Chapter 519: Chapter 519: Sephora & Raven
Chapter 519 – Sephora & Raven
"Your eye..."
A soft, gentle voice whispered inside a place tenderly lit by sourceless white light. The light covered an achingly limited area, revealing only the silhouette of a being levitating in the air.
A Divine Beast. Not just any Divine Beast, the Progenitor of all Divine Beasts himself.
His head was slightly bowed, crow-black hair falling over his face, hiding the empty void where his left eye should have been.
No blood trickled down. Yet the pain went far deeper, twisting his face into something caught between wrath and hidden suffering.
Until that soft voice reached him. And it was as if everything else was an illusion, his face cleared like a stain washed away by a river, settling into something calmer, more serene.
He didn’t turn to face the speaker. He answered anyway, his voice too gentle for a being of his station.
"I lost my eye, Sephora." He stated the obvious. "Nothing to worry about."
"I just felt an overwhelming anger coming from you." The voice — Sephora — continued, approaching with soundless steps. "And now you’ve sacrificed the very existence of your left eye. You can never recover it, Raven."
"My honour has been wounded." He said. "And must I remind you what that means? Honour is—!"
"The one thing no man should allow to be wounded." Sephora finished. He couldn’t see her, but Raven heard the roll of her eyes perfectly, and the twist of her lips.
His wife was so predictable to him now. Just as he was to her.
"So allow me, husband, to guess...he said something about me, didn’t he?"
Raven’s body instinctively stiffened. Noah’s arrogant words came rushing back, nearly sending him into another frenzy. Nearly. He barely managed to hold himself together and answer.
"Why... why would you ask that?"
"Because I know my husband." Sephora said, now just an inch away from him. "And I know that for all his talk about honour, the only thing that could truly anger him is someone saying something inappropriate about me."
"Don’t make it seem like I don’t concern myself with other matters."
"But do you?" She chuckled. "You only went to retrieve Luminara because I pestered you into it. Would you have gone otherwise?"
"No." He admitted. "A nuisance. And I don’t need both eyes to function and it changed nothing in terms of power. I did it for you, and I came back with nothing but rage over that arrogant bastard."
He paused, then dropped his voice to a low growl. "That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?" He scowled. "You wanted me involved in all these games and battles."
"We have no choice, my love. I... have no choice. You needed to be motivated to move."
"And you decided to manipulate me into it?"
"You gave me no choice."
"I wonder when the day will come, Sephora, when you’ll realise we damned well do have a choice."
Sephora held her silence for a couple of heartbeats before speaking again. "Not in this matter. Claiming neutrality, refusing to participate, that only makes us the first victims from either side of the coming conflict. You know that. Neutrality doesn’t exist, husband. No one will tolerate a wild card. We are either with one side or the other, or we are killed first to avoid surprises."
"...and you chose for me."
"Were you planning to side with Vaelgrim?" She asked, genuinely confused.
Raven sighed. "You plan and you manipulate. Always, always, always. Yet you never look at the broader picture, Sephora. Why didn’t you consider that we could have worked with Vaelgrim, the one who killed Tree and Tail and destroyed half the Universe?"
Sephora flinched. "He is too volatile. Too unpredictable. You hate unpredictability, husband."
"I hate it even more when that unpredictability is pointed at me." Raven snapped.
Sephora fired back. "So what? It’s already done! I don’t know what he said, but it was enough to turn you against him entirely. You’re not going back to him now."
"Of course not." He said, feeling Sephora’s arms wrap lovingly, shamelessly around him. "He said he wanted a talk with you..."
"That man can keep dreaming."
"...and I didn’t like the tone he used. He’ll pay for it."
"That’s what I wanted to hear." Sephora whispered.
And finally, her face was close enough to the sourceless light to be seen.
Her beauty immediately lit another part of the dark room. Her face was immaculately white — from her brows, to her long hair, to her lashes — her fox features so precisely defined it seemed her creator had taken its time with her.
She wore a matching white robe made of peacock feathers.
Behind her, hundreds of white fox tails erupted into a circular dance, swirling around her and Raven like a wormhole.
The sight was majestic.
She leaned her face closer, studying her husband’s current appearance with her mismatched eyes. Both irises were white, but the left pupil was circular while the right was shaped like an X.
The colour of the pupils shifted with every heartbeat.
"I liked Luminara, husband. You know that, don’t you? She was a good pet."
"She is dead now." Raven said, then smiled thinly. "At least, that is what I would believe if I were a fool."
Sephora chuckled. "Fortunately, you are not. I want her back. Not only Luminara, I want her daughter Neko back too."
"You still remember the little one."
"How could I not? I named her."
"It will be a daunting task with Vaelgrim in the way. He is a monster, Sephora. He truly is. I would never have believed a man born mortal could reach our level in such a short time. It was supposed to be impossible."
"Things that never happened happen all the time." Sephora retorted.
"Never to this magnitude."
"True. But that only proves the universe we live in is one of surprises." Her voice carried amusement. "Vaelgrim has made history. Truly, he is a man worthy of respect. If not for his character, then for his deeds. He has done things never done before. And that makes me wonder..."
Her voice went deeper.
"...can we not do the same?"
She tightened her hold around him.
"Husband, I think it’s time you stop being a sheep following the herd and become the shepherd instead. I think it’s time..."
Raven’s blood-red eyes glowed in the darkness.
"...that you show them you are actually the strongest of them all."
"No more concealment?"
"No more."
"What about the Druik Tribe?"
"I’ll handle them. Don’t you trust me?"
"I do." Raven bared his sharp teeth. "I do, Sephora."
She mirrored his smile, her eyes glowing with love, confidence, and a hidden cruelty befitting a being of her age. "You have been Raven long enough. Time for a change, husband."
"What do you want next?"
"Make it Sphinx for a while. You are almost as sharp as me in that state. I will need two minds for the battle ahead."
Raven didn’t argue.
His body blazed with a bright golden light at once, his body and existence itself shifting to take the shape of another beast.
No longer was he Raven. Now he was...
"Sphinx, darling." Sephora breathed.
"Let’s begin."
—End of Chapter 519—
