The Broken Halo

[I’m listening.]

Lilith’s voice reached him without a sound in the room. Simon turned his head toward the window, watching fire pass behind the buildings outside.

[How much do you know about this place?]

[Enough to know it looked very different once.]

He pushed himself up against the headboard.

[You’ve been here before?]

[Yes.]

[Then you know the dragon we’re standing on?]

[Yes I do.]

She paused.

[Veyra. One of my mother’s followers.]

Simon sat forward, letting the pillow slip behind his back.

[That dragon served your mother?]

[Yes. Long before anyone thought of building cities here.]

Lilith paused before adding, [I remember visitors being made to remove their weapons before entering this dimension. Veyra wouldn’t tolerate even a scratch on anything here.]

Simon glanced at the floor beneath his bare feet.

[I doubt the people building houses on the corpse asked permission.]

[No. A shame to end up like this.]

There was no grief in her voice. She sounded displeased, almost offended on the dragon’s behalf.

[Those people are cutting streets into scales they wouldn’t have dared approach while she lived.]

[She?]

[Yes. Did you think all True Dragons were males?]

[You’re not a man, so no?]

Lilith gave a quiet snort.

Simon swung his legs over the edge of the bed. The room offered little indication that it stood upon something Lilith had once known. A wardrobe, clean bedding, a meal someone had brought him. Outside, people went about their business on Veyra’s back.

[What happened to her?]

[I don’t know. I wasn’t here when she died.]

He had more questions about that, but her answer gave him nothing to work with.

[And this dimension? Did she find it like this, or did she make it?]

[She made it. This was her home.]

Simon looked toward the broken sky.

[All of it?]

[True Dragons often prefer having their own dimensions. Somewhere to sleep, keep their treasures, and decide who may enter. Why search the Demon Realm for a suitable mountain when you can make a place to your liking?]

[Most of us would struggle with the making part.]

[Because you’re all weak.]

Simon smiled faintly at her dry reply.

He could close a rift now. Doing so had nearly drained him. Creating an entire dimension, then using it as a residence, demanded an understanding of space he couldn’t yet imagine.

[Was the sky always broken?]

[Not when I knew her. Nor was the fire falling like this.]

A molten stream spilled beyond a distant roof and disappeared below the window’s view.

Simon considered what could have happened here. Damage from Veyra’s death, perhaps, or from whatever had killed her. He couldn’t assume the corpse had been left in the middle of an otherwise untouched home.

[Does the demonic energy come from her too?]

[Much of it. Her remains seems to have been releasing power for a very long time. There’s also the energy she used to create and sustain this dimension. It hasn’t all dispersed.]

Simon drew a careful breath, feeling the response inside his heart. The air had become easier to tolerate, but he continued limiting what he absorbed.

[This is what’s left?]

[Yes.]

[After she’s been dead long enough for them to build cities on her?]

[Did you expect a creature that size to hold as little energy as you do?]

He frowned.

[I expected more. Just not this much.]

The energy pressed against him even here, inside a furnished room. Akaza had coughed upon entering. Ammor had nearly lost his footing. Simon himself had needed to stop his heart from taking in more than he could comfortably handle.

He had thought they were entering a place rich in demonic energy. It hadn’t occurred to him that the corpse beneath their feet was supplying it.

[How strong was she?] Simon asked. [As strong as a god?]

Lilith took a moment to answer.

[After watching you fight the God of War, I can tell you that Veyra could have killed ten of him without using half her strength.]

Simon stopped breathing.

[Ten?]

[Yes.]

He rubbed his mouth before asking, [Even with his true body?]

[When I said ten, I was talking about his true body. Veyra has fought beings much stronger than the gods you know of and she quite capable of killing them.]

Simon lowered his hand.

He knew the God of War hadn’t brought his full strength into Darius. Winning that fight had never meant Simon was ready to march into a god’s home and repeat it.

Even so, hearing Lilith speak so casually about ten of the God of War with his true body left him cold.

He remembered the roar tearing through his ears, the manifested weapons, the blows he had only survived because his body kept healing.

Veyra could have dealt with ten opponents like that, and somebody had killed her.

Simon got up and walked to the window. His wings remained retracted, but he could feel the muscles beneath his shoulders tightening as he looked out.

He found the curved edge of a distant scale. Buildings crowded against it, their windows brighter than the immense black surface behind them.

How large had she looked in flight?

From the ground beneath her, would there have been anything else to see?

He suspected there were True Dragons larger than Veyra. Until today, he wouldn’t have known what to make of that possibility. Now he had a whole settlement beneath his window to measure against a fraction of one body.

Simon rested a hand on the sill.

Becoming a Daemon had changed what he could survive. It had given him power he had spent decades seeking in his first life.

He hadn’t come close to the peak.

Repelling The One’s gaze had nearly cost him everything. He couldn’t even estimate how much stronger he would need to become before challenging that being directly.

He intended to find out. But his recent victories were a poor measure of what awaited him.

Something stirred beneath his ribs.

Simon took his hand off the sill.

[Lilith. That feeling from below. Do you know what’s causing it?]

[No.]

[You knew Veyra. You knew this dimension.]

[And it has changed since then. Knowing who lived here doesn’t tell me what is now beneath her corpse.]

Simon watched another stream of fire fall out of sight.

[Sonya felt something too. For me, it’s almost a pull. I can’t tell whether it’s my bloodlines or something else.]

[You would have to get closer before I could examine it properly. I can’t be certain from this distance.]

He considered reaching out again, then remembered how abruptly his senses had vanished when he’d tried.

[Enigma warned me not to look too deeply.]

[Then don’t. Not merely to satisfy your curiosity.]

[You just told me to get closer.]

[I told you what I would need to know more. That wasn’t an instruction to jump off the dragon.]

Simon gave a reluctant chuckle.

[Fair enough.]

He stepped away from the window. Whatever lay below had been there before he arrived. He could wait until he knew more about the place and its inhabitants.

For now, he had a room, his companions nearby, and time before Enigma returned.

Simon sat on the bed again, elbows resting on his knees. There were other questions he had put aside while fighting, healing, and trying to make sure none of them were left behind.

Now Lilith was listening.

[There’s more I need to ask you,] he told her. [About the tribulation, the Seeds of Sin, and The One.]