RAYON NOIR: The Billionaire Who Owns Midnight

Chapter 6 : The First Scripture

Inside the Tower of Dawn, there was no floor.

Rayon fell, but he did not fall. He floated in a space that had no up or down, only an endless ocean of broken glass. Each piece of glass was a memory, bleeding light.

"Where is the floor?" he whispered.

'There is no floor. This was never a tower,' Nocturne said inside his head. The voice was fully awake now. 'This is a prison, Ray. And you just opened the door from the inside.'

The memories cut his cheeks as they flew past. He saw Ashen Hollow burning. He saw Elara, the woman who raised him, holding a kitchen knife against three Holy Knights.

"There's no cursed child here! Just my son!" Elara screamed.

One knight laughed. "The Pope said the Star Seer's bloodline must end."

Rayon wanted to reach into the glass and pull her out. He remembered hiding under the bed, his right hand wrapped in bandages.

That day he learned what his hand did. He came out after they left. The village was ash. He touched her face to wake her. The bandage burned away. Black thorns grew and stabbed into her cheek. For a second, her eyes opened, full of thorns. She smiled. Then she turned to dust.

His power did not heal. It borrowed.

'Stop looking at that one,' Nocturne said gently. 'Look at what they hid here.'

One huge memory floated in front of him, as big as a house. Inside it was a garden made of light.

Under a tree made of white scripture, sat a man. Ink on his fingers. Eyes like Rayon's, stars trapped inside.

In front of him was a book. Chained. The chains were prayers screaming "DO NOT OPEN."

The scribe looked up, through three hundred years.

"So, you finally came," he said. "I am Eren of Thorns. A piece of him. They took my heart and put it in their courtyard to power their academy. They burned my body and spread the ash over Ashen Hollow."

Eren pointed to the chained book.

"The Tower of Dawn holds the first scripture. But it's not from their God. It's the first confession. Three hundred years ago, I was the Pope of Light's brother. We found God here. God was not light. God was a gardener. His first two flowers were Light and Thorn. Light was supposed to shine. Thorn was supposed to protect."

"But my brother was jealous. Thorn could keep memories, keep souls, keep love, even after death. Light could only make people forget by blinding them. So my brother killed the gardener with a knife of light. Then he wrote a new story. He said Thorn was a curse. He locked the truth in here and built a golden tower around it."

Rayon floated to the book. The prayer-chains hissed when his thorn hand came near.

'Open it,' Nocturne whispered, crying now. 'Let us go home.'

For twelve years Rayon hid his hand. He wore gloves in summer. He let Elara die because he was scared.

He was not scared now.

He grabbed the chains. The prayers screamed: HERETIC! CURSED! DIE! The light tried to blind him.

But his thorns drank. The white stars inside his thorns stopped screaming. They sang.

CRACK. All chains broke into black petals.

The book fell open. No explosion. Just a yellowed page.

It said:

Day 1: Today I planted two seeds. I called them Light and Thorn. Light says "Look at me." Thorn says "I will remember you." I love them both.

That was the first scripture. A diary entry. From God.

Rayon pressed his palm onto the page. The diary soaked into his hand like water into roots.

Then he remembered everything.

His black hair grew long, white at the tips. Thorns spread, forming a crown of black roses that bled tiny white stars. His left eye turned into a galaxy. His right eye stayed brown, Elara's eye, human and crying.

The tower wall opened. Outside, fifty Holy Knights pointed light spears at him. The High Priestess screamed, "Purge the tower!"

The Tower of Dusk vanished behind him. Only Rayon floated.

"You absorbed the first scripture. You are not a Saint," the High Priestess whispered.

"I am what you tried to bury," Rayon said, his voice now two voices. "And I remember."

He raised his right hand. The giant heart in the courtyard answered. BOOM.

All the Holy Knights' spears shattered into black petals.

And far below, in the ashes of Ashen Hollow, a small black flower bloomed for the first time in twelve years.