Chapter 1473: Summons From a Myth

Rumours claimed his cultivation had soared, that the change in his appearance was permanent, or that he had been seen flying above the island surrounded by strange wings of light. Paige thought that last part was probably bullshit; Brielle was less certain. Phei forming wings from light had begun to sound depressingly plausible.

Even without seeing him, they would have welcomed an afternoon with just the princesses.

Instead, that morning found Brielle lying sideways across one bed, legs hanging over the edge and phone held above her face. Paige occupied most of the couch beside the windows, half buried in cushions and thoroughly aggrieved by everyone else’s freedom.

"Another picture," Brielle muttered.

Paige turned her head. "Of him?"

"What else?"

"Give me."

"No."

"Brielle."

"You own a phone."

"Mine’s charging."

"Then suffer." Paige threw a cushion at her. Brielle caught it against her stomach without looking away from the screen. "Rude."

"Show me." Brielle rolled over enough to turn the phone towards her, and Paige sat upright. "Fuck."

"Exactly."

Paige leaned closer. "Why does he look like that now?"

"Because life hates us."

"Is that gold in his eyes more darker than yesterday or its just me?"

"I think so."

"What happened to him— he looks more beautiful than yesterday." Paige asked, studying the photograph.

Brielle shrugged. "Apparently disappearing for two weeks turns him into a deity the next day."

"Useful information."

"If we ever escape this bloody estate, remind me to disappear for two weeks."

Paige dropped back against the cushions. "If we ever get out, I’m never coming back."

"You’ll come back."

"For clothes."

"Obviously." Another notification appeared, drawing a frown from Brielle.

"What?" Paige asked.

"Nothing. Zara’s threatening Clara again."

"Still about the picture?"

"New picture."

"Show me." Paige was sitting up again when two soft knocks sounded at the door. Servants came and went often enough for neither sister to pay much attention, until a careful voice followed them.

"Miss Paige? Miss Brielle?"

Brielle lowered her phone. The servant sounded unusually cautious, each word measured, and Paige glanced towards the door before answering: "Yes?"

A hesitation followed, brief enough to make the next words seem carefully chosen. "The Lord requests that you grace his presence."

Brielle’s phone slipped through her fingers before she caught it. Paige straightened slowly, the request leaving her unable to answer. She looked towards her sister and found her staring back, some of the colour already gone from her face.

"The Lord?" Paige whispered.

They knew the patriarchs, ancestors and family gods discussed within the household. The Lord belonged to the stories used to frighten children and remind distant family branches how little they understood of the main family’s power. Among the countless Immediate branches, he had become folklore.

Almost 98% of the extended and Immediates families did not believe he existed.

Some claimed he had died centuries earlier, his name preserved because an impossibly powerful protector remained useful even in death. Others believed the main line had invented him to cow rivals and far-flung descendants. The powers attributed to him scarcely seemed possible on Earth: cultivators crushed without a hand raised, six wings mentioned in old records, entire branches abandoning years of preparation at a single sentence supposedly uttered by him.

Other tales placed his true body beyond the mortal world, with only fragments able to descend upon Earth. Paige and Brielle had grown up hearing them and believed very little. Now a servant waited outside their bedroom as though she had merely announced another household appointment.

"Did she actually say the Lord?" Brielle asked, sitting upright.

"You heard her."

"Maybe she means Lord Elliot Heavenchild."

"Nobody calls him that."

"Maybe she’s confused."

Paige looked at her. "Do you want to open the door and ask?" Brielle’s expression settled that immediately. Another, quieter knock sounded before either could offer an alternative.

"Misses?"

"We’re coming," Paige answered, swallowing. Footsteps retreated along the corridor, but neither twin moved until Brielle broke the silence.

"What did we do?"

"Why are you asking me?"

"Because whenever something goes wrong, you normally know first."

"That’s offensive."

"It’s accurate." Paige rose, finding her legs less cooperative than they had been a few minutes earlier. They changed quickly into respectable dresses, foregoing the exhausting elegance of a formal Heavenchild event while avoiding anything that might offend the mythical being who had apparently chosen that morning to prove he existed.

For the first few minutes, a household attendant led them along familiar corridors. Morning light fell through towering windows over polished floors and family portraits. Servants went quietly about their work, studiously ignoring the direction in which the twins were being escorted.

Then the attendant turned left, and Paige stopped so abruptly that Brielle nearly walked into her.

Ahead stood the first archway into the restricted section, a boundary neither had ever crossed.

The attendant glanced back. "Please."

The strain beneath that single word persuaded Paige to move, and they passed into a part of their home that seemed to have been built for strangers.

The luxury remained, but the windows narrowed and grew scarce, the floors darkening beneath their feet. Portraits gave way to reliefs of winged beings descending over kneeling figures, battles beneath blazing heavens and circles of white-gold light. Paige failed to recognise several scenes despite having studied enough Heavenchild history to resent most of it.

Guards watched from every turn. Some wore Heavenchild colours; others were Maxtons, whom both sisters recognised immediately. Nobody challenged their presence or asked why they had come. The twins passed deeper into the forbidden wing under silent scrutiny, with every guard apparently expecting them.

The air grew heavier.

Paige blamed her nerves until drawing breath became difficult and her muscles tightened despite her efforts to relax them. Her palms chilled, her heartbeat quickening with every measured step. Something immense waited ahead.

She lacked the cultivation knowledge to name what she felt, but her body needed no explanation.

Brielle moved close enough for their shoulders almost to touch.

"What is this?" she whispered.

Paige could only shake her head.

The attendant continued without looking back, approaching a pair of doors that opened before anyone touched them. Both sisters stopped upon the threshold as a chill passed through Paige, wholly unrelated to the temperature.

Beyond lay an enormous chamber of pale stone veined with white and gold, faint radiance coursing through the walls. Formations spread across the floor in intricately nested circles. Following a single line made Paige’s eyes ache, and overhead the ceiling vanished into shadow despite the sacred light below.

Only two figures waited inside. Danton stood to the right, dark clothing immaculate, hands resting loosely behind his back. Paige disliked the calculation with which he usually watched people, weighing what they possessed, what they knew and how troublesome they might become if he ever needed them removed.

Today he looked almost relaxed, as though they were expected for breakfast, and she found no reassurance in his ease.

Beside him stood the Lord.

Paige’s body refused to move as she looked upon the towering figure within the golden-white radiance, its brilliance sharpening every terrible detail. Even Danton seemed ordinary beside him.

Six enormous seraphic wings spread in overlapping layers behind his back, utterly still.

Paige understood why so many of her relatives preferred to dismiss the stories.

This was what they would have had to accept as real: an existence whose presence filled a vast chamber and burdened her lungs with her first attempted breath.

Brielle’s fingers found hers, trembling, and Paige squeezed them as firmly as she could.

The Lord had made no move against them:

His mere presence held their bodies rigid, awakening a terror too immediate for either sister to reason with. When his golden-white eyes settled upon Paige and then Brielle, she struggled to endure the attention. Something ancient watched from behind that gaze, and she could not tell whether it examined their faces, their blood, their Souls, or something within them they had never known existed.

"Paige. Brielle." Danton’s voice gave them somewhere else to look. His smile widened slightly as their attention turned towards him. "Come on in sweethearts."

Neither moved, while behind them the attendant bowed deeply and withdrew without a word.

The doors began to close.

Paige turned too late to do anything but watch the massive stone slabs meet, their deep reverberation settling beneath her heart. Brielle’s grip tightened painfully around her fingers. Across the chamber, Danton stood beside the six-winged avatar, calm and unreadable, while the Lord continued to watch them.

For two weeks, they had resented being kept inside the estate.

Now the forbidden doors had opened for them and closed at their backs.

Paige stood holding her sister’s hand, facing the being whose existence they had doubted that morning, with the ordinary frustrations of their confinement already beyond reach.