The Broken Halo

Chapter 857 - 856: Honourable Sonya

Her mother’s recovery stopped after her father died.

At first, Sonya noticed longer pauses between her words. Then came the nights when her mother could not sleep without coughing. The short walks she had managed inside their home became journeys from the bed to a chair, and eventually, even those stopped.

Their belongings disappeared a few at a time to pay for treatment. But they did not starve. The clan provided decent food, clothing, and enough basic necessities to keep them alive.

Those continued, but the medicine became harder to obtain.

Outside, the grief of losing her father earned Sonya no kindness. Nobody stopped her to offer comfort. Instead, she heard voices lower when she approached, then rise again when the speakers thought she had passed and could no longer hear them.

”Now she knows what losing someone feels like.”

”After all the families she ruined, did she expect hers to be spared?”

Sonya kept walking. The ground trembled beneath her, and she forced it to remain calm before anyone could accuse her of another disaster.

The clan’s leaders continued teaching her. Instructors corrected her control, made her practise, and spoke about the strength she would possess after awakening. They were investing in her, not forgiving her. One instructor made that clear.

”Your birth cost this clan more than you understand,” he told her. ”You will become strong enough to make those losses worthwhile.”

She nodded because arguing would only prolong the lesson. They wanted victories. Territory. A name other clans would fear. Sonya wanted someone to speak to her after the training ended.

Only her mother did. She listened to Sonya describe the shapes she sensed, told stories during the long nights, and corrected her when she became careless or cruel. Her voice was weaker than before, but she never spoke as though Sonya owed her a return on everything she had suffered.

One particular conversation returned more clearly than the others. Sonya had come home from training and sat beside the bed without speaking. After a while, her mother found her hand.

”What did they call you today?”

”Nothing new.” Sonya rubbed her thumb against the blanket. Her mother’s fingers tightened.

”They say the ground should have swallowed me instead,” Sonya continued quietly. ”Then everybody else would still be alive.”

”Listen to me.” The firmness in her mother’s voice made Sonya lift her head. ”You are the greatest earth user in existence. You simply haven’t grown enough to understand what that means.”

Sonya remained silent. The strongest instructors could do things she still could not. Her mother guided her hand over the edge of the bed until her fingertips touched the floor.

”Wherever you go, the earth will answer you. Even in a place where nobody knows your name. In the Demon Realm, in the world of humans, and even the land of gods. The earth would always answer to you.”

”What if nobody wants me there?”

”Then remember that the earth does. When you think nobody loves you, put your hand down and listen. It has welcomed you since the day you were born.”

”It won’t abandon me?” Sonya pressed her palm against the stone.

”Never.” Her mother stroked the back of her hand. ”You are the child of-”

A sudden pain tore through the memory, and cold spread from the spear in Sonya’s stomach. Somewhere beyond her fading awareness, footsteps continued across the frozen road.

The rest of the words slipped away, and her mother’s voice returned.

”You are not a curse, and you are not an abomination.” A weak hand cupped her cheek. ”You are an Honoured One. My Honourable Sonya.”

Sonya’s Demon Heart beat, and another memory opened.

She was sixteen again, and her Chaos Flame had just been born. The earth around her was trembling.

She remembered the terror beneath her excitement. If the disturbances returned stronger now that she had awakened, what would happen to the home where her mother could barely leave the bed?

’Stop. Please stop.’

Then she felt something new.

Metal.

A second affinity had awakened alongside the power she had possessed since birth. Metal fastenings, hinges, and objects around her became distinct within her senses.

And somehow, she understood that she could use it. Not merely to hold the ground in place, but to change what was happening within herself.

Lying beneath Elara’s ice, Sonya remembered what she had done. She had suppressed her earth affinity.

No.

That was not right.

She had transferred part of it into her metal affinity.

Not demonic energy spent on another technique. Part of her overwhelming affinity for earth had moved into the newly awakened affinity for metal.

The change had made her earth chaos easier to control. The pressure that once escaped with her emotions no longer disturbed everything around her. The ground stopped trembling.

Sonya remembered waiting. She clenched her fists, released them, and let herself become excited. There was no crack or tremble from the ground at her excitement.

For the first time, being happy did not frighten her.

”Mother!” She ran home without stopping to quiet the ground behind her. ”Mother, I did it!”

Her mother’s outline shifted against the bed. Sonya caught her hand and pressed it against the wall.

”Feel it. Nothing is moving!”

”Tell me what happened.” A tired laugh escaped her mother.

Sonya explained everything, stumbling over the words in her excitement.

”I can control it now. I won’t hurt people by accident anymore.” She held her mother’s hand between both of hers. ”They won’t have to run from me.”

Her mother drew her close. And in that moment, Sonya believed things would finally improve.

One week later, her mother died.

The medicine had already been missing for too long. Food still arrived at their door, but meals could not repair the damage childbirth had left inside her.

Sonya sat beside the bed and waited for another breath. When none came, she shook her mother’s arm. Then she called her. Then she begged.

Then she wept.

She had never cried like that before. Not when the children fled. Not when the neighbours called her a curse. She cried until her throat hurt and the words stopped sounding like words.

The ground remained quiet.

She had finally learned to stop hurting the people she loved. There was nobody left at home to protect.

She kept the balance between her affinities exactly as she had made it. She was afraid to touch it again, afraid of returning to the child whose emotions brought roofs down upon families.

Later, she buried the memory of that choice with the days surrounding her mother’s death. Controlling herself that way became ordinary, something she did without remembering when or why it began.

But as Sonya’s life was slowly slipping away, she remembered the voices that finally drove her to her breaking point. Several Kraghs stood beside the road when she passed.

”Her mother should have let her die at birth.”

”Then her husband might still be alive. Stupid woman.” Another laughed.

”What did you say?” Sonya stopped.

They mistook her calmness for the silence they had grown accustomed to. This time, she wanted the ground to move.

The road opened beneath them. Stone closed around bodies, and the laughter became screams. Nearby walls fractured as her anger spread through the ground.

She killed them.

When other footsteps began rushing toward her, Sonya heard orders to restrain her, to make her obey. She did not wait.

Her mother was gone. Her father was gone. The only things left were people who hated her and leaders who expected her to repay them with her strength.

This was no longer home. It was a prison.

So she fled.

The memory broke beneath another pulse of pain. Sonya lay on Frostveil’s frozen road, an ice spear fixing her to the ground. Her mother’s hand was gone from her cheek. But the stone remained beneath her back.

Her fingers twitched.

’Mum... You said... it loves me.’

She tried to breathe. Blood caught in her throat, and for a moment, even the thought disappeared. Then it returned.

’It’ll answer.’

She remembered the affinity she had moved. The balance she had maintained for so long that she had forgotten choosing it.

’All this time... holding myself back.’ Her fingers pressed weakly against the frozen ground.

’Honourable... Sonya.’

Her mother’s voice had not called her a curse.

’I can’t... lose like this.’

Her Demon Heart released a loud beat, then the ground trembled.