenith, then someone else. That was right, he hadn't come here alone. Darian, her vast night sky. Victor's purple flames. Even Mirage's rose petals....

But no matter how far out he flung his senses, all he detected of them was the faintest prickling at the edge of his consciousness. Little more than faded stars thousands of light-years in the distance.

All the same, they were still there. Which meant he could reach them, if he just tried...no matter how insurmountable the distance might seem.

But would he have time before the darkness took over completely? It kept flooding into his soul, a relentless tide that dissolved his light into useless sparks in its wake. Soon all that remained of his Levia was a feeble little ember, pale and weak as a ghost, and shrinking with every desperate thud of his heart.

And the darkness brought with it a barrage of questions, unyielding, insistent.

"Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?"

Answer. He had to answer. But how could he, when he didn't know it himself?

His light flickered. It was barely more than a spark.

Just as he thought it would vanish entirely, something stirred within its depths. A surge of heat so sudden and intense it made the darkness retreat just a fraction.

The heat pulsed again, and light spilled forth as well. Fierce and burning, defiant as a flare in the night sky. It began to pour out of his core, chasing away the darkness in its path. He could see it now, spreading in spiraling tendrils across the total blackness.

But...this wasn't his own light, soft and gentle as dawn. It was much brighter, much harsher, blazing so hot it was almost white. Not completely white, though, not like Zenith's power; it still held the barest tinge of pink.

Dread and awe swelled within him, mingling into one. This power...he'd felt it before.

"Theo! Don't worry, I'm here now. I'm here for you."

With those words, the light erupted like a star going nova. Six wings arced from his back, aglow with the same ferocious Levia. As the feathers fanned out, they sliced apart the darkness into useless scraps.

The light wiped out his vision altogether. His stomach lurched as he hurtled through the blinding expanse, weak and weightless, unable to control his wings.

Then his knees hit solid marble. The impact jolted every one of his bones, and crying out, he spilled forward until his palms smacked the floor just as hard.

A...floor. And he could feel his body again, his aching muscles and the panicked throbbing of his heartbeat. But the wings were still there, still glowing brilliantly as ever. The two uppermost ones had curved in front of his face, as if trying to shield him.

Taking a deep breath, Theo flexed his back muscles. The wings obeyed his command, unfurling and spreading open.

Now he could see the marble floor beneath him, inlaid with intricate golden designs like wizardry diagrams. Beneath the light cast by his wings, they seemed to shine as if infused with Levia of their own.

His harsh breathing filled his ears, reverberating inside his head. Yet somehow, he managed to make out sounds beneath it. Other people breathing, just slightly out of sync with him. Shuffling cloth.

Fighting stiff, resistant muscles, Theo lifted his head and turned around.

Darian knelt on the floor, her eyes huge. Behind her, Mirage supported Victor's weight, and they both wore the exact same expression. All of them were staring at him as if they had never seen him before, and maybe they hadn't.

Theo himself didn't know what he had become. Or maybe...what he had always been.

Then Darian's eyes broke away from his face. They slid upward, higher and higher, until her gaze landed on the ceiling above. And as impossible as it was to believe, they only grew wider.

This time, though, it wasn't awe trembling within their depths. It was horror.

Theo lifted his head as well, following Darian's stare even though every atom of his being screamed at him not to. Details leapt out at him, a useless jumble. A high, vaulting ceiling. Tall windows with a view of an unbroken blue sky beyond.

But none of that meant anything compared to the man floating at the highest point of the chamber, six pure white wings spread around him. Despite the distance between them, Theo could sense the power emanating from him – not quite as unrelenting as the darkness, but still exerting a pressure that made every breath ache in his chest. If Theo let his concentration slip for even a second, he knew this Levia would swallow him alive.

A horribly familiar Levia. Vast and dark, but a deep shade of blue instead of pure black. Like the midnight sky. And it was sprinkled with stars, glittering like hundreds of shards of ice.

Theo blinked hard, forcing himself to focus not on the Levia but the man himself. His wings flapped a slow, steady beat while his white robes and black hair billowed as if with a life of their own, swirling into oddly beautiful shapes.

"Who...." The word scraped Theo's throat as it came out, like a bundle of rusted wire. "Who...are you?"

"I know." Darian spoke, her voice taut and bitter. She was trembling, her knuckles rapping an insistent beat against the floor. "I know. You're a seraphim. Not just any seraphim. Emperor Astraeon of Miria."

A deep, shuddering breath.

"My father."