Kai let his back drag down the cold wall until he folded onto the floor, knees drawn up, and head tipped back against the wall. He inhaled through his nose, pulling the air all the way to fill his lungs completely and then let it go.

Letting out a long, shuddering exhale that carried more than only his breath.

For weeks now, an invisible hand had been wrapped around his throat.

It never fully squeezed, simply putting a suffocating pressure against his neck that tightened by increments with every passing day. The hand had no fingers he could see with his eyes, no palm he could fight, but it was relentless.

Everything was caused by the class system.

A system dictating that Angels walked on borrowed time—and the debt could be called in at any moment. And for a Lesser Angel, it was even worse. It squeezed while he was mining in the Fire Swamp. It squeezed while he walked. It squeezed while he lay in bed at night, staring at the ceiling and wondering if the hands of death were already approaching or not.

As the First Son of the Primordial Night, darkness is his friend.

But lately, even the night had turned strange.

Sometimes, when the silence thickened, the shadows felt more like a maw waiting to swallow him whole. He had caught himself, more than once, holding perfectly still in the darkness. He listened for a step that never came, bracing for a blow that never fell.

Be it when he was mining in the Fire Swamp.

Be it when he was inside his own room.

Be it when he was listening to Professor Hera teaching theories.

Kai was constantly alert, and it was exhausting.

And throughout those moments, those hollow hours, he had asked himself whether he could make it through this. Not whether he was strong enough; he already proved to be strong after he killed Lion, but whether he was adequate enough to thread this dangerous position.

It felt like navigating a garden of roses when every petal hid a poisonous thorn.

The class system was beautiful on the surface: order, hierarchy, and the elegant machinery of Lesser Angels, Angels, and High Angels—with each their own tasks. Perhaps that’s what the higher-ups sell to those who knew.

But up close, it was a thicket of needles.

Every word was a gamble. Every glance was a calculation.

Kai learned how to swallow back his anger when angry. He learned how to stay silent when discriminated. And learned how to get used to being on the bottom. He was still learning, and the effort of it was grinding him down to something finer than dust.

Something less than human.

One night, only one, had given him a semblance of peace.

Matilda had insisted, in that quiet, unyielding way of hers—and he had found himself lying beside her in a cold room while the rain hammered the window with nothing in his mind. It was the kind of peace that he had been yearning for quite some time.

Her warmth had been a small, stubborn fire in the dark.

He had felt, for a few fleeting hours, that the invisible hand had loosened its grip.

And for those hours, he was thankful.

But now, with the Ambrosia Pact finally created, the real peace was getting closer. Now he had achieved a milestone. Achieved a shield. A legitimate reason to stay close to the others openly without fearing the academy’s discriminating gaze being on him.

Free from the academy’s cruel eyes that’d ask why a Lesser Angel lingered near his betters.

Kai was now safer.

He should have been triumphant, but instead, he felt the way a drowning man feels when he finally claws onto a rock. Not triumphant, but exhaustion that spread across the body that had gone through extreme lengths to survive.

"I really did it..." Kai covered his mouth with a trembling hand. "One step at a time."

The whimper that leaked from between his fingers was small and broken; the sound of a child trapped in a survivor’s throat. His eyes burned; the tears gathered naturally, pressing against the damp of his will.

But he held them there.

Unwilling to even shed a single tear.

Kai had made a promise to Bella—his sister, his tether to the world before all of this madness began. He had promised her he would be strong. He had looked into her beautiful face, held her hand, and sworn an oath he would not break, even if it cost him his life.

So, he did not break.

He simply cracked, silently, in a corner of the emergency staircase where no one could see.

But Zeus, the battle took so much out of him.

Despite his silence, the constant war against the voices in his head hollowed him out as surely as the night comes after day. Kai stared at the wall. White stone with no sign of cracking across its surface.

He stared at it as if it held the secrets of the world.

As if, by focusing every shred of his attention on this blank wall—he could endure the emotions welling up inside him. If someone had walked past at the moment and seen him, they might have thought he had lost his mind.

A Lesser Angel sitting on the floor in the dim light, while staring at the wall unblinking.

Perhaps he had lost it.

Perhaps this was what survival looked like.

Kai didn’t know how long he sat there, but the light seeped through the window and faded from grey to charcoal, to black. The temperature dropped. The world grew quiet. And at once, the exhaustion that he had been holding at bay with sheer stubbornness came like a tidal wave.

It was the accumulation of weeks of fear, alertness, and suffocation.

Everything rolled over him relentlessly, and his eyelids dropped as if someone had sliced the strings that held them open. His consciousness slipped. And Kai fell, not to simple sleep, but deep sleep.

A descent through layers of the consciousness until he appeared within the void expanse.

Until he appeared within the House of Night.

Kai opened his eyes and was instantly greeted by a familiar sight.

Not the scenery—but the figure that had always soothed him when the world felt like it was too much for him to handle. The Goddess of the Primordial Night combed his hair gently; she was still in the exact position and posture as the last time Kai met with her.

"You’ve done really well, my precious boy. It was hard, but you did it."

Her voice was tender; the way he imagined a gentle mother might sound. Kai had never heard his own. And every time he heard her voice, the choking pressure and exhaustion had always melted away like they meant nothing.

Before her, these things simply ceased to exist.

"Why do you always call me whenever I’m in this situation?" Kai asked.

Every time he met with the Goddess, it was always when he was exhausted and on the brink of breaking. He knew that she was always watching, but for an entity like her, his tribulations should mean nothing.

And yet, her voice showed that she was also troubled by what he experienced.

Like she could feel what he felt.

"When else would a mother come," the Goddess asked—her voice soft as starlight, "if not to soothe her children? Do you not like it, my dear? Should I ask you first—before calling you to me like this?"

Kai was surprised by her answer.

For some reason, he was surprised to see her being really understanding.

A Goddess being kind like this when the people in the world never did make him feel strange.

"No.... It’s," Kai looked away, "fine."

A soft smile graced the Goddess’ lips, blooming there like a sacred star. "Oh, my darling boy. When you’re before me, you are the gentlest soul in all the realms—still as moonlight. Spoke only kindness. You almost melted my heart completely."

She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a whisper that carried the weight of eternity.

"But when you think you’re alone, you become so wonderfully, terribly naughty," She added.

"Eh...?" Kai looked back at the Goddess, confused. "What are you—?"

"Didn’t I tell you not to get closer to your sisters? I only prohibited one thing, and you did that one thing."

Almost instantly, when Kai heard that, the world tilted.

Considering that the Goddess had warned him not to get closer to his sisters, he ought to listen, especially when that’s the only thing she asked of him. And even though he spent most of his time within Noxian’s domain—he knew better than to think he was completely hidden from her sight.

Of course, she knew that he was planning to keep meeting with Mallory.

Still planning to keep digging for information from her.

He forgot that the Goddess was always watching.

Kai swallowed harshly; the Goddess’s eyes were invisible behind the veil of darkness, but her stare pressed into him like a blade that couldn’t be blocked or parried. A blade with the ability to devour everything and anything.

He had foolishly forgotten that she was always watching.

And she would certainly find out about what he was planning to do.

Now, hearing her deeper and colder tone that slid down his spine like a shard of winter, Kai froze as he realized he had broken the only rule she sets. The one she had given him without explanation.

He didn’t know why it mattered—only that it must matter terribly for a being of her power to speak it aloud. And he shattered that rule. Kai’s pulse hammered with the certainty—that he had ended himself.

That he had committed suicide for doing this.

Slowly, the Goddess’ other hand rose and reached for him.

His pupils dilated in terror as he braced for annihilation. For the devouring night. For erasure. For the casual dismissal of a dog that had bitten its master, and now would be put down with cold certainty.

Instead, her fingers found his hair and ruffled it.

Her lips curled wider, soft where he had expected teeth.

For a moment, Kai stared at the Goddess in confusion—the fear didn’t vanish, but paused.

Considering what he did, he was fully expecting to be erased for good.

At least, had he broken a rule in the real world, he would be queued for public execution.

But seemed like that wasn’t the case here.

"What do you think I’m going to do?" the Goddess asked with a light chuckle, finding Kai’s reaction cute. "How can I do that to you? I will forgive your transgression, but you have to do one thing for me."

"Do one thing...? Do what?"

"Call me mom one time, and I’ll forgive your naughtiness."

"What?"