Pray for the Wicked | ATEEZ

41.

An hour.

Sixty dreadfully long minutes passed at an excruciatingly slow pace while I was hiding in the shadow of one of several statues littering the square surrounding the Gleam.

The facades facing the pyramid in front of me were blank, bare, their windows vacant like tired eyes as they watched me in silence.

I held my breath as the guards finally seemed to come alive and leisurely strolled to each their side of the building to patrol the perimeter and meet at the other end for another still and stoic lookout.

I was bolting for the entrance as soon as their gilded armor and helmets disappeared around the corners of the pyramid, darting across the uneven cobblestones beneath my feet, and nearly tripping several times before slipping past the enormous doors and releasing a shaky breath once I was safely out of sight.

My heart was in my throat as I slowly made my way into the tomb, walking carefully across the pathway which, as I glanced to my sides, seemed to be a bridge stretching from one end of the room towards the center, surrounded by and hovering over a pool of milky white water spilling from faucets along the walls into the deep in neat streams.

The silence was overwhelming, and as I took in the many details; stories and secrets and myths cut into the walls which were embedded with dark stones unlike anything I had ever seen before, creating a reverse painting of a night sky on the white marble, the soft whispers of running water and shadows following my every step, my hand instinctively went to the onyx necklace.

At the very center of the room stood a dais, slightly raised and surrounded by torches atop which flames danced lazily back and forth in a non-existent wind, beckoning me forward.

My entire focus, however, as I tried to catch my breath, was on the glass ball that hung suspended atop the platform, directly above two identical stones, each uncut and just as jagged and imperfectly perfect as the other.

Except one was a clear snowy white, and the other a perfect ebony black.

The Imperial Gleam and the Lunar Flame.

Despite the piece of quartz being the stone of my people, of all angels, I found myself unable to tear my eyes off the onyx as I, at last, stood directly in front of the two, and carefully reached out to trail my fingers across the rough surface.

The stone looked as if it had been cut from the night sky itself and placed on the dais, as if it belonged somewhere much greater.

The colour was perfect, the same as empty voids and longing souls, nightmares, mysteries, and mortality, the shadows that refused to leave me lonely, modesty, arrogance, and, most importantly, it was the very same one that resided in the depths of Hongjoong's eyes.

The light seemed to come from within the stones themselves, shooting upwards into the crystalline orb from which the ray of light I had come to know as the Gleam was created, cutting through air and night as it pierced the darkness of the skies through the pyramid's open ceiling.

It was indescribably beautiful and wrong at the same time, and, before I realized it, I had reached for the Lunar Flame, the jagged edges cutting the skin on my palms, and lifted it off the platform.

I flinched and recoiled as an explosion split the silence much too suddenly, much too loudly, like the sounds of broken glass everywhere around me which was quickly followed by voices, yells.

The glass orb was intact, as was the Imperial Gleam, but still, my heart sank as I watched the lights dim within the room dim ever so slightly, flickering and growing fainter than I had ever seen before, as I held the onyx a little closer.