Chapter 17: 17 Dialogues

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17: Dialogues 17: Dialogues When the doors closed and the room fell into absolute silence, the Emperor continued.

“Since you were born,” he said slowly, “my power has begun to fade.” The throne creaked again.

“At first I didn’t understand.

I thought it was a curse, a hidden enemy, or a betrayal.

I searched everywhere for eight years, and now, finally, I understand.” The torches in the room went out completely, one after another, the shadows trembled.

Reality itself seemed to tilt around the two.

“My power does not disappear.

My power is absorbed.” A long pause, his gaze fixed on his son.

“Data.” Silence.

“Your gift is not gravity, it is not light.

Those are only shadows of who you truly are, I am certain of it now.” He paused again, and when he continued, his voice was almost a whisper.

“Your true power is to absorb the magical energy of every living being and make it your own.

Without limit.

Without good.” A new silence fell, deeper than the first, so dense it seemed to have a specific weight.

“Your power,” the Emperor concluded, “is potentially infinite.” Zaroth rose from his throne slowly.

His red eyes, for the first time in ten thousand years, burned with something that was neither fear nor anger.

It was respect.

“Tell me, Kairan.” He descended a step, heading toward his son.

“What will you do with such power?

Will you rule the Demon Realm?

Will you become my heir?

Will you sit on this throne when I am gone?” A heartbeat.

A pause.

Then the answer, cold as death itself.

“Father,” Kairan replied, “I will take whatever I want.” And for the first time in ten thousand years, Zaroth was resurrected.

A full, thunderous laugh that shook Hell to its very foundations.

It wasn’t a screen laugh, nor one of anger, but the laughter of someone who, at the end of an infinite life, finally saw something new beneath the gray sky of the Abyss.

When Kairan left the room, she didn’t turn around.

She didn’t need to.

Zaroth, left alone on his dying throne, covered his face with one hand.

He was still smiling, and with a whisper that shook the entire kingdom, he spoke the words that would mark the beginning of the end.

“Truly, a chosen one has been born,” he declared peremptorily.

In her room, far from the throne and the din of the kingdom, Lilith stared into space.

Her face, once magnificent in its beauty, was now drawn, marked by the weight of the years and the harsh reality that surrounded her.

The kingdom she had built with Zaroth, with so much effort and cunning, now teetered dangerously on the brink of irreparable fracture.

Her hands, once capable of breaking titans, clenched nervously on the desk, as if trying to hold back something that was about to slip away forever.

Every thought brought her back to the same painful conclusion.

Her children, the two beings she had borne with her own blood, were about to be separated irrevocably, becoming the enemies she feared more than anything in the world.

The torches in the room seemed to grow dimmer, their flickering light dancing on the stones like the reflection of a destiny that could no longer be stopped.

Lilith had always known that, sooner or later, her children would have to make choices, but she never imagined that those choices would lead them to such a profound divide, capable of devastating them and, with them, the entire kingdom.

A step into the darkness.

Lilith didn’t turn: she sensed the presence even before she heard it.

Kaldreth, the very tall being, her longtime advisor and ally, the master who had guided Kairan, stood silently behind her, his face impassive, but his violet eyes filled with an understanding she had never had the courage to seek.

Kaldreth could read her deepest emotions, as if he could see beyond the mask she, as Empress, was forced to wear.

“Lilith.” His voice was grave, composed, infinitely patient.

“I see the weight crushing you.

Please, speak to me.

What truly torments you?” She slowly raised her gaze, and in those eyes, capable of reading anyone’s secrets, there was now only desperation.

“I see them growing, Kaldreth,” she said, her voice trembling, “and I see them drifting away, further and further, every day.

Misael has chosen the path of strength, of conquest.

I cannot deny his determination, but that is precisely what makes him dangerous.

His thirst for power knows no bounds, it is my blood, yet I no longer recognize him.

He has become my nightmare: the embodiment of that part of me I have always feared.” Kaldreth approached, but did not speak.

He knew that torment well.

“And then there is Kairan,” Lilith continued, closing her eyes.

“The other son, the one who still believes in balance, in the possibility that light and darkness can coexist harmoniously.

But his path is equally dangerous, Kaldreth; his very innocence blinds him.

He doesn’t see that the world cannot be saved by justice alone.

And I cannot allow that innocence to destroy it.” Kaldreth placed a hand on her shoulder.

In other ages, he had fought as a warrior, and he knew that the choice the Empress faced was not a matter of will, but of fate.

“Lilith, there is no simple answer to this,” he said, his voice measured, “but you must understand a fundamental truth: your children are already on different paths, and through no fault of your own.

They are no longer children, and the kingdom you have built can no longer be protected by a mother’s dreams.

Therefore, you must be ready to support the choice they make.

Even if it destroys you.” Tears, unseen by Lilith for millennia, clouded her eyes.

“And yet,” he whispered, “if I could go back, I would never have allowed all this to happen.

But now it is too late.” “Every empire collapses, Lilith.” Kaldreth’s voice grew solemn.

“Every kingdom reaches its peak and then slips into dust.

But dust is fertile, and the end is not the end, but another beginning.

The chaos you fear is but the preparation for what is to come.

When your kingdom falls, another will rise from its ashes.

It may not be the one you built, but it will be something new, something you cannot yet even imagine.” Lilith closed her eyes.

She knew he was right, but her vision of the world was too tied to what she had built, to the sacrifices made to keep it standing.

“What if the conflict is not the harbinger of a birth?” she murmured.

“What if it is, instead, the beginning of a definitive end?

What will happen, Kaldreth, when my kingdom and Zaroth’s is reduced to a pile of ruins?” The master remained still for a long time, as if searching for the answer.

“Every cycle is renewed, Lilith,” he finally declared.

“Never forget that.” He took his leave, leaving her alone with her shadows.

And deep within her broken heart, timidly, against all hope, something new began to emerge.

She didn’t yet know that that something was, at that precise moment, descending into the bowels of the Tower, toward a door no one should have opened.