Chapter 171: The Weight of a Name

Chapter 171: Chapter 171: The Weight of a Name

Theon pressed a hand to his head and winced, the way a boy does when he knows he has earned every word of the scolding. The room had gone quiet around him. Late light slanted through the balcony doors and lay across the blanket in long gold bars, and for a moment he sat inside it and simply breathed. Beyond the balcony, the air still smelled faintly of smoke, a reminder of how close the day had come to ending differently.

"Ah... all right, all right," he said at last. "I’m sorry. I won’t rush into things like that again."

Nobody answered, which was how he knew none of them believed him. Lyra sat at the foot of the bed with her knees drawn up and hid a small smile behind her sleeve. Cryvathar only grunted from his chair in the corner. "He says that every time," Lyra whispered to him. "And then he does it again." The old man muttered something that sounded like agreement. Theon let the matter drop and turned toward the tall figure waiting by the bed.

"Ifrith, what rank are you at right now?"

Ifrith answered, plainly and without pride. "Demon God."

Theon froze. The words hung in the air, large and strange, like a coin he had expected to be copper and had found to be gold.

"Wait." He leaned forward. "Do you mean a Demi Demon God?"

"No A real Demon God, Master."

Theon stared at him. He waited for the correction, for the joke, for the smile that would tell him he had misheard. None came. Ifrith stood with his hands folded, calm as still water, and the truth of it settled into Theon slowly, the way cold seeps through a coat.

"Wow," he breathed. Then he smiled, because he truly was glad, and because the other feeling rising in his chest was one he did not want to look at too closely. "That’s... that’s really great. That’s really impressive."

Somewhere along the way, while Theon had been busy simply surviving, the people beside him had grown into something he could hardly measure. He was proud of them. He was also, quietly, a little lost.

"Thank you, Master." Ifrith’s smile was small and warm. Then he stood straighter. "But I need to leave now. There is work I cannot leave undone."

"All right." Theon raised a hand before he could go. "But before you leave, I need to give you a new name. You are not the same person you were, and you should have a name that fits what you are now."

Ifrith bowed deeply. "Yes, Master."

Beside him, Silver bowed too, her small hands folded at her waist. "I request a new name as well, Master." Her voice was soft, but her fingers had tightened around each other, and Theon understood how long she had waited to ask.

Theon thought for a while. He rubbed his chin, a habit he had never managed to lose, and let his gaze move from one of them to the other. Then he settled on Silver.

"What have you evolved into?"

"Celestial Demon Maiden."

Theon blinked. "Celestial Demon Maiden? What is that?"

Silver answered calmly, as though she were reading a line from a book. "It is a rank equal in strength to that of a Demon God."

Theon looked from her to Ifrith and back again, and then he let out a long breath that was half a laugh. "Wow. It looks like you two are on the same level." He dropped his hands into his lap and studied his own fingers, thin and pale against the blanket. "And I’m still so weak."

"You are not weak, big brother," Lyra said at once. She said it softly, but there was a stubborn edge in her voice, the kind that came when she had decided a thing was true and would not be argued out of it. Theon only smiled at her and ruffled her hair, and she scowled and let him.

Ifrith’s smile did not fade, but something behind it softened. *Ah, Master,* he thought. *You don’t even know how powerful you are.* For a moment the words pressed against his tongue, ready to be spoken. Then he waved the thought away like smoke. Some truths were better delivered when the one who needed them was ready to carry their weight.

Theon stayed quiet a while longer. The only sound in the room was the faint rustle of the curtains. When he finally spoke, his voice was lighter, as though he had set something heavy down.

"All right. I’ve decided." He turned to Silver. "Silver, from now on you will be named Velmira."

"Velmira," she repeated, tasting the name, and the instant it left her lips, light burst from her body.

It poured out of her in a golden tide and filled the room until every shadow fled into the corners. The warmth of it brushed Theon’s face like the spring sun, gentle and a little sad. Her hair transformed into radiant gold and rippled as though a wind lived inside it. Her eyes, pale as frost a moment before, deepened into a pure and burning crimson. Lyra gasped and clutched the blanket. Even cryvathar sat up straighter in his chair.

When the glow settled, Velmira stood with her head bowed and both hands pressed to her chest, breathing as if she had run a great distance. She looked younger somehow, and fiercely happy. A single tear had slid down her cheek, and she did not wipe it away.

"Thank you, Master," she whispered. "I will carry this name with honor for as long as I exist."

Theon scratched his cheek, embarrassed by the weight of it. He had only wanted to give her something pretty.

Theon stared at her. "All right. It looks like you’ve evolved again." He tilted his head. "What have you evolved into this time?"

Velmira lifted her chin, and her voice came out steady despite the tear. "Supreme Celestial Demon Maiden."

"Okay." Theon nodded as if she had told him the weather. Only his thumb, tapping nervously against his knee, gave him away. Then he turned to the demon waiting beside her. "Ifrith, I will name you... Vaelkor."

The name rang through the room and sank into Ifrith’s mind like a stone into deep water. Behind him, the air tore open. A dark black hole spun into being, silent and vast, and it swallowed him whole before he could so much as turn his head.

Theon shot to his feet, and the blanket tumbled to the floor. "Wait! What’s going on?" He rushed toward the spot where Ifrith had stood and found only a slowly turning dark. "What happened? Where’s Ifrith?"

"Calm down, lad." Cryvathar had not moved from his chair, and his voice was low and even. "He is coming back. The name only took him along an evolution path."

Theon’s shoulders loosened one at a time. "Oh. All right." He wiped his palms on his shirt and let out a shaky breath. He had not realized how hard his heart was pounding until it began to slow. Lyra took his hand and tugged him gently back to the bed, and he let her.

For a while nobody spoke. The black hole had vanished as though it had never been, leaving only a faint chill in the place where it had hung. Theon stared at the empty space and chewed his lip.

"Is he really all right?" he asked quietly.

"Evolution is a hard road," Cryvathar said. "It strips a being down to the bones and builds it again. But he has an anchor now, lad, and that anchor is you. He will find his way home. Stop worrying yourself sick."

Theon nodded, though his hands would not stay still. Lyra wrapped both of hers around one of them and held on.

Inside the black hole, Ifrith floated in the dark. No ground held him and no wind touched his skin. He was naked, weightless, and wholly unafraid. In all the long ages of his life, nobody had ever given him a name out of kindness. He had been feared, he had been obeyed, and he had been alone. Long before this room, he remembered a throne of black glass and a crowd of kneeling creatures who trembled whenever he spoke. Not one of them had ever said his name the way Theon had, as though it were a gift and not a command. This was something else entirely.

A screen of pale light opened before him, and a voice rolled through the darkness, soft and ancient. It sounded like a goddess.

{Demon God evolution requirement attained.

A Demon God has the right to choose which path of evolution he wishes to peak.}

"What paths are there?" Ifrith asked. "Let me see them."

A blue screen unfolded in front of him, and four evolution paths glowed within it, one after another they lined up before him in glowing screens.

{True Demon....