Chapter 61 : Sealed Power

Chapter 61: Chapter 61 : Sealed Power

The words hung there longer than they should have. Theon felt it before he understood it... a pressure settling over the ridge like a hand pressing down on the back of his neck. It came from the mountain in the distance, half-swallowed by mist, its peak catching the last orange light of the afternoon.

He had felt pressure like this only once before.

Standing across from Ifrith in the ancient forest, the night everything changed.

But this wasn’t Ifrith’s aura. It was close. Terrifyingly close. Close enough that for one disorienting second, Theon’s mind flat-out refused to accept what his senses were screaming at him.

*Ifrith isn’t the strongest thing in this world.*

He turned. Ifrith stood a few paces behind him, jaw locked, eyes fixed on the same mountain. And for the first time since Theon had known him, there was something unreadable in that expression. Not fear.... Ifrit didn’t do fear. Something closer to recognition. The look of a man hearing a voice from a life he thought he’d buried for good.

"Ifrith." Theon kept his own voice level, though his pulse hadn’t slowed. "I’m going to find out what that is."

"Yes, Master."

No hesitation. No argument. Just those two words, flat and immediate. Somehow that worried Theon more than if Ifrith had pushed back.

---

Lyra was the first to speak up, tugging at his sleeve before he’d even finished turning around. "I’m coming too."

"Lyra—"

"I’m coming too," she repeated, folding her arms in a way that made it clear the conversation was already over.

Lazaria stepped up beside her, calm and certain the way she always was. "So am I."

Silver said nothing. She simply moved to stand at Ifrith’s side, which told Theon everything he needed to know.

That left one problem.

The transformed elf... currently a small silver wolf pup perched on a fallen log.... went rigid the second he realized what was happening. Ears shot up. Tail, which had been curled comfortably around his paws, went stiff as a rod.

"Wait." His voice cracked with something close to panic. "You’re leaving? All of you? At once?"

"We’ll be back," Theon said.

"With *them*?" The pup’s head whipped toward where Cryvathar Elnor stood a short distance off, arms crossed, watching the exchange with the mild interest of someone observing insects. Beside him, the weakened woman leaned against the bed side, pale and silent, but her eyes tracked the pup with an attention that made his fur bristle. "You want me to stay here. With those two. Alone."

"Would they kill you?" Theon asked, mostly out of curiosity.

"Gladly," Cryvathar answered before the pup could, tone as casual as if he’d been asked whether it might rain.

The pup let out a strangled sound. "You see? You *see* what I mean?"

"I could think of a few interesting ways to pass the time," Cryvathar added, examining his own claws. "None of them pleasant for you."

Theon considered this for a moment, tapping his chin. "Hmm. Then maybe we should leave you here."

The transformation was immediate. The pup’s ears dropped flat against his skull. His tail sank until it dragged against the log. His whole small body seemed to deflate... shoulders hunched, eyes wide and glossy in a way that would’ve looked, on any other creature, unbearably pitiful.

Theon stared. "You can actually make that face."

"I am *not* being cute," the pup snapped, though the effect was somewhat undercut by his ears, which remained pinned flat. "I am expressing a completely reasonable concern for my continued survival."

"Sure."

"I mean it. Look at me. This is not cuteness. This is *terror*."

Theon reached down, gathered him by the loose fur at his scruff, and deposited him unceremoniously onto his own shoulder. The pup let out an indignant yelp before settling, grumbling something under his breath about dignity and ancient bloodlines that nobody bothered to respond to. He did, however, dig his small claws into the fabric of Theon’s collar and refuse to let go for the rest of the conversation, which Theon chose not to comment on.

---

They gathered at the edge of the balcony. Theon glanced toward the distant academy spires, faint against the horizon. Students would be finishing their evening drills soon. If a group of them went soaring toward a mountain wreathed in that kind of pressure, questions would follow. Questions he didn’t have time to answer.

"Ifrith."

Ifrith understood without being told. He raised one hand, and the air around the group folded inward, silent and seamless. **Stealth Mode.**

Theon blinked, watching his own arm fade into something less than transparent—more like the space itself had simply agreed to stop acknowledging him.

"Where did you get this kind of skill?"

"One of the assassins," Ifrith said, voice clipped. "During the incident with raven. He won’t be needing it anymore."

That was answer enough. The World Archive had its own logic, and Theon had learned not to question it too closely. Rewards came from where they came from, and asking too many questions about the mechanics behind them had a way of leading nowhere useful. He nodded, and the group rose from the ridge as one, cutting silently through the darkening sky heading toward the mountain.

Below them, the forest thinned into rockier terrain, the trees growing sparse and twisted the higher they climbed. The wind picked up, carrying the mineral scent of stone and, faintly, something else. Something scorched.

---

The wind carried the cold up from the valley floor. Lyra drifted closer to him as they flew, her small hand finding the edge of his sleeve.

"Big brother." Her voice was quiet, almost lost beneath the rush of air. "Are you okay?"

Theon considered lying. He decided against it. "Still recovering. Not all the way back yet."

Lyra’s grip tightened. "Don’t worry. I’ll protect you."

Something in his chest loosened at that, warmth despite the cold wind. "Okay."

"I’ll protect you too," Lazaria added from his other side, and there was no teasing in it, no lightness. Just quiet conviction.

"Thank you," Theon said, and meant it. For a few seconds the mountain ahead felt a little less like a mouth waiting to close around them.

Ahead of the group, Ifrith flew in silence, gaze fixed forward, unreadable. Theon noticed it, filed it away, and said nothing. Whatever was bothering him could wait until they understood what they were flying toward.

---

The peak, when they reached it, was empty.

No movement. No sound but wind dragging across stone. Theon touched down first, boots crunching against frost-hardened rock, and turned in a slow circle. The silence pressed against his ears—thick and unnatural, the kind of quiet that felt deliberate rather than simply absent of noise.

"There’s no one here."

Then the hair on his arms rose.

"Wait."

Ifrith’s eyes had already narrowed, fixed on a point in the empty air just ahead of them. "Concealment magic," he said. "Old. Deliberate. Someone wanted us to walk right up to them."

Theon raised his hand without needing to think about the motion. Power gathered at his fingertips, and he tore through the space in front of him the way one might rip a curtain from its rod.

The illusion shattered.

The mountain peak was no longer empty. The air itself seemed to buckle under a presence that hadn’t been there a heartbeat ago. Above them, hovering with the lazy confidence of someone who had never once feared falling, was a figure wreathed in dying firelight.

---

Crimson hair. Crimson eyes, slitted like a predator’s. Claws long enough to open stone. And behind him, spreading against the darkening sky, two wings of black flame that beat once.... slow and deliberate.... sending a ripple of heat rolling down the mountainside.

He didn’t attack. He didn’t even move closer. He simply looked down at them, gaze drifting across the group with unhurried interest, cataloguing each face.

Then his eyes found Ifrith, and stopped there.

Something shifted in his expression. Recognition, sharp and sudden.... the way a smile changes when it remembers an old joke.

Ifrith’s fists clenched at his sides. Theon felt the change in him before he saw it like a flicker in his aura like a candle guttering in a draft. When he turned to look, Ifrith’s jaw was tight enough to ache.

"Ifrith," Theon said carefully. "What’s going on?"

The winged demon above them smiled wider.

"He really hasn’t told you, has he?"

---

He descended without hurry, boots settling against the stone with barely a sound despite his size, and straightened to his full height. Up close, the pressure radiating off him was almost physical.... a weight that made the rock beneath their feet feel unstable.

"Allow me to introduce myself, since my old friend seems to have forgotten his manners." He spread his arms slightly, claws catching what little light remained. "I am Nova. The Primordial Demon of Flame."

He said it the way a king might announce a title he’d earned through centuries of blood. No exaggeration needed. Only fact.

"And Ifrith here." Nova’s gaze slid back toward him, something almost fond beneath the mockery. "Ifrith isn’t just another primordial demon, little human. He was *the* primordial demon. Ruler of the Demon Realm. The one none of us could match, not even standing together. He could have unmade any of us with a thought and never lost a night’s sleep over it."

Theon’s stomach turned cold. "What?"

"But he left." Nova’s tone shifted, something almost wistful creeping in. "Chose to serve the Flame Empress instead of ruling over the rest of us. We didn’t hear a whisper of him for a very long time. Then, during your little battle not long ago, I felt his aura again." His smile sharpened. "so I had to see for myself."

Theon’s eyes cut toward Ifrith. "What is he talking about?"

Ifrith’s expression had gone hard as carved stone. "I’ll explain later, Master."

"Later," Nova repeated, savoring the word like it amused him. "Still hiding behind that, are you?" He tilted his head, studying Ifrit the way one might study a puzzle whose pieces had gone missing. "You won’t even introduce me properly? Fine. I’ll do it myself, again, since apparently once wasn’t enough."

Silver’s breath caught audibly beside Theon.

"You’re free?," she said, and there was something raw underneath the words disbelief layered over old memory.

Nova’s attention swung to her, and for a moment his expression actually changed. Genuine surprise breaking through the theater. "Well now. Look at you." His eyes swept over her, taking in details Theon couldn’t see some measure of strength invisible to anyone who hadn’t known her before. "You’ve grown."

"With my new Master’s help," Silver said, chin lifting, "I evolved."

Nova laughed, low and rich, though there was an edge underneath it that made the sound less than pleasant. "The two most terrifying things I ever crossed swords with in the Demon Realm, and now you’re what? Pets? Servants to some human boy who probably hasn’t lived a fraction of a single one of your centuries?" His gaze finally landed on Theon, dismissive and amused all at once. "Tell me, little master. Do you even understand what you’re commanding? Or did you simply get lucky enough to—"

He wasn’t able to finish the sentence before Ifrith vanished.

There was no warning, no gathering of power that Theon could sense—just absence where a moment ago there had been a person. Then a sound that cracked across the mountaintop like the sky itself had split open.

Nova was gone from where he’d been standing. A trench tore through the stone where he landed instead, thirty feet away, half the mountainside crumbling into the trench with him. Dust and rubble exploded outward in a ring. The shockwave rolled down the slope hard enough that Theon staggered, throwing an arm up to shield his face from the wind of it.

Far below, in the valley, students out on evening drills turned toward the sound. A few pointed. But Stealth Mode held, and after a moment of searching an empty sky, they shrugged and went back to their exercises, chalking it up to distant thunder.

Theon lowered his arm slowly, staring at the crater where Nova had landed. Dust still hung in the air above it, drifting sideways in the wind. Beneath it, something in the stone had gone faintly molten, glowing a dull orange along the cracks.

*One kick.*

That was all it had taken.