Chapter 296
There was no dizziness, no nausea, no disturbance.
However, that brief answer was immediately followed by a sharp counter-observation.
Aldraya coldly pointed out the contradiction in Theo.
She reminded him that it was Theo himself who, after holding her hand with the intention of offering support, ended up screaming in fear "like a child who had lost the only toy of his lifetime."
"Whoever taught you that kind of sarcasm, I do not know. But my intention earlier was pure, truly. I simply did not want you to feel afraid on your own."
The humid air around them still seemed to retain echoes of the height that had just been violently rearranged by mechanical rotation.
A laugh escaped Theo Vkytor's mouth, light yet bitter.
It was not a sound of amusement, but a spacious admission of defeat in the face of cold logic.
Within that bitter laugh lay the acknowledgment that even the purest intentions could become the universe's joke once reality took control.
He did not deny the truth in Aldraya's sarcasm.
He merely swallowed the bitter pill with a sour smile, feeling the tickling irony that he, who had tried to be the support, had instead become the one who most desperately needed something to hold onto when fear struck.
"If I had to choose between trusting my younger sibling, Equinox—who has lied to me for thousands of years that they never cursed me—or trusting what you just said, I would choose Equinox without hesitation."
With an expression that remained a flat, unbroken field of ice, Aldraya's sharp, unblinking eyes stared straight at Theo.
There was no furrow on her brow, no curve at the corner of her pale lips.
Sunlight seemed reluctant to touch the lines of her face, creating a silhouette that was strikingly clear yet felt distant from the world slowly moving around them.
Her voice was flat, flowing like a current of cold air from a vacuum, without any emotional inflection that ordinary human ears could grasp.
Yet beneath that sterile sheet of ice, there was an almost imperceptible contrast, a nuance only those long accustomed to her presence could sense.
There was something there, a thin layer that was more than a mere statement of fact.
She then presented a comparison that sounded absurd, yet was delivered with cold and flawless logic.
Aldraya named two impossible choices of belief.
On one side was her own sibling, Equinox, who had supposedly lied to her for thousands of years about a curse or insult that had never actually existed.
On the other side was Theo's recent claim of having a pure intention to be her support.
Calmly—almost disturbingly reasonable—Aldraya stated that if she had to choose between the two lies, she would choose to believe Equinox.
The statement was delivered without embellishment, without further explanation, as if its truth were absolute and beyond debate.
"Very well. I concede. This victory is yours."
Fhoooh!
'In the glint of her eyes, there was a happiness almost imperceptible, and she chose to remain.
At the very least, that light exchange was enough to make her feel comfortable with me.'
With a short breath that left his lips like mist in cold air, Theo chose to retreat.
There was no burst of anger, no visible gesture of frustration.
Only an exhale that signified acceptance.
He acknowledged defeat in this exchange, not because he lacked words, but because he saw the unbridgeable gap between their arenas of argument.
Every reply he prepared would only be bent and redirected by Aldraya's cold, sharp logic, turning into arrows that ultimately struck himself.
His silence became the final bastion, an admission that sometimes surrender was the only strategy left to protect something fragile from total collapse.
When his gaze briefly flicked toward Aldraya, he caught something.
There was no triumphant smile, no gleaming spark in her eyes.
The change was far subtler, almost spectral.
Perhaps it was a slight release of tension along her shoulders that were usually perfectly upright, or a faint softness around eyes sharp as crystal.
The atmosphere surrounding Aldraya, which usually felt like a vacuum separating her from the world, seemed to lose some of its resistance.
She looked pleased.
Not with loud, human joy, but with a deep and silent satisfaction, like an eternal puzzle finally finding its last piece in the correct place.
This victory was not about defeating Theo, but about the recognition of her existence and the interaction pattern that had been understood.
That comfort radiated from her like concealed warmth.
Aldraya did not step away, did not turn to leave the now-silent Theo.
Instead, the physical distance between them seemed to narrow, even though neither moved closer.
Her presence beside Theo now felt more voluntary, more settled.
As if by acknowledging the undeniable strength of her logic, Theo had opened a small yet tangible space of trust.
Aldraya, a being who usually floated at the edges of others' realities, now felt she had gained a clear position, a dynamic that could be predicted and won.
In that victory, she found a reason to remain near this complex observer.
"Are you sure the haunted house is the best choice for us?
I don't mean to doubt you, but… isn't that place usually where people scream in fear, not laugh together?"
Beneath the canopy of trees now wrapped in the shadows of dusk, two silhouettes stood in silent observation.
The humid air carried fragments of conversation from the two teenagers walking ahead, every word captured clearly by Theo's trained hearing.
Erietta voiced a question that sounded casual, yet was wrapped in a thin layer of doubt, regarding the choice of the next attraction.
The haunted house.
Not about fear itself, but about the possibility that such a ride might fail to recreate the dynamic closeness they had just experienced.
The question hung in the air, reflecting her concealed anxiety that the moment of shared laughter and adrenaline at great heights might not be repeated within darkness filled with constructed terror.
Theo, his eyes still observing from behind concealment, caught that nuance.
He understood that beneath Erietta's questioning tone—perhaps sounding skeptical—lay a fragile hope.
She was not doubting Ilux's resolve, but doubting her own, or more precisely, doubting whether the magic of togetherness they had just found could survive within a completely different genre of tension.
The haunted house, with its structured and artificial narrative fear, offered a kind of sensation that was intimate and personal, unlike the more universal and physical fear of heights.
There, their reactions might become locked and isolated by individual terror, rather than merging into the liberating collective screams they had just shared.
"You're thinking too seriously about it. Just face what's in front of you first.
Let the future that hasn't happened yet flow on its own."
Under the faithful sunlight that still accompanied them, Ilux's finger suddenly shot forward in a spontaneous motion, tapping Erietta's forehead gently yet firmly.
The flick was not a punishment, but a familiar point of emphasis, a physical attempt to halt the flow of thoughts he felt had already run too far ahead.
Clearly, Ilux's expression—whether a wry smile or eyes shining with conviction—seemed to say that worries built upon fears that had yet to happen were burdens unnecessary to carry from the start.
The gesture itself was a statement, louder than words.
That life, for him, must be faced layer by layer, second by second.
To be continued…