Chapter Eleven
Nova Babylon, Lucifaad Territory
Cyrus listened to the matriarchs of House Kimaris verbally tear into one another on behalf of their quarreling children.
He'd never heard or seen the Valefor Matriarchs come to blows over any issue, but the confrontation between himself and Ashara was the final catalyst to their boiling tension.
Lady Gremory stood by as a neutral and somewhat captive audience while the Night Wardens maintained vigil out of duty rather than necessity.
Their argument spilled into the hallway, where their children sat in morbid silence, divided on either side between their respective mothers.
Elerin criticized Ashara for overreacting to events outside Cyrus's control, but Arwen countered by condemning Cedric for codling Cyrus and neglecting her children in favor of his only son.
It was an old argument with the same unceasing pattern.
With their parents preoccupied, it was up to Ghislaine and Jade to take charge of their younger brethren. Ghislaine stood close to Cyrus while Jade monitored Ashara. The twins were off to the side, waiting with bated breath for the calamity their family faced to culminate.
From the moment the pair came to blows, neither Kimaris was willing to let the other slip from sight. His paranoia and her boiling resentment were a volatile combination that neither Jade nor Ghislaine was keen to see ignite.
But this…dispute needed to end.
And Cyrus would have it finished on his terms.
Burning crimson met pale grey.
Not hers.
The moment he stood, she responded in kind, mimicking every breath and movement as they drew looks of alarm or panic from their siblings.
"Hey now, what are we doing?" Ghislaine was the first to intervene, immediately placing herself in front of a stern-faced Cyrus with her hand splayed across his chest.
Jade looked on with interest but was content to watch her brethren continue this line of thought.
The twins weren't sure what to do at first, but they slowly came to their feet by Ashara's side. Neither Rose nor Sapphire wanted to see their siblings come to blows for the second time in as many hours, so they put themselves in a prime position to intervene.
"Settling a score," Cyrus whispered low enough for only Ghislaine to hear. He stared past her towards the brewing bundle of anger that was Ashara. "Training room, five minutes. Don't be late."
"Oh, I won't be, little brother." He disregarded her chastising tone and stalked off toward their intended destination.
Attendants and Guardsmen alike shied away from the Kimaris heir out of fear for the mighty waves of demonic energy rolling off him.
The Devil side of Cyrus demanded he claw that condescending smile clean off, but he'd become adept at keeping his volatile nature in check.
It was time to solve this…familial tension the best way Cyrus knew how.
Through violence.
l==l
"They're beating the shit out of each other." Jade internally cringed as Cyrus's fist smashed into Ashara's left cheek, spinning her head and leaving her vulnerable to a nasty knee to the solar plexus.
Blood and spittle shot out of Ashara's mouth, but she refused to be placated so easily. Her head snapped up, driving the top of her skull directly into Cyrus's jaw and stunning him backward.
Ashara snatched his right arm and yanked Cyrus towards her to execute an axe kick aimed at his throat. He batted away her heel and drove his shoulder directly into her abdomen, taking her off her feet and placing himself in a full-guard mount.
"I don't think he and I have ever gone this hard." Jade hummed at Ghislaine's comment as the pair watched the grudge match play out with concern, and their expressions were the definition of grimacing with every brutalizing blow.
Neither one was holding back, and the twins shifted in their seats in discomfort and silent anger. They had planned to drag Cyrus around town to spend much-needed time together, but Ashara shot that idea down.
Cyrus was forced to disengage from the full mount when Ashara managed to trap his right arm in an arm lock. He victimized Ashara by elevating her and his trapped limb into the air before slamming her into the ground.
The Spartan allowed the Devil to find her breath as her lungs gasped for precious oxygen.
"Rarrggh!" Ashara deflected a series of palm strikes with a mighty roar and sought to take Cyrus's head off with an overhead right.
He ducked underneath the strike and drove a fist into her ribs.
Cyrus countered a roundhouse kick to the skull by wrapping an arm around the offending limb and slamming his elbow into Ashara's nose.
She tanked the devastating blow and surprised her brother by kicking her free leg off the ground and wrapping it around his neck before yanking him to the floor.
Infernal energy flashed, and Cyrus found himself at the mercy of arcana-laced fists raining down upon him. Gunmetal orbs blazed with fury as several strikes managed to break through his guard and impact his cheeks and chin.
This was the brutalizing scene a certain Vastayan faced while searching for her master.
"Get off him!" Ahri acted on instinct, pushing a dose of ki into her legs to give her that extra speed boost. Ashara raised her fist for a final strike just as a heel nearly smashed into her chin.
Cyrus enveloped his arms around Ashara's frame, pressing her chest against his and sparing her from tanking a devastating kick to the jaw.
"Calm down!" Ghislaine appeared next to the Vastayan, wrapping an arm around Ahri's neck and keeping her in place.
The twins shot from their seats and joined their sisters as they crowded around the simmering fracas.
"All right! All right!" Ahri allowed the tension in her limbs to subside, and Ghislaine gave her a narrowed glance before pushing her away. "What the hell was going on!"
"A training session," Jade answered cooly, suspiciously eyeing their guest. "Who are you?"
"Ahri." The Nekoshu's temper flared out under the elder Kimaris's attention. "I'm Cyrus's bodyguard."
"You're not a Night Warden, I recognize."
"That's because she isn't." Ghislaine scoffed at the idea of Ahri being a Night Warden. "She's a Vastayan, one of Viktor's whores our brother deemed to keep in his company."
Ahri was kept from a harsh retort by the six-foot amazon of a Devil stepping into her personal space with a narrow gaze.
"Is she a problem?" The ordinarily quiet Rose inquired, easily towering over the Vastayan with her impressive height. Sapphire matched her twin's aggressive posture, albeit at a much smaller five-foot-seven.
"No." Ahri was surprised to hear Ghislaine coming to her defense, but it quickly died with her following statement. "She's still a bitch, though, so keep an eye on her."
The twins were in the midst of a thorough interrogation, but Jade beckoned everyone out of the arena.
"Why?" Ghislaine's question was answered when her gaze fell on Cyrus and Ashara.
The fury that had built up was receding, and all that remained was remorse that needed to be addressed with words rather than violence.
"Let's give them the room," Jade took Ahri by the arm and silenced the Vastaya's protests with infernal energy. "You and I need to have a conversation."
Cyrus ignored that future problem and focused on the black haze dissipating from his eyes. He stared at Ashara, whose heartbeat matched his receding pulse as both came down from their adrenaline high.
"Are we done?" She inquired, wiping the blood from her nose and lips. A drop of blood impacted Cyrus's armored chest. "Or are you just tired?"
"I'm sorry." The sudden confession threw Ashara for a loop, and she leaned back enough to stare into his crimson orbs.
"Do you even know what you're sorry for?" His furrowed brows brought a chortle of amusement from her. "Of course you don't."
"Are you not angry about that night?" Cyrus spoke with confusion that earned another bark of delight from Ashara.
"Oh, believe me. I am fucking furious that you took a chunk of Mom's leg off, but that isn't why I'm still pissed at you."
"Then why-"
"Am I still angry?" Any amusement in her grin vanished. "We lost you, Cyrus…."
Ashara let loose a deep exhale, and her piercing grey orbs bore into Cyrus's with a mixture of disappointment and resentment.
"…When you left us, Sapphire lost the one person in the underworld who never once chastised her, never once looked down upon her! Rose lost that calming voice that always had the right answer to her problems! And I!…."
Ashara's throat tightened, and the slightest tear impacted Cyrus's cheek.
This…visceral reaction was entirely unexpected, and he had no idea how to proceed.
"…I lost my best friend." A sinking feeling pooled at the bottom of Cyrus's stomach. "Before that night, we did everything together. Do you know how much it hurt to see you walk away from us?!"
A treacherous piece of Cyrus wanted to tell Ashara that he emphasized with her words and immediately apologize for his transgressions, but he couldn't allow that.
These Devils were his enemy, and he refused to be compromised by his familial ties any longer.
It was painfully apparent that these people could subjugate Humanity and shackle them into slaves to do as they pleased.
Cyrus would not allow these Devils to chain Humanity to their desire, and he willingly threw himself into their army to understand how they operated and use their dogmatic principles against them.
When Cedric gave him the 10th Cohort, he understood that they were little more than cannon fodder in their current form.
He corrected this problem by venturing into the howling dark to turn these stubborn Legionnaires into a potent fighting force.
But he didn't realize how easy it was to forget they weren't human. The Legionnaires ribbed at each other like marines and competed against one another like rival branches in the UNSC.
Cyrus had to constantly remind himself that these Devils weren't human, and to keep himself from developing biases; he sent out a full Centuria without their spears against a horde of Gaiseadh.
This suicidal venture was dressed up to Arkias and his concerned Centurions as a training maneuver, but in reality, it was a calculated attempt to make these Devils hate Cyrus so utterly that any foundation for trust would be shattered.
It didn't work.
Cyrus could barely maintain his composure as the Gaiseadh smashed into their ranks and nearly broke their formation in two.
Centurion Zorizar proved his mettle by reorganizing his men into a tight cluster that deflected every attempt by the Gaiseadh to eviscerate them.
In that moment of helplessness, Cyrus didn't see Devils but Legionnaires…HIS Legionnaires holding the line against impossible odds.
He barely concealed his internal regret while directing a relief force to intervene before the Gaiseadh killed anyone.
Cyrus tried to convince himself that, logically speaking, these Devils were more valuable to his plans as capable soldiers instead of disregarded cannon fodder.
To make matters worse, the Legionnaires interpreted his constant willingness to stand guard among the other sentries and his utter contempt for a traditional Noble lifestyle as a way of suffering alongside his men.
In reality, Cyrus undertook these altruistic actions because he didn't know any better.
He hated how his Cohort looked up to him with veneration and loyalty.
He remembered taking a Centuria into Tophet to teach them how to scour a city for its deviants by blending in with the populace.
That was a mistake as well.
"Could you spare a coin, mister?"
A child clothed in a bundle of rags approached him with her hands held out.
The girl looked so desperate and lost that his face replaced hers for the briefest moment.
A battered, bruised orphan of Ferax begging on the streets of a rundown district that half the city either didn't care for or didn't know.
Cyrus remembered walking away from the girl, trying to forget the dismayed look on her face in some vain attempt to keep himself from treating these people as more than just future adversaries.
He didn't want to know these people, and he didn't want to walk among them as one of their kin.
If Cyrus ever truly accepted the Devil part of him that yearned to be let loose, he feared losing what it meant to be human.
What it meant to be a Spartan.
Ashara stared at him with begging eyes that yearned for a response that could improve this confrontation.
She didn't get it.
"No." Cyrus's impassive attitude ignited a fury in her gunmetal orbs. "I don't."
Pain blossomed across his jaw.
"You colossal fucking asshole!" Curled fists slammed into his face with each resounding word. "We're supposed to be a family! We're supposed to look out for each other! Why don't you fucking care about any one of us?!"
"You wouldn't understand." It was a miracle that Ashara didn't kill him right there.
"Then fucking tell me!" She snatched him by the collar and snarled at him with barring fangs. "Tell me what I must do to make you care even the slightest bit for us?!"
"There's nothing you can do." Ashara's mind froze in disbelief, staring at him with tears staining her cheeks.
No matter how much she thought otherwise, the problem lay with Cyrus alone.
He'd given this family the cold shoulder for over two years, and despite it all, his parents and siblings had given back nothing but love and support.
"Fuck you, Cyrus…."
Something inside Ashara died, and he flinched when a familiar dagger was stabbed into the ground not inches from his head.
"…Consider this a birthday present." The venom in her voice was shaken by sorrow. "I hope you choke on it."
Cyrus stared at the decorative ceiling, lost in a haze of regret that he would give anything to be rid of. He waited for the footsteps to dissipate and a resounding slam from the arena's doors before grasping the ornate dagger mocking him with its presence.
He lay there for hours before someone finally entered the training room looking for him.
Ahri managed to evade further interrogation after Ashara stormed out of the arena and barreled past everyone around her with tears in her eyes.
Jade and Ghislaine followed her in concern, and the twins figured that discretion was the better part of valor and left Cyrus to his own devices for now.
This left Ahri as the sole person to find Cyrus lying on his back while eyeing the blade that had pierced his side not hours earlier. She sat beside him, silently watching the frayed emotions in his crimson orbs before speaking.
"You ok?" It seemed insincere at first, but in Ahri's experience dragging things out didn't seem like a particularly sound idea.
"No." Cyrus relented after a few tense moments of silence. "No, I'm not."
"Anything I can do to help?"
"Are you ready to leave?" The question momentarily caught Ahri off guard.
His birthday was tomorrow, and she wasn't entirely sure if his family would just let him leave when they were here to spend time with him.
She hoped he knew what he was doing.
"Yes." Cyrus didn't hesitate to find his feet, sheathing his new dagger in his belt before hoisting her up.
"Then we leave now."
l==l
"Where is he?"
Sapphire and Rose entered the training room only to find it empty and severely damaged. The sparring session between Cyrus and Ashara had left its once pristine faculties marred and severely damaged.
The twins returned to their room to retrieve Cyrus's birthday gift and salvage this night from the constant turmoil.
"I'm not sure," Rose could feel potent concentrations of infernal energy from a Caiseag Sgàil, and by her estimations, they missed Cyrus by a few minutes.
Sapphire nervously clutched the meticulously wrapped present in both hands.
The twins weren't entirely sure what to get their brother at first, but eventually, they decided on a simple picture taken when he was still living in the confine of their fortress-monastery.
Cyrus was different back then but changed after the…incident on the terrace a few years back.
"Do you think he'll like it?" Rose picked up on her twin's anxiety with a single glance. Sapphire was as strong-headed as they came, but her confidence had a tendency to waver whenever Cyrus was involved.
"I'm sure he'll love it," Rose wrapped a comforting arm around her twin's shoulder. "Only wish we had a more up-to-date picture. We're still kids in this one."
The image was taken during an annual gathering with House Kimaris retainers at their fortress-monastery.
Centurions and Primus Legionnaires alike were gathered together from every Cohort.
Rose and Sapphire were expected to attend alongside their other siblings, but Cyrus was being particularly antisocial.
Elerin tasked the twins with ensuring their baby brother remained inside the dining hall and keep him amongst their guests.
Cyrus was obsessed with touring their illustrious pastures for hours on end, and it wouldn't be an over-exaggeration to say that he spent more time there than anywhere else in the castle.
Predictably, the twins kidnapped their brother for a series of pranks that annoyed several partygoers.
Their victims ranged from Legionnaires to their siblings, but their reign came to an end because Ashara started gunning for the trio after Sapphire slingshotted a nasty pair of rotten eggs into her face.
Cyrus guided them into the mazelike bushes of their Botanical gardens, allowing the trio to successfully evade a very irate Ashara.
They hid in those luscious pathways for the rest of the gathering, and that magnificent setting became the backdrop for their photograph.
Despite the image being wrapped up in a tightly constrained present, Rose could easily recall the photograph's every detail.
Cyrus was wedged between the pair of vibrant twins, an indifferent expression etched into that stern visage of his and the barest signs of life in his crimson orbs. Sapphire leaned her cheek onto his sternum, with her bubblegum hair tickling his chin.
Since Rose was the tallest of the trio, she flanked Cyrus's right, wrapping her left arm around his shoulder and pulling him into her side while flashing a peace sign toward their reluctant photographer.
Her Night Warden, a former Centurion called Ornathoz, was kind enough to be their cameraman. He scrounged up an imagery spell and adjusted their stances as needed, much to Cyrus' chagrin.
Rose felt an exhale of despair exit her lungs.
She longed for the days of ignorance and simplicity before Cyrus's demonic energy engulfed his senses and fractured their family.
"Rose?" Sapphire's hazel-blue eyes stared at her sister in concern. "What is it?"
"It's nothing." Rose took her by the shoulder and led her out of the training room. "Maybe he's in his room?
"I doubt he'd go straight there. He's never been the mopey type." Sapphire grabbed her sister's wrist and started dragging her into the hallway. "Let's try the barracks. Maybe one of his Centurions knows where he is."
Rose hoped somebody knew where their idiot brother was.
l==l
"1st Centuria form up!" Rose recognized Centurion Zorizar's gravel voice anywhere, and as the twins strode into the barracks, they found the entirety of the 10th Cohort blazing with activity.
Legionnaires and attendants were gathering their equipment by the hundreds, and several Centurias were already mustering into formation outside their former barracks.
The 10th Cohort was marshaling for a significant deployment, but Rose could have sworn their orders were to remain inside the city.
"What the hell is going on?" Legionnaires saluted the twins and maintained a respectful distance even as they sprinted to their respective Centurias.
"I don't know," Rose scanned the mass of Legionnaires and picked out a Centurion entering the Cohort's command tent. "But I bet Cyrus is with his officers."
Sapphire's eyes sparkled with anticipation, and her legs instinctively kicked into the dirt as she propelled herself toward their intended destination. Rose rolled her eyes in amusement but followed after her excitable twin at a more sedated pace.
"Cyrus!" Sapphire threw open the command tents flaps and scanned the half a dozen occupants inside before her eagerness faltered when she found only Arkias and a few other Centurions gathered around the war table.
But Cyrus was once again nowhere to be found, and suddenly Sapphire felt exceptionally awkward for interrupting what seemed to be a crucial meeting.
Rose preceded her into the command tent and glimpsed towards the Primus Legionnaire leading this procession
Arkias couldn't help the snort of amusement at his Lady's exuberant personality and spared a look towards his underlings. "You have your orders, Centurions. I want your Guardsmen ready to depart within the hour."
The officers saluted their commander and departed while formally acknowledging Sapphire and Rose. The twins waited for the final Centurion to exit before advancing towards an awaiting Arkias.
"Lady Sapphire, Lady Rose." The Legionnaire Commander leaned his weight onto both palms as he presided over the war table. "What brings you to the 10th?"
"Was looking for my brother," Rose explained as the twins stopped across from Arkias. "But why are you all packing up?"
"New orders, my lady. Our Cohort is to rejoin the Legion immediately, and we're assembling for an immediate departure. A few of my Guardsmen are still inside Nova Babylon, but we expect to be outside the city limits by nightfall."
Something felt off to Rose.
On the few occasions she and Sapphire had tagged alongside Jade's Cohort, they'd never seen their eldest sister not participate in coordinating their Guardsmen's departure.
It was tradition to rally alongside your Legionnaires as much as etiquette, so to see Arkias readying his Cohort for departure without their Lord was…concerning.
"Will Cyrus not be joining you?" Sapphire was thinking along the same lines as her twin and immediately spoke of their concerns.
"No, my lady." A tinge of disappointment crossed the Legionnaire's gaze. "He relayed our new orders and left with the Vastayan. I wish he had taken one of us with him, but Lord Cyrus was adamant about his choice. So, we reluctantly accepted his orders."
A cold feeling began to creep up Rose's spine.
She did not enjoy the Vastayan, but that was primarily due to her envy of her permanent bond with Cyrus. The twins knew the specifics, but neither trusted Ahri or her loyalties.
"Do you know where he went off to?" Arkias would be a fool not to notice their anxieties.
"I don't know the specifics." The Primus Legionnaire informed a hint of caution in his tone. "The Primarch designated Lord Cyrus for a personal mission. That's all I know."
"Thank you, Guardsmen." Rose didn't wait for Arkias's departing word and dragged her twin out of the barracks. "We need to find father."
Sapphire scarcely flinched as her sister pulled her up the palace stairway, offering no resistance to Rose's rough treatment. Her thoughts were consumed by treachery, and the far corners of her mind bristled with fear that the worst-case scenario was happening.
"Do you think he left?" Rose's pace faltered at Sapphire's sudden inquiry, and she forced herself to a halt just as they reached the palace doors.
"Don't be ridiculous, Sapph." The older twin scolded her sister for voicing such thoughts. "There's no fucking way he would just up and leave without saying goodbye."
"He did it once already." Sapphire's hazel blue gaze bristled with despair as she recalled Ashara's scathing remarks before they reached Nova Babylon. "Do you think she was right?"
"That he doesn't care about any of us?" Rose growled out. "Of course not! Ashara's just lashing out. She's been angry ever since he left for the frontline…."
Sapphire didn't seem convinced by her twin's justification, forcing Rose to grip her chin and stare at her matching pair.
"…Cyrus cares, Sapph…." Rose tried her damndest to convince herself as much as she was Sapphire. "…Don't ever think or say otherwise. He just…it's harder for him to show it. It always has been."
Sapphire didn't offer a verbal response, sliding underneath Roses' grip and striding towards their father's temporary office. The younger twin glanced back at her sister with uncertain eyes and whispered in a hollow voice.
"I hope you're right." Sapphire shouldered open the palace doors. Their present still clutched tightly to her chest.
An exhausted sigh exploded from Rose's lips as she stared at the artificial sky in a vain attempt to call upon a higher power for help.
Predictably nothing but a howling wind responded to her pleas.
Sapphire wasn't the only Kimaris banking on hope.
l==l
"He hasn't changed!"
Those were Arwen's opening words during the explosive argument between both Valefor Matriarchs. Cedric was a reluctant participant in the unfortunate position of ensuring both his wives didn't try to kill each other.
Arwen still considered Cyrus a loose cannon that someone in this family would have to put down when he lost control of himself.
Elerin was unwilling to let her sister disparage her only son, and in typical Valefor fashion, she escalated the argument in his defense. The sisters' insults and accusations had come dangerously close to erupting into an exchange of arcana-laced fists, but Cedric and Venelana intervened just in time.
He didn't want his family to come to blows, but an escalation in violence had already taken hold.
Ghislaine had to practically beg Cedric not to intervene when Zakan informed him that Cyrus and Ashara were sparring…violently by some accounts. It was only due to Jade's assurances that he didn't walk down there and put a stop to that…session.
Still, what drove Cedric into the annals of misery were the final accusations Arwen was throwing their way.
"You're keeping secrets from me," Arwen's tone was a mix of fury and despondency. "There is something wrong with that boy, but neither of you will admit it!"
"There is nothing wrong with my son!" Elerin's retort caused her sister to explode in rage.
"You cannot be that blind, Elerin!" Arwen can still recall the nocturne energy waves crashing against her skin, let alone the teeth of her daughter's dagger crawling up her leg. "He is a ticking nova bomb. Both of you assured me that taking Cyrus to the frontline would be good for him, but all I see is Cedric using him up like a satan-damned assassin!"
Arwen's damning statement turned Elerin's visage white as a sheet, and Cedric did not doubt that she recalled their journey through Cyrus's psyche all those years ago.
The accusation that they were treating him worse than that idiotic military officer from his past was enough to remove any resistance on Elerin's part.
Cyrus's memories still haunted her, and she had to physically restrain herself from going to him on a whim. Their son enjoyed his personal space, and physical affection was something he was not comfortable with.
"You should have left him in my care, Cedric!" With Elerin going silent, Arwen turned her ire upon her husband. "You have done nothing but turn him into a machine that doesn't hesitate to strike down his own sister!"
"Ashara attacked him, Arwen!" Cedric growled with contempt at the memory of his children tearing into one another. "None of this would have happened if you had kept her calm!..."
He had to remind himself that while Ashara struck first, Cyrus escalated the issue by aiming for her throat.
He didn't hesitate to go for a killing blow, and Cedric hoped it was instinct and not a deliberate act.
"…Leaving Cyrus in your care would have achieved nothing." The Primarch took a deep calming breath and leveled his gaze back onto his second wife. "Ghislaine was the only one willing to go to him after the incident. Ashara couldn't stand to be in the same room, and the twins were too frightened to try!"
Cedric neglected to say that he'd barely convinced Cyrus to recognize Ghislaine and the others as his sisters. He often spoke the term without an ounce of affection, and he hardly considered them siblings in anything more than name alone.
Ghislaine managed to break the mold, but theirs was a relationship that contrasted Jade and Arwen's children.
Cyrus was more comfortable around the hybrid than anyone else in their family, which most likely had to do with the fact that she was only half-devil.
"But I would have done everything for that boy!" Arwen hissed back with fury. "I love Cyrus like he's my son, but your desire to keep him in his comfort zone is why we are here! The boy barely talks to his sisters, and you don't think I know that Ghislaine is the only one he tolerates! Even then, she can barely get him to treat her as an acquaintance! Then you give him a Cohort because of your Praetor's incompetence!"
"Cyrus needed to focus his mind on something meaningful, and we were losing Legionnaires by the hundreds!" Cedric slammed his fist onto the office desk, cracking it in two. "Warfare agrees with him in more ways than you could possibly know, so I gave him precisely what he wanted, and by all accounts, it has proven effective!"
She stared at him in muted disbelief, unable or unwilling to follow her sister's or her husband's line of thinking. Their pride and anger consumed their mindsets, but Arwen refused to continue this argument against two of the most stubborn people she had ever known.
"That's the problem, Cedric." The Valefor Matriarch let out a snort of contentment and stared into his crimson orbs. "You gave him what he wanted…."
Arwen's following retort was barely a whisper, but it acted like a sledgehammer that damned Cedric's arguments.
"…Not what he needed."
For the first time in decades, Cedric was stunned into silence.
She was right.
Arwen watched Cedric slag into his chair, but she didn't linger for a response, making a swift exit and leaving him to deal with a shaken Elerin. Silence consumed their atmosphere, and only the deep exhale from his lungs echoed in the chamber.
"She…She's wrong." Cedric tried to reason with himself, but the words didn't quite reach his eyes, and his voice was drained of all the passion and fury it had so recently exuberated.
"No, she isn't. All we've accomplished is postponing a greater issue." Elerin turned towards him with a distraught expression, her composure wavering with grief. "We failed him."
His pride again made to argue, but all the bitterness that festered inside Cedric viciously crushed it. He had no words for Elerin, and his lack of response only seemed to stamp home her feelings.
She departed shortly after, bearing a desolate look that left Cedric hollow. Now he lingered here, wallowing in self-pity with only a shattered desk and a fractured family to show for his efforts.
The secret Cedric and Elerin had been keeping from their family was now the catalyst for their problems.
Arwen and her children couldn't understand Cyrus's ruined mindset and how much he truly despised many of them coming out of the womb.
There was never a chance to fix what had long been shattered, but Cedric had the opportunity to apply new principles and motivations to his son at such a tender age.
And yet, Cedric had failed all the same.
Cyrus may have taken to his ancestral powers, but he was no closer to accepting that he was no longer the same human fighting amongst the stars.
Cedric couldn't help the huff of amusement at how his one and only son could cause him more issues than any of his sisters combined.
Cyrus was one of a kind, and he continued to prove that in every way possible.
"Father?" Cedric's gaze snapped towards a mop of pink hair poking into the room, and the dejected atmosphere dissipated at the sight of both his twin daughters.
Sapphire strode into the room with a package clutched in her palms, and Rose followed her sister's wake. Both of them were growing into beautiful young women, and Cedric praised the poor sod that would manage to take their hearts.
"What is it, my child." He adopted a placating grin that alleviated the twin's somewhat despondent mood.
"We can't find Cyrus, and we wanted to give him his birthday gift early." Sapphire offered the finely wrapped present to her father, and his eyes danced with amusement.
"Well, I'm sure that I can…." Cedric's heart and voice suddenly froze, drawing alarmed looks from both his daughters.
Sapphire dropped her present and caught him as he slumped forward, forcing her full weight into his side and bracing him against her.
"Father!" Rose lunged forward and helped Sapphire ease him into a padded chair.
Cedric clutched a hand to his heart.
The beating organ suffered the sharp sting of a thread cut from its tether.
The anguish sprang up when Cedric tried to utilize the anchor from his Caiseag Sgàil.
He implanted in each of his offspring a surefire way to locate and, sometimes, teleport to their location given a certain distance.
However, he couldn't find Cyrus's anchor, and that terrified him.
"Ghislaine!" Cedric called out into the void with a demanding voice that immediately received his Nekoshou daughter's response. Sapphire and Rose were forced back as a black shape emerged behind them.
"Yes, father?" The Nekoshou had just come from an intense conversation with Ashara and Jade that left her in a poor mood.
Cedric ripped Ghislaine from her internal musings when he clutched both shoulders with a concerned grimace.
"Take me to Cyrus." She didn't hesitate to activate his anchor, but like Cedric, she'd nearly fallen over in debilitating pain.
Sapphire and Rose could only look on with increasing despair as Ghislaine suffered the same ailment.
"His anchors gone."
A million thoughts ran through Cedric's mind, but the visible shock adorning Ghisalines features only drove home the tragedy of their situation.
Cyrus was leaving.
"Zakan!" The Commanding Night Warden stepped out of Cedric's shadow. "Where is Karal?!"
"Lord Cyrus assigned him to Lady Arwen's protection detail." Zakan relayed without hesitation under the Shadow Lord's livid gaze.
"Damn you, Cyrus." Cedric forced down a furious snarl as he rose to his feet and began barking out orders. "Put the Garrison on alert! I want all Guardsmen to be on the lookout for him now!"
"Yes, my lord." Zakan disappeared into the darkness, leaving Cedric to determine their next step. Alerting the Garrison was a means to an end, and he didn't bank on a random Legionnaire finding his missing son.
"Father, what is going on?!" Ghislaine recovered her breath and drew her father's attention.
"Cyrus is going to Lucifaad!" Cedric supplied as a wave of nocturne energy gathered around him. "I'm heading for the spire to get a fix on him. Find Elerin and search for him to the south. Jade will join you along the way with the 8th Cohort!"
"What about us?" Rose and her twin stood by, ready and waiting to assist, but the uncertain glance Cedric shot her way halted any thought of helping.
"Stay here with your mother." The Primarch wasn't asking or telling them. It was a demand, and no arguments could convince him otherwise.
Cedric vanished in the blink of an eye, and Ghislaine barely gave the twins a forlorn glance before accompanying him.
Rose felt like her entire life was completely upended, and she didn't know whether to cry or curse Cyrus for doing this.
Her blood burned with potent anger, and the pounding in her skull threatened to unleash a terrible fury.
But the muffled cries from her beloved twin silenced that rage and only left misery in its wake. Rose wrapped her arm around Sapphire's shoulder as she hugged her brother's gift, unable and unwilling to let it go.
Cyrus left again, and it felt like it was for good this time.
"What did we do wrong?" The question fell from Sapphire's lips, and Rose instinctively wrapped her in an affectionate embrace.
"I…I don't know."
Grief blanketed the twins.
l==l
As Legionnaires took to the sky in pursuit of Cyrus, he heard the fluttering of their wings and the clanking of their Griycium armor echoing in the distance.
They wouldn't find him. None of them would; Cyrus made sure of that. He ignored Ahri's concerned glance as they loitered not feet away from Viktor's unguarded tunnel into Lucifaad.
"You sure about this?" It wasn't the first time Ahri asked the question, and Cyrus desperately hoped this would be the last.
"Completely." The Vastaya stared at the side of his head with an unreadable expression as if seeking to pry open his thoughts and discover what was ticking inside.
The Vastayan waved her fingers and produced a weightless orb that shined brightly into the cavern's darkened corridors.
Amber orbs returned Cyrus' unphased gaze, and the two exchanged quiet stares for a few seconds before Ahri's eyes softened, and she averted her eyes.
"Follow me." With those words, Ahri ventured into the familiar darkness, deliberately avoiding the decaying pillars as she illuminated their route.
Cyrus made to follow, but an echo across the darkened plains rooted him in place.
"Cyrus!"
There was trepidation in that scream that Cyrus found hard to ignore, and he struggled to set aside the piece of him that wanted to turn back.
Ironically, his Devil side encouraged him to withdraw back into the embrace of those he had never wanted to call family while his Spartan creed urged him to endure.
This war needed to end, and every second that passed was another step toward an apocalypse.
Hundreds of millions of his people would be slaughtered on the altars of sacrifice these factions would erect on their lands to amass as much cannon fodder as possible.
No human being would be spared underneath these godly creatures, and the land would run red with human blood.
"CYRUS!" He glanced backward, managing to discern Ghislaine's distressed features off in the distance.
The Spartan hesitantly ventured into the catacombs, drifting out of sight before her troubled expression could change his mind.
All the while, Cyrus did everything in his power to ignore the pieces of him that would forever despise this course of action.
He had a mission to accomplish, and nothing in this world could convince him to turn back now.
Cedric, Ghislaine, and the rest of his family were Devils.
They are a means to an end.
Cyrus had a family long before these people graced him with their presence.
He had two sisters that stood by him when the galaxy reigned hell upon them, burning planets and leaving corpses in continent-scarring ditches.
Sisters that he would never truly know if they died on their feet or lived to see the seasons pass and the worlds they once called home to teem with life once more.
But that was the tragedy of war.
Only the fortunate received a happy ending, and Cyrus refused to believe these devils could give him what he apparently needed.
He didn't need Ghislaine, and he didn't need the Kimaris family to hold his hand so he could cry on their shoulder.
Cyrus didn't need anyone.
How long are you going to keep lying to yourself?
As long as it takes.