Chapter Two
The Shadow Lands, House Kimaris
Fire.
Brimstone.
Pain.
Death.
"Come here, little ones. That's your little brother. Cyrus is one of us, a precious gift and a substantial responsibility. You must always be good to him, always take care of him, understand?"
Death was supposed to greet Cyrus with open arms, not deny him at the onset of his own salvation.
"Why isn't he crying, Mother?" A young, untempered voice echoed in Cyrus's mind, followed by another identical speech with a slightly lower tone.
"Aren't babies supposed to cry?"
"He's a Kimaris. We don't cry for paltry reasons. Both of you should know that above all else." A male voice filled with authority and power that Cyrus could feel reverberating in the darkness.
"Be calm, Cedric. He's just tired, is all. Nothing for you to worry about" He could hear the anxiety in the woman's serene voice, and its very tune nearly placed him back into a restful slumber. "Let him rest, and he'll meet all of you soon enough."
"He's beautiful, Elerin. I am envious of you." Another woman's voice greeted his ears, ethereal and angelic in sound.
"Come now, Arwen." A pleasant giggle from the newly crowned mother nearly sent him into the jaws of slumber. "He's as much your son as he is mine. Jade, Ghislaine, come closer. He won't bite you."
There was shuffling in the background, and Cyrus could feel a pair of phantoms brush against him.
One woman possessed a tone that was soft-spoken and captivating.
The other was boisterous and provocative.
"He's so small." A hand brushed against his cheek, and Cyrus instinctively batted the limb away. "And fiery! I think I'm going to like him."
"Hands off him, Ghislaine. Clearly, he doesn't enjoy being touched by an animal."
"You seem to enjoy it, Jade." The teasing and overtly sensual tone in Ghislaine's voice set Cyrus on edge.
She was a woman that needed to be watched, and he wouldn't be surprised if Ghislaine and Jade often came to blows with one another.
"Both of you, be silent," the Patriarch growled out. "I will not have your deviancy or antics disgrace the image of yourselves in your brother's mind. The last thing I need is for him to realize his 'elder' sisters are immature."
Too late for that.
The voices soon turned into a mixture of delight and contentment, which he was unwilling to participate in.
Cyrus couldn't comprehend any of this.
He was supposed to die on that Forerunner installation and greet the gates of Elysium or the void with open arms.
For all Cyrus knew, Eliza was granted that reprieve, and he was left to toil in the darkness at the mercy of whatever deity had decided that his life was theirs for the taking.
"Look at your sisters, son. All of them. When you grow, you will become the heir to our household."
Ghislaine decided at that moment to open her mouth, all but confirming that she was the problem child in this…family.
"Thank Satan for that. I can't imagine the twins or Ashe taking up the mantle if Jade were to step down or kick the bucket."
"Fuck yourself, Ghislaine." The voices registered to Arwen and Cedric burst into hearty laughter while Elerin's soothing voice turned into a reprimanding tone.
"Ashara!" The twins joined their sister's rebuke in near-practiced unison.
"Yeah, fuck youself, Ghislaine!" Arwen's humor dissipated when her precious twin daughters cursing resounded throughout the chamber, followed by Elerin's cutting glance of promised retribution.
"Jade, take your brother," Elerin demanded without hesitancy. "I have words and discipline to hand out to your sisters."
The Matriarch of House Kimaris passed the burden of responsibility to her eldest daughter, who graciously accepted the duty and high-tailed it out of the chamber.
Jade had been at the receiving end of Elerin and Arwen's discipline in her youth, and that was a memory she never wanted to visit again.
Still, she couldn't keep the smile off her face as she heard Ashara's tell-tale screaming for mercy. Their parents took discipline seriously, maybe not as harsh as the Bael Clan, but still, it was in its own way memorable.
"That is your family, Cyrus," Jade softly murmured, adjusting his tiny frame in her arms. "They're idiots, but you'll soon realize they're our idiots."
He seriously doubted that.
l==l
Cyrus wasn't supposed to be here, or at the very least, he wasn't supposed to remember his past life.
It was a curse and a blessing to recall his struggles in the rundown streets of Ferax, the capital city of Actium.
His past life wasn't anything to talk about. No one cared about a street urchin trying to survive in an uncaring city, especially when he was one of thousands.
Cyrus was lucky that an ONI Agent took a minor interest in him, snatching his adolescent self from the clutches of Ferax's underworld and tossing him into the training grounds of Camp Currahee.
After all those years of shedding blood, sweat, and tears, Cyrus graduated and became a Spartan. For most, it would be the beginning of a fantastic journey that the naïve and blood-driven cadets foolishly believed they could tell their grandkids in the future.
The fools hadn't realized that their first mission would be their last.
It was happenstance that Cyrus became a Headhunter with two others that were his family in all but blood.
Tragically, he could only recall their names and designations.
Sierra-B312 Casey and Sierra-B291 Eliza.
The names sent a content sensation reverberating down his spine, but he found only sorrow with every recollection.
Cyrus would never see them again, and the circumstances surrounding their separation would be forever lost. The only detail he can readily remember was the dozens of confrontations with humanity's mortal and proven enemy.
The Covenant.
The word tasted like ash in his mouth, and the first time he bared witness to the glassing of a UNSC outer colony was one of the few instances where wrath consumed his very being.
Humanity's war against the Covenant left no stable survivors, no jubilant songs of triumph, and no rays of hope to cling to in those early desolate years. Cyrus can recall his feet crushing the remains of shattered cities and hollow human skulls.
It was a sight that, even in this life, would never leave his memories.
Arcadia.
Jericho VII
Iota.
Paris IV.
Heian.
Every deployment to these shattered colonies succeeded, but they were little more than pyrrhic victories.
And for humanity, every victory was paid for in human lives and human blood.
Blood that no longer ran through his veins.
Cyrus wasn't human anymore.
It was a bitter pill to swallow, and he fell into an apathetic silence for months when the truth was finally unveiled. Nothing his parents ever did brought him out of his silent shell, and he was aware that his odd behavior bothered his so-called siblings.
But he didn't care.
All the training in the world that Lieutenant Ambrose, Chief Mendez, and every demanding ONI instructor in Camp Currahee instilled in Cyrus could not prepare him for this situation.
Staring into his mother's azure blue eyes should have calmed the nerves of every newborn child.
He could see the woman's love and adulation for her youngest offspring, but he could not bring himself to care about any of them.
Cyrus was blessed to be spared the horrors of early childhood as time passed within a blink of an eye, and he was well into the preoperational stage of his development.
In the beginning, Cyrus hadn't realized the significant differences in his upbringing. For a time, he believed he was in a renaissance era of the homeworld, but that assumption was slashed when he registered the extra appendage and ears on Ghislaine's body.
All of which the woman frequently showed off, marching around the castle grounds in her birthday suit when basic human etiquette would have Ghislaine admonished for her misconduct.
His first assumptions about House Kimaris being a renaissance-era clan bore prudence at first. The attendants around him felt human, but a dismissive statement from Ashe when he inquired about their existence confirmed his suspicions.
"Yes, Cyrus. They're well and truly human, but don't bother with them. They won't be here for much longer."
The crass nature of her statement was the first of many indications that things around this castle weren't as they seemed.
For years the family kept him and his younger siblings isolated inside the safety of House Kimaris's Fortress Monastery. They only allowed Cyrus to roam the gardens under the watchful care of Ghislaine and Jade for a meager few hours before shuttling him back inside.
His isolation resulted from a civil war between the great houses of which Cyrus had not been given a formal education. It was only through the soft-spoken demands made towards his 'mother' that she promised to educate them on their race.
The final straw that opened his eyes to his new world occurred five years into his birth when his father once again departed for the city of Seracan on the periphery.
Cyrus rightfully presumed they were all still human at the time, but that notion was quickly dismissed.
From Cedric's back extended two bat-like wings, and his body swiftly became encased in black carapace armor from head to toe. The ancestral power of House Kimaris revolved around drawing power from the shadows around them, turning their bodies into pure unadulterated killing machines that excelled in every aspect of warfare.
Many have fallen to the blades of Kimaris, and many more will follow.
The spectacle astonished his family, but all it did was prompt Cyrus's pupils to narrow in apprehension as he scrutinized every contour of Cedric's anatomy for a flaw that could be exploited.
All around him, the pleasant smiles of his family, along with the cheers of his father's guardsmen, crashed against his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he found a human servant coiling in fear, and at that moment, he came to a single potent realization.
House Kimaris was not a renaissance family of a long-forgotten age.
Friends and family no longer surrounded him.
The enemy surrounded Cyrus, and they bore human skin as a mask of their true forms.
They were demons of the night that no doubt preyed upon the weak and the helpless.
They needed to be stopped.
They needed to be killed.
But Cyrus couldn't kill all of them, so he chose to cut the head off the snake.
Negative sensations and emotions hammered him like a tidal wave, and he could feel a set of eyes boring into the side of his skull.
Ghislaine was an empath, and she had grown accustomed to his aura's constant outpouring of stillness.
So when his aura shifted into a volcano of pure wrath and fear, her lungs became smothered by negative emotions. A migraine assaulted her psyche with potent force, and only Jade's quick hand steadied her collapsing form.
"Ghislaine," Jade wrapped an arm across her taut shoulders. "What's wrong?"
"Cyrus." She murmured out, forcing Jade to lean closer as another bought of pain assaulted her senses.
"What?" Jade watched crimson eyes burn with agony and indignation, snatching Jade by the collar of her tunic.
"Cyrus!" All eyes in the courtyard fell away from their Patriarch and onto the youngest member of House Kimaris.
Ashe stood to his right, her shoulders brushing against his own as she glanced at him.
At a glance, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary from his usual quiet temperament, but underneath the façade, a storm brewed.
"You ok, brother?" Ashe placed a hand on his right shoulder, turning her full attention toward him.
He didn't acknowledge the concerned words that fell from her lips. An all-to-familiar haze consumed his mind, and Cyrus ran on years of instinct and training alone.
Heat signatures detected…..contacts…..unknown.
Recommendation…..eliminate with extreme prejudice.
Cyrus was unarmed, and his eyes scanned his environment, searching for the closest weapon. Not seconds later, he found a jagged ceremonial dagger hanging off Ashe's belt.
The….child turning towards him in concern gave Cyrus an open window to execute.
A strike to her stomach will leave her off balance, allowing him easy access to her blade.
Objective…..kill Cedric Kimaris.
The guardsmen were too far away to stop Cyrus's assassination attempt, and most of his family was left off balance and unable to react in time. Arwen became the soul object standing in his way, but her attention was frayed with confusion.
And confusion on the battlefield bore deadly consequences.
Civilian presence…..negligible.
Allied presence…..unavailable.
Devils are creatures of emotion that constantly feed on the seven deadly sins. Some took to them more than others, but no matter what, every Devil had to indulge in themselves to prevent an internal implosion of their most potent sins.
For House Kimaris, they indulged in two sins more than any other.
Wrath and Lust.
And the former coursed through Cyrus's veins like a shot of adrenaline, enhancing his vision and slowing time almost to a crawl. He was moments away from acting upon his wrath, and only three members of House Kimaris were aware of this incoming breakdown.
Elerin stood off to Cyrus's left, too far to intervene.
The twins stood cluelessly in her path, blocking her interference in its tracks.
Her gaze trailed from Cyrus toward a steely-eyed Cedric.
He scrutinized the buildup of emotion before realizing that any chance to head off this catastrophe had long since passed.
Two pairs of crimson eyes stared at one another for the barest of seconds, and Cedric found nothing but wrath and fear in those identical orbs.
All of which was directed solely at him.
Ashe never saw the blow to her exposed abdomen, but she did feel the oxygen exiting her lungs and the choke of air as she collapsed to the ground. Cyrus palmed her hanging blade and shot towards Arwen, whose ethereal white gown fluttered in the wind as she and many others barely comprehended the events unfolding in front of them.
Arwen's weakness was and always would be her children, both hers and Elerin's.
It was a flaw well known in the underworld, but only a fool would try to cross one of the Brides of Valefor.
None truly understood that this frailty was one borne of a problematic upbringing filled with war and bloodshed on the biblical scale. Arwen and her sister have sought to rebuild the family lost in the final days of the great war, and they often overlook their children's most egregious faults.
Ghislaine's lust.
Jade's pride.
The twin's gluttony.
Ashara's envy.
And Cyrus's wrath.
The Brides of Valefor are a deadly pair, but at that moment, a near millennium of warfare became subsidized by motherly concern, and that failure cost Arwen flesh and blood.
Ashe's dagger bit into her right thigh, slicing through flesh all the way to the hilt of the blade. She could feel the jagged edges dig into the innards of her thigh before the blade ripped free, allowing blood to erupt from the gaping wound and drain down her leg.
Arwen's cry of anguish was echoed by the horrified screeches of her hysterical daughters. Cyrus suddenly turned on his heel, kicking the Kimaris Matriarch in the abdomen and sending her crashing to the floor.
Success…..The devastation of mankind's adversaries. Crucial.
Failure…..Death. Tolerable.
"MOTHER!" Ashe found her feet torpedoing towards Cyrus to try and put distance between him and Arwen. Instead, she only found herself eating a nasty right hook while tendrils of shadows leaked out of him.
The guardsmen were caught flat-footed and scrambling to intervene, but all resistance towards Cedric was eliminated.
Jade carefully placed Ghislaine lightly on the ground, scrambling on her heels and shooting off toward Cyrus. She couldn't understand what the hell was going on, but now wasn't the time to ponder questions.
Only action remained.
l==l
Elerin pushed past the twins, who could do nothing more than look on with wide and terrified eyes like the rest of their servants. Neither had gone through the necessary training to be anything more than spectators.
That would no longer be the case, but many things would no longer be the same after today's events. All of this was happening too fast, and even Elerin's tempered experience in the great war could not prepare her for today.
Of all her children, Cyrus was, in every essence, the most straightforward child she had ever taken care of.
The twins were rowdy and aggressive.
Ashe was incapable of sitting still for more than a second.
Jade's arrogance was matched only by Ghislaine's satirical personality.
All of her children had their faults, but Cyrus was different from the rest of his siblings.
He never demanded extra attention and never cried when neither she nor her partners were available. His eccentricities should have been off-putting, but Cyrus was her youngest child, and he was precious to her in every way imaginable way.
Her youngest son darted after Cedric with speed and ferocity that should not have been possible for a newborn Devil. Most didn't develop their ancestral powers until the age of ten when their house would nurture them into the gifted warriors they were meant to be.
He shouldn't have been able to tap into House Kimaris's nocturne energy so soon, but she could see it licking off his arms like a shroud. The demonic power caking the gardens destroyed all the carefully crafted flowers and plants she had spent years cultivating.
But the loss of splendor no longer registered in her mind.
For the first time in the decades since the end of the great war, Elerin felt fear crawl up her spine. Where she had failed to adjust to Cyrus's rampage, Cedric was more than capable of meeting their son's wrath.
And that frightened her.
"Cedric!"
Her husband clashed with Cyrus like a meteor falling from the sky.
Ashe threw her body over Arwen's immobile form while the twins dove for cover behind whatever solid object they could find.
Jade and Elerin were tossed haphazardly through the air, forcing both women to dig their heels into the ground lest their faces scrape the concrete floor. The attendants and guardsmen were thrown from their feet, and only the Praetor Eleamus maintained his base.
As quickly as all hell broke loose, it subsided all the same.
The dust settled, and Elerin stormed into the colorless cloud, fear wracking her body as the two men in her life struck a deadly blow.
Thankfully, there was no reason to worry about Cedric's lethal nature.
The Lord of House Kimaris was not so old that he could not tame a rampaging child.
Cedric easily disabled Cyrus's armed limb, using the child's momentum to slam him against the ground.
The sheer impact alone should have knocked him unconscious, and Cedric rightfully assumed that to be the case until he registered a pair of burning crimson orbs staring right through him.
His own flesh and blood regarded him with more hatred and anger than even his worst enemies could muster. Cedric's nocturne anchored Cyrus against the shattered concrete, but that didn't stop the churning rage in his son's eyes.
Soon the Black Guard of Kimaris surrounded the miniature crater, uncertain of their lord's next move. No one dared to breathe as uncertainty rolled off their liege's taut and lethal frame.
"Eleamus," Cedric's voice rustled the Praetor from his inner musings. "Take him to my chamber and prepare the medicae for Arwen."
"As you command." A trio of hands descended upon Cyrus's limbs, but his hate-filled gaze never strayed from Cedric through it all.
Not when Ghislaine and Jade stormed out with him in a mix of sorrow and anger, not when Ashe stared at him like he was a stranger, and not when the twins looked on in concern.
The rage in Cyrus's eyes would forever stay in Cedric's mind until his dying day.
There was something wrong with his son, and he doubted he could do anything about it.
But he would damn himself to oblivion before he could look into Elerin's teary eyes and leave her with another gaping wound in her heart.
Cedric would die before allowing this tragedy to stain his family any further.
He would find out what was wrong with his son, no matter the cost.
He had to.
l==l
"How's Mother?" The daughters of House Kimaris gathered around the Medicae's room, baring Ghislaine, who refused to leave Cyrus's side.
"She's had worse, my dear," Elerin settled Sapphire's worries along with the rest of Arwen's daughters.
Jade spent considerable time assuaging the twins while watching Ashe, who mindlessly toyed with her dagger.
Her mother's dried blood had yet to be cleaned off, and Jade made a point to take the weapon off her hands while her mother comforted the twins.
"Jade, take them to their room and put them to bed." Elerin directed her eldest daughter. "Once they're asleep, come to your father's chamber."
Jade mercifully didn't resist the order and shuttled her sisters to her private room. She doubted anyone could sleep alone tonight after the day's tumultuous events.
The last few hours had been memorable for all the wrong reasons.
Arwen was immediately ferried to the Medicae's room, where they employed healing magic to clean the wound. Cyrus inflicted tremendous damage and trauma to the affected area, and Elerin spent considerable time repairing the nerve damage.
She continued to assist their senior medicae in patching up Arwen's wound, and while her sister was a capable warrior and weathered major injuries before this one cut deeper than the rest ever could.
One of their children inflicted the wound, attacked his sister in a bout of madness, and dared to assassinate the family patriarch. Elerin couldn't explain or understand it more than that because her husband quickly shuttled him away.
In most cases, it mattered not the reasoning or age; if a devil drew blood against his own family, they put to the sword.
Eleamus and half a dozen Black Guard stood vigil outside Cedric's private chambers. Ghislaine was the only one with the necessary abilities to assist their father's machinations.
No one except Elerin, Jade, and Arwen was allowed into his chambers until further notice.
Every vestige of the territory felt the effects of Cyrus's demonic outburst. Even now, Eleamus was forced to deploy their entire Legion to curtail any concerns amongst the lower populace.
The infernal energy was potent, too potent in Elerin's mind, and she could only hope Cedric found a cure for Cyrus's madness before it was too late.
If word got out that Kimaris's male heir went on a rampage that wounded a matriarch, that would cause issues with the renegade council.
The civil war was rapidly approaching its final stages, and the 66th Legion was due to arrive in Acheron in the coming weeks.
This deadline would most likely have to be extended, and Sirzechs would inevitably take notice.
Elerin's breath caught as she strode into Cedric's chamber. Her husband's workshop was always a mess, and at its center sat Cyrus, quietly observing his father with that malevolent stare.
A barrier of pure nocturne energy surrounded him, one that she recognized as Cedric's favorite binding spell. The barrier drained her son's ancestral energy leaving him caged and seemingly powerless.
Cyrus didn't seem to care or even acknowledge Ghislaine's attempts to gain his attention.
"Hello!" The Nekoshu threw out her arms in frustration. "What the fuck is going on with him?"
The chamber doors swung open again, and Elerin turned to find an equally frustrated Jade. "I would like to know as well."
"Cedric?" Her husband had been suspiciously quiet as he toyed with one of his contraptions that fit around the crown of a humanoid skull.
Cedric exhaled deeply. All the tension in his body seemed to increase tenfold, and Elerin traced a finger along his broad shoulders.
"How's Arwen?" The grief in his voice was plain for his wife and daughters to hear.
"She'll recover," Elerin supplied softly. "But I don't think this is a wound she can laugh off."
"A small mercy," Cedric stepped towards the barrier, and Cyrus matched his movements. "I…have an idea of what happened."
"Spill it, old man," Ghislaine waved her dainty hands in front of Cyrus, but nobody was home. "Because, believe it or not, he is my favorite. I'd hate to choose between Jade and our pet Cerberus again."
"Shut it, Ghislaine." Jade reprimanded harshly before turning towards the family Patriarch. "Continue, father."
"As you know, we are creatures of emotion, and we indulge in it more than any species on the planet. The consequence of failing to meet those needs lead to what you see now in Cyrus. Pure and uninhibited wrath." Ghislaine leaned against the barrier, eyes crinkling in confusion.
"Those emotions need to have a catalyst, though." She rationalized. "Without it, there's nothing for the negativity to base itself on. It's why Cyrus, of all people, shouldn't be affected so heavily. The boy's as expressive as a rock, inside and out."
"So the question is," Jade chimed in. "What was the catalyst?"
Elerin thought back to the gardens and the odd sensation crawling over her when Cedric unleashed his nocturne form, and she began to piece the evidence together. Her son was only ever curious about his people and spent a lengthy amount of time inquiring about the nature of Devils.
She hadn't taken his requests seriously.
Cyrus was too young to comprehend the very nature of their race, and explaining to a child what their existence means is a waste of time and energy.
Now, Elerin regretted never paying closer attention to him. Maybe if she had, none of this would have happened.
Jade looped her hand between her mother's languishing arm and leaned into her shoulder.
While the twins and Ashe were her children, Elerin gave birth to Jade and Cyrus, establishing a bond that could not be described in words. Despite his general aloofness and age, Cyrus was a part of this family.
That alone was enough to see this catastrophe to the bitter end.
"It was father," Elerins attention shot towards Ghislaine. "When Cyrus saw the infernal energy in full force, he lost control of himself and became filled with an enormous surplus of wrath."
"But what was the reason?" Ghislaine shook her head at Jade's response.
"I don't know," the Nekoshu admitted. "The only person with that answer is him."
All eyes centered around Cyrus, and Cedric finished tinkering with his device. The Patriarch had much of the same idea, but Ghislaine's words confirmed them.
"Jade, Ghislaine." The pair practically snapped to attention. Cedric glanced at the contraption in his hand. A prototype he was modifying for Ajuka as an interrogation device for captured Loyalist officers. "Hold him down."
"Elerin," Cedric held out his hand for his wife to take. "I need to join our minds."
"Anything." Elerin took his hand without hesitation, and Cedric dropped the barrier with a nod toward his daughters.
Cyrus was ready to pounce, but Ghislaine halted his movement by wrapping her right arm around his neck and keeping him in place. Jade straddled his stomach and trapped his arms to his side with each of her thighs.
"Tell me this will work." Ghislaine inquired as her father strapped the prototype to Cyrus's skull. The prototype needed a test run, and Cedric needed an unsolicited peek into Cyrus's
It was the only way to save his life.
"It will."
It had to.