He paused.
"I remember completely killing you all," he continued calmly. "How did you survive?"
I blinked, unable to comprehend what he was talking about. There was no madness in his eyes, no distortion in his voice that would suggest confusion or delusion. He spoke with absolute certainty, as though he were recalling an event that had already been settled long ago.
"What do you mean?" The question left my mouth before I could restrain it.
"I mean what I said," he replied without hesitation. "I erased your entire lineage. How did you survive? I can smell your blood. You belong to the main lineage, don’t you? Who is your father? And more than that, where am I?"
Irritation surfaced on his face as he rubbed his forehead again. His wings shifted behind him, their feathers rustling softly against the still air of the hall.
But my mind was no longer focused on his frustration.
It was focused on what he had said.
My lineage.
The word lingered in my thoughts, heavy with implication.
What was he talking about?
I had never seen him before. I had never heard his name spoken outside the fragmented visions granted by the book. And yet he spoke as though he had personally stood before my ancestors and ended them with his own hands.
’What is going on here?’ the question echoed within me.
I forced myself to remain calm, suppressing the instinctive tension rising within my Essence. Reacting blindly would gain me nothing. Understanding him would.
"What do you remember last?" I asked, my voice steady despite the storm of questions forming in my mind. If he truly believed what he was saying, then his memory itself might reveal the truth behind his presence here.
He did not answer immediately.
His gaze shifted away from me, unfocused, as though searching inward rather than outward. His wings lowered slightly, their rigid tension easing as he closed his eyes.
For several seconds, he remained silent.
Then he spoke.
"I was in a fight," he said slowly, his voice quieter now, less certain. "I was winning, then..."
His eyes narrowed sharply, and in that instant, his entire presence shifted. The calm composure that had defined him moments ago fractured, replaced by something far colder.
His aura surged outward. It expanded with undeniable weight, pressing against the hall in silent dominance. His wings flexed behind him, their movement restrained.
"Then I was betrayed."
The words were not spoken with anger. They were spoken with clarity.
His gaze sharpened as it returned to me, studying me now with renewed intensity, as though my presence had taken on entirely new meaning within the context of what he remembered.
"You..." he said slowly. "You should not exist."
"You are mistaken," I replied evenly. "You don’t know me."
He studied me for a long moment without speaking. His red eyes did not flicker or shift as he observed me, searching through my face as though expecting to find something familiar hidden beneath it. Then he chuckled softly, the sound low and devoid of humor.
"I may not know you," he said, "but I know the blood flowing within you. That is enough to erase you."
He raised his hand slowly.
My perception sharpened instantly. Essence surged through my channels, stabilizing and ready. My laws churned beneath the surface, waiting for release. Every instinct warned me that even the smallest gesture from him could carry consequences I did not yet understand.
But he did not attack. He simply extended his finger toward me.
A faint yellow glow formed at its tip.
It was subtle, almost harmless in appearance, yet the moment it appeared, something inside me reacted.
My blood stopped.
The flow within my veins halted completely, frozen in place as though time itself had been suspended within my body. The sensation was immediate and unnatural. My muscles tensed involuntarily.
Then the blood began to glow.
The yellow light spread through my veins, illuminating them from within. I could see it beneath my skin, thin lines of radiance tracing across my arms, my neck, my chest. The glow intensified, responding not to my will, but to his.
Theras chuckled again.
This time, the smile on his face was different.
Wild.
Not uncontrolled, but unrestrained, as though he had just confirmed something he had expected to find.
"See?" he said softly. "I told you."
His gaze remained fixed on me, his eyes burning with certainty.
"I can smell that blood from another planet."
He lowered his hand.
The glow faded instantly.
My blood resumed its flow, restoring the natural balance within my body as though nothing had happened. But the effect lingered in my mind, the violation undeniable. He had not touched me. He had not imposed force through Essence or law in any conventional sense. He had simply pointed at me, and my body had obeyed him.
"Now," he continued, his voice calm again, "who is your father, kid... and where am I?"
That was enough. Enough for even me to accept what I had been resisting.
He knew my lineage. He recognized something within my blood that connected me to a past I did not yet fully understand. The certainty in his voice was not guesswork. It was memory.
I decided to see how much he truly remembered, and how much of what he claimed was certainty rather than instinct.
"My father’s name was Julius Ironhart," I said.
Theras tilted his head slightly, his red eyes narrowing as he searched through his memory. There was no immediate reaction, no flash of recognition, only quiet evaluation as he measured the name against whatever fragments he still possessed.
"Don’t recall that," he said after a moment. "Who is Julius’s father?"
"I don’t know," I replied instantly.
His expression hardened.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean what I said. I don’t know my grandfather."
It was the truth. I had never met him. Never even heard his name spoken with certainty. In our family, there had always been silence around that part of our lineage, as though it belonged to a past no one wished to revisit. My grandmother had been the only elder whose presence had shaped my childhood.
More irritation surfaced on Theras’s face.
His fingers twitched slightly at his side, his wings shifting in restrained agitation.
"And where am I?" he asked again.
I shook my head slowly.
"I don’t know," I answered. "It’s a ruin of some kind. That is all I’ve discovered so far."
He blinked once, his gaze drifting away from me as though attempting to confirm my words through his own senses. Then he raised his hand to the side, extending his fingers outward into the empty air.
The hall reacted instantly.