Chapter 122: Where Light Finds the Lost
The bird’s feathers became silk, wings became arms, and where the creature had perched now stood a woman—tall, elegant, draped in feathered robes the color of midnight. Her hair, long and dark as the void itself, cascaded over one shoulder, threaded with violet strands that shimmered like distant stars.
She smirked down at the girl.
"Can’t even greet your elders, huh?" The woman clicked her tongue, though her eyes sparkled with amusement. "But I’ll forgive you—since you’re this cute."
Without waiting for a response, she leaned in, pressing her cheek against the girl’s with a playful nuzzle. Her skin was warm—too warm for this frozen place—and the scent of violets and something sharper, like lightning, clung to her.
The girl didn’t pull away.
But she didn’t lean in, either.
The woman sighed, straightening. Her fingers brushed the girl’s hair aside, tucking a loose strand behind her ear with exaggerated care. Then her smirk returned, sharper this time.
"Alas," she murmured dissatisfiedly while her pupils closely observed the girl, "you’re gonna be snatched away by some brat soon. Or... should I take care of him myself so I can still keep you with me?"
A twitch.
Faint. Almost imperceptible.
But the girl’s eyelids fluttered—just once—before stilling again.
The woman’s grin turned positively wicked as she studied the girl’s now impassive face. "What?" she cooed, leaning in so close their noses nearly touched. "You jealous?"
"Don’t worry, sweetie." With a dramatic flourish, she twirled a lock of the girl’s hair around her finger. "I’ll just play some harmless little tricks on him. If he can’t handle those..." Her violet eyes glinted with dangerous amusement. "Well then what right would he have to steal you away from me, hmm?"
The void remained silent. The girl didn’t so much as blink.
"Tch. Still ignoring me?" The woman clicked her tongue but refused to be deterred. With a snap of her fingers, the darkness above the table shimmered and warped, coalescing into a floating screen of muted colors.
The image sharpened to reveal a young man - battered but unbowed. Black blood trickled from the corner of his lips, the inky darkness stark against his pale skin. Bruises mottled his face and jaw, a few cuts painted with red, yet rather than diminishing him, they only accentuated his charm. His tousled hair clung damply to his forehead, his breathing ragged but steady.
But it was his eyes that commanded attention.
Slate gray. Cold. Indifferent.
So similar to the girl’s own - yet where hers were hollow, his burned with quiet intensity as he stared up at something beyond the screen’s frame. There was a weight to his gaze, a calculating sharpness that suggested even broken and bleeding, he was still assessing, still planning.
"..."
The woman’s violet eyes gleamed with wicked amusement as she watched the girl’s fingers twitch - just slightly, just once - as the battered young man on the screen wiped blood from his lips with the back of his hand.
"Look at him," the woman purred, tracing a manicured nail along the edge of the projection. "That fire in his eyes. That stubborn refusal to die." She leaned closer, her breath warm against the girl’s ear. "He still holds the light, little dove. The intent to live burns so brightly in him."
The screen flickered, showing the young man staggering to his feet, his slate-gray eyes scanning a battlefield with cold calculation. Despite his injuries, his posture remained alert, his movements precise.
The woman chuckled. "But considering everything he’s survived already..." She waved a hand dismissively. "I’m sure he’ll pass my little tests without breaking a sweat. And then -" her lips curled into a theatrical sigh "- like a fairytale prince, he’ll come to steal you away to his castle."
Another twitch of the girl’s eyelids. So faint it might have been imagined.
The woman rolled her eyes dramatically. "Oh for - don’t you get it?" She grabbed the girl’s shoulders, forcing her to face the projection. "He’s alive, sweetie. A.L.I.V.E." Each letter was punctuated with a sharp tap against the girl’s collarbone.
The screen shifted to show the young man in combat - his movements fluid as water, his strikes precise despite the blood dripping from his wounds.
"And believe it or not," the woman continued, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, "I didn’t help even once. Not when the poison flooded his veins. Not when the blade nearly found his heart." Her nails dug in slightly. "Even today, when one of Black Star’s finest assassins came for him... he won. On his own. That’s right -"
She spun the girl to face her fully, violet eyes burning with intensity.
"He. Lived."
The words seemed to echo in the endless void, reverberating through the stagnant air.
For the first time in centuries, something flickered across the girl’s face - the barest twitch of her lips, a full moment of her eyelids trembling.
The woman threw her hands up in exasperation. "Girl! Your so-called ’curse’ didn’t affect him!" She gestured wildly at the projection where the young man now stood victorious over a fallen foe. "Two months! Two whole months and he’s still breathing!"
The abyss itself seemed to shudder at her words. The darkness rippled like disturbed water as the woman leaned in, her voice dropping to a whisper that nonetheless carried through the infinite void:
"Don’t you see? He’s breaking all the rules. ’Their’ rules. The world’s rules." A slow, knowing smile spread across her painted lips. "Maybe... just maybe... he can break yours too."
The girl’s fingers twitched.
A barely-there spasm, like a puppet’s string plucked by an unseen hand. Then—her eyelids fluttered, once, twice, her silver-gray eyes (still dull, still hollow) fixed on the projection of the young man.
The raven-woman’s grin widened. "Oh? Was that a reaction?" She clapped her hands together, the sound sharp in the suffocating silence. "Don’t tell me you’ve finally decided to join the land of the living, little dove?"
The girl didn’t answer.
But her lips parted.
Just a sliver. Just a breath.
A crack in the ice.
Then—
A sound, raw and broken, clawed its way out of her throat:
"H-he... l-lived?"
Her voice was frost on glass—thin, brittle, beautiful in its ruin. The words stumbled, unused for so long they’d forgotten how to shape themselves.
The woman’s violet eyes blazed. "That’s right!" She seized the girl’s shoulders, shaking her lightly. "Not only did he live—he lived like a true man! True to his nickname!"
With a snap of her fingers, the projection rewound.
The screen flickered to life, scenes unfolding like pages of a story long forgotten. It started from a forest scene where the young man and his friends helped people but also solved the incident without any more bloodshed and trouble.
It then shifted to how the young man saved the noble girl and her family, and how he met another girl whom he unknowingly helped and got a job from her. It also showed his daily struggles and the big academy incident where he not only saved a princess but also many more lives.
Meanwhile, the woman acted as a live commentator the whole time.
She skillfully described his funny but also troubled life, how he managed the shop, how he handled everything, how he helped an orphanage and the kids in it, to finally, how he survived and emerged victorious against a skilled assassin.
The girl leaned forward, ever so slightly.
Her hands, limp in her lap for centuries, curled into fists.
As the final scene faded, the void swallowed the images, leaving only the afterglow burned into the girl’s vision.
For the first time in an eternity, her lips trembled.
Then—
A smile.
Small. Fragile. Mesmerizing.
Like the first bloom cracking through permafrost.
The raven-woman gasped, her theatrical demeanor slipping. "Oh. Oh, you’re smiling." She pressed a hand to her chest, feigning shock. "I didn’t think you remembered how."
The girl didn’t respond.
But her eyes—
Once hollow, once dead—
Now held a light.
A single, flickering ember in the abyss.
"Why..." Her fingertips brushed her sternum, where a heartbeat should be. "...is my chest warm?"
_____ __ _
Volume 1 - End.
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