First Ring – Faith Sanctum, the fourteenth night
The garden had learned what night was.
Leah's moon hung low—
a silver lantern drifting through the sanctum sky,
washing the red flowers in soft glow.
Children slept in woven nests of light and wings.
Sun-Oppa pulsed gently at the center,
a warm, humming night-light made out of hope itself.
FSSHH…
A breeze brushed past the marble spires.
Seo-Joon sat alone, folding his ten-thousandth red flower,
hands trembling, breath catching every few folds.
Si-Hyun had not slept in four days.
He stood at the peak of the highest spire,
half-dawn wings spread like a horizon slowly learning to breathe.
The wind tasted clean for the first time in centuries.
The black star embedded in his chest—silent since the night Leah cracked it with three billion prayers—
throbbed once.
THUMP.
Slow. Deliberate.
Si-Hyun staggered, gripping the railing—
CRRACK—marble splintered beneath his palms.
A voice rippled through him.
Not his mother's voice.
Not any voice he had inherited.
The Devourer's true voice.
Ancient.
Dust-tired.
Amused.
"You've built a lovely cage, little failure."
Red flowers. Golden chains. Monsters folding hope with shaking hands.
Do you really think any of this changes me?
I am not in the hollow sun anymore.
I am in you.
Every time you protect them, I grow warmer.
Every time you smile at a child, I open another eye.
You are feeding me with the only thing I ever craved.
Love.
You are becoming the perfect vessel. Not through rage.
Through tenderness.
Sweeter. Slower.
When your twelfth wing blooms…
it will be when you finally believe the world is worth saving.
That is the moment I will wear your face forever."
The black star pulsed again.
THUMP—THRUM.
Si-Hyun's vision shook.
The two half-dawn wings trembled, trying to unfurl further—
(three… four… five—)
the air crackled around them—
tap.
A small hand slipped into his.
Si-Hyun froze.
Ryeo-Won stood beside him—
barefoot, hair wild from sleep,
the red paper flower still tucked behind her ear like a stubborn declaration.
She'd climbed the entire spire silently.
She looked up with ancient, seven-year-old eyes.
"Oppa is crying again," she said softly.
Only then did he feel the tears.
Thick. Heavy.
Black at first… then clear.
Ryeo-Won wiped them away with the sleeve of her oversized nightshirt—
small motions, devastating in their gentleness.
Then she placed her hand flat over his chest,
directly over the black star.
FWUMP.
The universe flinched.
"I'm not scared of the dark in you," she said.
"Because you taught it how to hold me when I had nightmares.
You taught it to fly us out of Sector-12.
You taught it to fold flowers instead of crushing them."
Her tiny palm pressed harder.
"So if the dark wants to eat the world…
it has to eat through me first."
She grinned—
sharp, fearless, childish.
"And I'm really hard to chew."
THRUM—thump… thump…
For one impossible moment—
the black star matched her heartbeat.
Perfect sync.
Perfect defiance.
Somewhere deep inside, the Devourer whispered—
smaller now, startled.
"…Impossible."
Ryeo-Won held his gaze.
"You're my oppa.
Monsters don't get to have you.
Only we do."
Silence.
The black star went still.
Not erased—
but listening.
Si-Hyun collapsed to his knees.
He swept Ryeo-Won into his arms and wings,
as if holding the axis the world spun on.
He cried—
not in despair,
but like someone witnessing both the end and the beginning of everything.
Far below—
Leah stirred from prayer, blind eyes wet with awe.
Sun-Oppa opened his glowing eyes and smiled in his sleep.
Seo-Joon dropped the flower he was folding,
bowing his head as tears fell onto crimson petals.
Above them all,
Leah's moon flared once—
FWOOOM—
bright as a promise.
And in the hollow sun,
twelve wings folded tight.
Every eye the Devourer had opened—
shut.
For the first time,
it had met something it could not consume.
A child who refused to fear the dark—
because the dark had learned how to love her first.