The Great House of Prayer was a forest of white marble and suffocating incense, designed to make anyone inside feel small and exposed beneath its overwhelming scale. Towering pillars lined the hall in perfect symmetry, and the air itself felt heavy, as if even breathing required permission.
Light filtered through high-stained windows in fractured shards, turning the air into something almost visible, something thick enough to choke on.
At the far end stood the Envoy.
He was a man of the Purest Royal Blood, possessing eyes of Gold, not as a mere color, but as a blinding, unblinking radiance that made everything else in the room feel like it had been accidentally downgraded to background scenery. People did not look at him so much as they were overwhelmed by his presence.
Outside, ten thousand people were busy being desperate. Their prayers of "Save us" and "Bless us" rose like invisible threads of spiritual hunger, all funneling into the Envoy’s outstretched hand like a cosmic vacuum cleaner.
"Step forward, Kael Valerius," the Envoy commanded, his voice vibrating with the kind of authority that usually comes with a direct line to the divine and a very expensive tailor.
Kael knelt on the cold stone. The rusted ghost, ever the harbinger of bad vibes, stood right behind the Envoy, shaking his head.
"Don't let him in, little mouse," it hissed. "The fire eats the house."
The Envoy reached out. When his palm hit Kael’s forehead, it didn't feel like a holy caress. It felt like a branding iron applied with enthusiastic intent. Above them, a Great Golden Hawk of pure light descended from the ceiling. It was a divine ego reaching down to rewrite Kael’s soul, a cosmic interior decorator intent on turning his grey eyes into golden windows for the Emperor’s convenience.
Kael’s mind began to crack. The Golden Light was too loud, a celestial shout trying to burn away the noise, the ghosts, and the fragile sliver of clarity he’d fought so hard to maintain.
It hurts! Kael thought, his soul shivering under the glare.
Then *POP* something inside Kael finally snapped.
A deep, instinctive, and possessive presence reacted as if the intrusion had stepped across a boundary it did not understand and was no longer allowed to cross.
The Envoy's touch felt like a god trying to take something it did not own. So, from the darkest vault of Kael’s psyche, the presence finally took a shape.
"MINE," a voice purred. It was a woman’s voice, sounding like honey poured directly over a razor blade.
"YOU SHALL NOT HAVE MY PRECIOUS THING."
Contrary to the frantic energy she portrayed, she did not fight the light nor did she dodge the radiance or shield her eyes from the divine overflow.
Instead, she simply opened her mouth and swallowed it whole.
To the horrified spectators, it looked like a miracle being erased in real time, collapsing into a sudden, hungry absence.
As the Envoy’s hand was flung back by a pulse of invisible force that treated royal bloodlines as irrelevant, Kael’s body went limp.
And then Gemma, the entity, arrived.
She wrapped his mind in a thick, protective veil of absolute comfort, closing off his access to reality until everything outside felt distant and muted.
"The world is too harsh for you, Kael-kun," she whispered, her voice a decadent sprawl of honey and crushed glass that seemed to vibrate directly against his soul.
She wrapped his mind in a thick, protective veil of absolute midnight, pulling him into a psychological embrace that felt less like a hug and more like a silk-lined coffin.
"Don’t worry, Big sis Gemma will shield you from this cruel world,”
She cooed, the warmth of her presence chilling the very edges of his consciousness.
"I’ll swallow the noise, the ghosts, and that nasty, burning light. You don’t need to see them.”
The way she said it was intoxicating, a velvet promise that made the crushing void feel like a sanctuary.
“You are safe.”
He would never have to hurt again.
“With me."
…provided he never tried to leave the beautiful, dark cage she had built for him.