Page 167 of Stars in Aura

A dozen noiseless, faceless forms floated within the room, just about discernible in the haze of deific energy surrounding them.

They were more of the Sazarhi Celestial Keepers, the attendants of the Divine Immortal.

The Rider’s eyes narrowed on the creatures as they hovered around a glowing raised thronal dais.

Twas engraved from obsidian stardust and rimmed in floating rings of light, and sat slumped on it was Sulfiqar, or instead, what remained of him.

He was a figure of unimaginable majesty, a being who’d withstood the dawn of time and sang suns into ignition.

He radiated with the occasional shimmer of living starlight. His skin dulled to a bruised, burnished gold like a fading supernova.

The surface of his flesh bore the traces of constellations etched in shifting scars as if his very body was a celestial map readable only by gods.

Across his broad brow, pulses of nebula light throbbed behind the bone, flickering and dimming in intervals like dying beacons.

His hair, a mane that had in the past flowed like liquid comet fire down his back, was now streaked with ashen gray.

Twas also frayed and thin, yet still haloed with glints of plasma as if the stars refused to let go of him.

His cheekbones, carved and angular like mighty lunar slopes, were simultaneously sallow, the flesh sunken, like moon craters collapsing into themselves.

His pale, cracked-at-the-edges lips were rimmed with the silver glow.

Between them, motes of cosmic dust shimmered with each shallow breath as if his body leaked the detritus of galaxies with every exhale.

Robes of woven stardust and dark matter surrounded his colossal frame, the fabric shifting in slow celestial swirls.

Yet still, despite the toll the ancient disease took on him, siphoning his energy and hollowing his immortality, Sulfiqar radiated menace and majesty.

A god undone, yes, but a deity still.

Nevertheless, Ki’Remi bit back the urge to step forward and diagnose the shit out of him, his professional curiosity roused to new heights.

However, he held back, sensing that if he attempted anything, he’d be turned to mere dust in seconds.

Sulfiqar’s eyes were riveted in a far-off gaze.

The Rider imagined they’d once swirled with infinite knowing but were now dimmed, their cores flickering like red dwarfs near collapse.

Nonetheless, even in weakness, the orbs that had witnessed the disintegration of worlds and the birth of divine betrayals pierced through soul and shadow alike.

Those twin-burning suns locked onto Issa when she entered, pinning her in place.

Ki’Remi eyed his woman as she knelt, lowering her head.

He did not genuflect nor bow; he stood stalwart, arms crossed, muscles coiled, and his gaze unwavering as he assessed the highest of the high.

Sulfiqar’s influence was still cosmic and unfathomable.

However, he reeked of a fractured essence that unnerved Ki’Remi to his very core.

It was the sense that an immense, eternal power was breathing its last.

The being before him was not long before this universe or the next.

‘You have brought it?’

Sulfiqar’s voice was not mere sound at all.

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