In a chamber untouched by time, beyond all veils, a bony knuckle tapped. The Ossuary Stage had not closed—it had simply gone quiet, waiting.
And somewhere behind the veil, a woman in a raven-skull mask smiled without moving her lips.
A ripple passed through the vaulted chamber of the Library of Knowledge. Scrolls fluttered on high shelves. Lanterns suspended in midair dimmed, as if holding their breath.
Ayla turned toward Qaritas.
As she turned, her shadow brushed across a pool of starlight ink on the marble floor—one of the Library's living scrying circles. The surface rippled, catching a distorted reflection of her face—radiant, unrepentant.
"We were victims," she said, softly. "Molded into monsters. Told love would vanish if we dared to feel it."
Her words echoed off ivory columns etched with forgotten languages. A nearby codex unlatched with a slow creak, pages turning themselves as if hunting a memory to match her story.
She looked down at her hands, as if surprised they weren't soaked in blood.
"But something inside me broke. No—broke open."
Her eyes lifted, burning like twin novas—fierce, unrepentant, whole.
"I wasn't a consort. Or a weapon. Or a survivor."
Her voice trembled—not with fear, but with purpose.
"I was their mother.
And I would burn gods for them."
Qaritas felt something crawl toward the light inside him. Something older than rage, older than gods. A flicker of instinct. Not to strike. To shield. Maybe that was the truth the gods feared most—not the blade, but the hand that chose not to kill.
The shelf nearest him began to hum—a low thrum of divine memory. The glyphs carved into the marble floor pulsed once, reacting not to his godhood... but to his hesitation.
His throat tightened. He couldn't speak.
But the void inside him shuddered—like it, too, remembered what it once meant to protect.
Ayla's voice grew quieter, but not softer.
"Later, I went to Cree," she said. "Told them everything. My children. My betrayal. My hope."
She moved to a plinth. A sphere of crystal hovered above it, flickering with light. With a gentle motion, Ayla tapped its surface. An image spiraled out—her, seated beside Cree beneath a dying star. A moment not witnessed in millennia, now alive between them.
She closed her eyes.
"And I asked… 'What if we gave them what Ecayrous never wanted them to have?'"
Qaritas blinked. He already knew the answer. But still, he asked.
"Souls?"
She nodded.
"Seven of them. Souls that Eon couldn't unravel. That Ecayrous couldn't erase. Whole souls."
Her breath caught—not in fear, but in awe of her own heresy.
"Cree didn't laugh. They didn't call me a fool. They said: 'Maybe it's time we stop unmaking things.'"
"We did it in secret," she said, voice brittle with memory. "Cree and I. Then Hydeius, once we broke his pride enough to make him listen. No soul could be forged without him—and no god had dared try. It took us 16 years to accomplish."
Her hands tightened at her sides.
"I did something worse than rebel," Ayla whispered. "I became Ecayrous's favorite consort."
As she spoke, one of the Library's floating constellations dimmed—its points flickering like censored truth. A spectral librarian—half-thought, half-light—paused in the distance, turned as if hearing a forbidden phrase, and vanished into mist.
Qaritas flinched.
"I let him believe I loved him. Smiled when I wanted to scream."
"Iron clung like a blasphemed prayer—metallic, bitter, unholy. I scrubbed until my skin peeled, unsure if I was erasing him... or myself."
"And I stayed. I stayed so I could remain their mother."
She paused.
"They weren't mine by blood. But I raised them. I taught them how to be kind, even in a world that called kindness a sin."
She reached up to a shelf lined with soul-records—crystalline spines aglow. One slipped free and floated down to her palm. When she opened it, no pages turned—only light: seven lights. One for each child.
Qaritas blinked, a knot forming in his throat. Around them, the air thickened—like the past had pressed its hand against the now.
"For sixteen years, I gave them mortal myths by candlelight.
Each child had been built from a trillion shards of soul—each shard a lesson. A memory. A name."
"And it worked."
Above them, a dome of luminous script shimmered—a sacred ceiling recounting the cosmos in divine equations. For a brief moment, those symbols rearranged themselves into something gentler. Almost... a lullaby.
Her voice cracked.
"They told me they loved me. Hugged me like I was something sacred. And it was the first time in my life that love wasn't a lie. It wasn't a weapon. It just... was."
Her eyes dimmed—just slightly.
"Seven days later, I learned I would never bear children of my own. Too much damage. Too much trauma. And when Ecayrous found out…"
She didn't have to finish.
"He planned to devour you," Qaritas whispered.
She nodded.
"I was a failed vessel, in his eyes. Nothing more."
"And Lexen?"
"He found out. He helped me plan our escape. I wanted to take the children, all seven. I went back for them."
Her breath caught.
"That's when we were caught."
A hush fell over the space, the kind that feels like memory swallowing air.
"They tortured me," she said. "Slow. Precise. They didn't want death. They wanted witnessing. They didn't kill me. They devoured me—in pieces, slow and reverent. Like they were unmaking a prayer."
She stopped. One breath. Two.
"Then one day, when I lost both my arms and legs they came to visit me. My children. When I was nothing but bone and grief."
"And that's when they awakened."
As Ayla whispered their names, a crystal on the shelf beside Qaritas flickered.
Not hers—his. And yet it knew. As if his story, too, was stirring from ash.
As if his story, too, was beginning to stir from ash.
He hadn't touched it.
But it knew.
A sliver of light curved toward him. Not memory. Invitation.
When she said Ación— Ascendant of Creation, the light in the room fractured into prisms, dancing creation across the marble floor.
At Rykhan — Ascendant of Time, the hourglass at the center of the library stopped, suspended mid-fall.
With Zcain— Ascendant of Sin, the temperature dropped; shadow curled like smoke beneath the shelves.
Nyqomi— Ascendant of cosmic horrors summoned a whisper from beyond the chamber—an unspoken fear, smiling.
For Xasna— Ascendant of Nebulae, the starlit constellations spiraled into a new galaxy.
Laxiae— Ascendant of Galaxies turned the air heavy with celestial gravity.
And at Shanian— Ascendant of Entropy, every candle dimmed, leaving only the ache of entropy behind.
She closed her eyes.
As she spoke each name, Qaritas stepped back—only a fraction. But the weight of it… he could feel it in his spine, like memory settling into marrow.
"I told them that day: You are the only beings I have ever loved—besides my brother. Being your mother was the greatest honor of my existence."
Qaritas couldn't speak.
He didn't need to.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Every piece of Ayla's story stitched itself into him like prophecy.
She opened her eyes again, this time dimmer. Older. Tired in a way no god should be.
"And after that," she said quietly, "they stripped my skin from my body."
"My mortal life ended. But not my story. When Hrolyn destroyed the thousandth universe, I died. But Cree saw something in me. Said my soul was too bright to vanish. So they brought me back—an ascendant reborn… with a mortal soul."
"Like the other Ascendants, I forgot. My children, my name—gone. But when he spoke it… my mortal name—it came back. All of it. Like fire behind my eyes."
"And now... I want to hear Ecayrous speak. Not because I trust him. Not because I forgive."
Her gaze met Qaritas's.
"But because if my children are still alive—I will save them."
Qaritas exhaled, slow and sharp. His hands clenched at his sides.
Qaritas stepped toward a pillar carved with the names of forgotten gods. One space had been left blank, etched only with silence.
He placed his hand there. Not to claim it.
To witness.
Somewhere behind him, a quill wrote silently across empty pages—recording this moment.
Not as myth.
As memory.
He didn't know what kind of god he was becoming.
But in this moment, watching Ayla, he understood one thing with unshakable certainty:
He would stand with her.
Even if it meant burning heaven to the ground.
Some heresies were worth dying for.
Others—worth living for.
But this… this was something more
Some things can be broken. Others can be erased. But what is made from love? That cannot be unmade.
This was mercy, reborn as flame.
And in the right hands—
mercy was no longer soft.
It was sovereign.
And behind him, the blank space on the pillar began to glow faintly—
Not with a name,
but with possibility.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For a heartbeat, the lights in the Library bent as if strained toward some invisible gravity—like the dead themselves were leaning in, their breath rustling the pages.
And far beyond the veil, a bony knuckle tapped against a throne of bone.
The Ossuary Stage had not ended—
It was simply holding its breath.
In the shadows above the highest shelves, the woman in the raven-skull mask tilted her head slightly.
As if she'd seen this story before.
As if she knew it never ended where the gods expected.
Far beyond the veil, a bony knuckle tapped once—
not in applause,
but in warning.
And in the shadows above the highest shelves, the woman in the raven-skull mask did not clap.
She only watched.
As if she'd seen this story before.
As if she knew it never ended where the gods expected.
In the Library of Knowledge, where even gods were forgotten, one new story had begun to write itself.
Not in ink.
But in wildfire—
the kind that does not destroy,
only makes room to begin again.
He didn't know what kind of god he was becoming.
Only that he would stand with her—
even if it meant burning heaven to the ground.
The story is not yet done. The enemy waits. The Library watches. And choice, that oldest heresy, has yet to speak its final word.