The silence after Xheavaend's collapse wasn't peaceful.
It was the kind that felt held together by teeth.
Her body lay twisted on the bed, already beginning its slow, grotesque repair. Maggots retreated reluctantly, rearranging themselves beneath her skin. The insects that had flooded the floor slithered back toward her like a tide returning home.
Rnarah did not move.
Not when the lights steadied.
Not when Zcain exhaled softly.
Not when Qaritas instinctively stepped back from the bed as though it might lunge at him.
She simply sat beside her daughter, smoothing trembling fingers over half-melted hair.
The swarm around her stirred.
Not violently.
Not protectively.
Tenderly.
They curled around her ankles, forming spirals—like tiny living bracelets—recognizing her not as prey, not as queen, but as something more ancient:
Mother of Suffering.
Keeper of the Cursed.
Qaritas wasn't sure if the sight made his stomach twist or his chest ache.
Rnarah murmured something too quiet to hear as she pulled Xheavaend closer, letting the girl's dissolving cheek rest against her shoulder. A few insects crawled up her arm. She didn't brush a single one away.
She whispered:
"You've done enough today, my child. Rest."
Zcain approached then—slowly, as though stepping closer might wake the curses in the room.
His eyes, usually carved from sin's cold flame, softened. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to Rnarah's veil, forehead touching hers for a small, desperate moment of shared strength.
"I leave her in your care, my beloved."
Rnarah nodded once.
A silent vow.
Then Zcain turned toward Qaritas.
All tenderness vanished.
"We have much to do today."
Qaritas's entire body throbbed. From awakening. From having his mind hijacked. From watching Xheavaend rise and fall like a dying star.
But anger?
That pulsed louder than the pain.
He followed Zcain out the door—one shaky step after another. Behind them, the insects closed in again, swarming protectively around Rnarah as the door sealed shut with a deep, resonant hum.
In the hallway, a floating plaque materialized from the mist:
66 — Dining Hall
Its glow reflected in Qaritas's darkening eyes.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Qaritas's bones ached. His veins felt like someone had poured molten metal through them. Every part of him screamed from his Awakening.
But none of that compared to the heaviness rising in his throat.
His fists clenched.
His jaw locked.
His heartbeat thrashed against his ribs.
Zcain walked forward without looking back.
Qaritas followed—barely.
And in the quiet, Eon purred inside his mind:
"Ah… I can feel that anger, little brother.
Beautiful.
Wear it proudly."
Qaritas's hands shook.
He kept walking.
Qaritas followed Zcain through the corridor, but every step felt wrong—too heavy, too loud, like the ground was protesting his existence.
His body throbbed in a dozen places—but the pain was nothing compared to the heat gathering beneath his ribs.
Anger wasn't creeping anymore.
It pressed behind his eyes.
It whispered with every exhale.
Zcain walked ahead, silent, shoulders set with the calm of someone who had lived through thousands of wars and decided this was simply another morning.
And somehow—that made Qaritas angrier.
He wasn't sure when he stopped walking.
Maybe he never really stopped—maybe the hallway simply stretched around him as his focus blurred.
All he knew was that his hands were shaking,
Again.
A tool.
A vessel.
A convenient body to throw to a god.
He wanted to scream.
Eon chuckled inside him—low, velvety, smug.
"Shut up," Qaritas hissed under his breath.
But Eon only hummed.
"She lied to you, you know. Ayla. All that sweetness? Smoke. All that friendship? A distraction. She knew exactly what Zcain was planning."
Qaritas stiffened.
Eon's voice curled around his ear like smoke.
"She avoided your eyes. She changed the subject. She let them push you toward that curse ward without a single warning. Say it."
Qaritas swallowed, throat dry.
"She betrayed you."
The words didn't come from Eon.
Not anymore.
They came from Qaritas's own mouth.
A sharp pain sliced down his spine, like guilt trying to claw its way out—but the anger swallowed it whole.
He reached out telepathically without thinking:
Ayla.
A tremor answered.
Qaritas…?
Her voice was small. Hesitant.
Guilty.
He felt his pulse spike.
Where are you?
A pause.
Dining hall. Qaritas… we need to talk. And—
another hesitation, softer
—you met Xheavaend, didn't you?
He stopped moving entirely.
The corridor lights dimmed around him as if recognizing his shift in mood.
He could feel Eon grinning.
"She knew. Go on. Say the thing you're afraid to say."
Qaritas clenched his fists so tightly his knuckles burned.
Ayla had brought him here.
Ayla had told him he was safe.
Ayla had promised he'd understand everything "in time."
And she'd stood by while Zcain used him like currency.
He didn't scream.
He didn't lash out.
His voice, when it finally came, was tight and quiet.
You used me.
Her breath caught through the telepathic link.
Qaritas—listen—please—I was trying to—
Eon interrupted, viciously pleased.
"She was in on it. Every second of it."
Qaritas felt something inside him split down the middle.
I don't think I trust you anymore.
The link snapped shut.
Ayla's last flicker of emotion—
Hurt.
Fear.
Regret.
—disintegrated like ash in his psychic grip.
He didn't slow down.
Didn't breathe.
Didn't look at Zcain when the man glanced back at him.
He just walked.
Straight toward the dining hall.
Straight toward the girl who broke the first friendship he ever had.
And Eon whispered sweetly, almost lovingly:
"Oh, Qaritas… this is how gods are born."
The doors of the dining hall did not open.
They parted, as if pushed aside by a force older than hands, older than will itself. A low wind spilled out, carrying scents Qaritas had no names for—burned starfruit, molten brass, honey thickened by celestial heat, something floral and ancient that clung to the throat.
Light washed over him.
Not gentle light.
Not mortal light.
Golden-red radiance that breathed, pulsed, and shifted like living flame. The ceiling soared above him in the shape of a colossal ribcage, each arch a gilded bone threaded with veins of silver that throbbed in harmony with Taeterra's slow heartbeat.
The hall stretched beyond sight—so vast that distance dissolved into shimmering haze. Floating lantern-orbs drifted through the upper air, shedding fractured rainbows that danced over endless tables carved from obsidian and starlight.
It should have been beautiful.
It should have been awe.
Instead—
Qaritas tasted iron on his tongue.
Anger bleeds into everything, even wonder.
He stepped inside, Zcain at his shoulder, the murmur of billions humming beneath the floor like a slumbering titan. Servants sculpted from smoke glided between the tables, carrying dishes that glowed with impossible heat: magma-bread steaming like newborn stone, nebula broth swirling with galaxies, leviathan strips crackling with starfire.
None of it stirred his hunger.
His stomach felt carved from obsidian and filled with thorns.
And then he saw them.
Cree. Hydeius. Komus. Niraí. Daviyi.
Gathered at the nearest long table, laughing, eating, arguing as though the universe had never shattered around them.
The Artificial ascendents sat behind them like carved gods:
Nyqomi — glimmering in her living armor of shifting beasts.
Ación — his hair like burning dawn.
Rykhan — still as a mountain carved from night.
Xasna — half-shadow, half-moonlight.
Laxiae — silver-eyed, storms cupped beneath her skin.
Shanian — draped in entropy, colors dying at his feet.
The moment Qaritas entered, the air shifted.
A hush moved through the tables closest to him, subtle but unmistakable. The temperature cooled. A few lanterns dimmed. Even the smoke-servants drifted more cautiously.
Eon purred inside his ribs.
Qaritas ignored him.
His gaze locked onto a single figure seated at the far side of the obsidian table—hunched slightly, shoulders tight, hands clasped as if bracing herself.
Ayla.
Her head lifted.
For a moment, her expression was naked—no mask, no poise.
Just sorrow, raw and unshielded.
"Qaritas…" she whispered, though her lips barely moved.
Her voice brushed his mind like trembling fingers.
Please. We must speak.
He walked toward her through the glow of the hall, past swirling light and drifting servants who paused mid-bite.
Every step sharpened the air around him, turning it crisp with heat—purple heat, rising from his skin in faint shimmering waves. He did not notice it.
He didn't notice how Komus straightened.
How Cree's smile faltered.
How Hydeius leaned away, eyes narrowing.
He saw only Ayla.
She rose to her feet slowly, hands trembling at her sides.
"Qaritas… what happened today—you must understand, I did only what I believed was—"
"You used me."
The words dropped like a blade.
No one breathed.
A few lanterns dimmed further.
Ayla inhaled shakily. "I did not wish to deceive you—"
"But you did."
His jaw tightened. "You let me walk blind into peril. You knew the moment I entered that ward that Zcain meant to bargain with him."
Ayla's throat worked.
"I had no choice," she whispered, voice cracking. "This war… this curse… this world… everything is bound by threads beyond my touch. If I had spoken, if I had interfered—"
"Say it plainly," Qaritas growled. "You feared him."
A flicker of shame crossed her face.
"Qaritas, please—"
Eon coiled warmly in his mind.
"Look how she bends. Look how she breaks. Delicious, is it not? Betrayal always tastes sweetest when the betrayer regrets it."
Qaritas's fist tightened until purple flame leaked between his knuckles.
Ayla's eyes widened—not at the fire, but at what it meant.
"You are awakening faster than I feared," she whispered. "Your emotions will warp everything around you. If you lose yourself now—"
"I already have," Qaritas snapped. "You and Zcain made certain of that."
A tremble worked through his voice—rage colliding with something older, something bruised.
"Do not ask me for trust when you have shattered the little I possessed."
Around them, the hall stilled.
Other froze mid-motion.
Mentors turned their heads.
Even the two billion souls beneath the floor seemed to quiet, as if listening.
Ayla's eyes glistened.
"Qaritas," she whispered, voice breaking in half, "your my beloved—"
Her breath stuttered.
"Do not call me that. "
Her breath caught.
Across the hall, Shanian's gaze darkened, entropy pooling at his feet. Tavran stiffened. Rivax frowned, confused. Dheas looked down at his plate, uncomfortable.
Qaritas felt none of it.
Only the roaring heat in his chest.
Only the cracking space between who he had been and who he was becoming.
Eon whispered, delighted:
"Yes… crumble the old self. Let the new one rise."
Alya's voice trembled into his mind one last time:
Please… let me explain…
Qaritas's eyes softened—just for a breath, a heartbeat—but the anger swallowed it whole before it could escape.
He turned slightly away.
"I no longer know whose side you stand on."
Ayla inhaled sharply, pain flaring across her features like lightning.
The hall did not breathe.
And Qaritas walked deeper into the glow of the endless tables—toward a fate he did not yet understand.
Qaritas had barely stepped away from Ayla when a voice cracked through the hall like a whip of thunder.
"Father!"
The shout came from the eldest son of Sin—
and it was ragged, strained, fraying at the edges like a rope pulled too tight.
Tavran was standing near Rivax and Dheas, hands pressed hard into the table as though bracing himself against an invisible storm. His breath shook. His eyes flickered with exhaustion—centuries of it.
Rivax reached for him.
"Tav—"
"No," Tavran rasped, pulling away. "No more soft words. No more waiting."
His gaze snapped toward the far end of the hall, toward a shadowed figure whose presence did not command attention—
but erased it.
Shanian.
Entropy incarnate.
He sat alone at a table carved from onyx, long fingers curled around a goblet that dimmed with every beat of his heart.
Light refused to cling to him.
Color recoiled.
Sound withered when it came too close.
Even the lanterns above him flickered like waning stars.
Tavran strode toward him, fury trembling through every step.
"Uncle," he barked, voice echoing through the golden ribs of the hall. "Contact Xariathis."
Shanian did not lift his head.
He merely breathed once—
and the air thinned.
"Tavran," Rivax warned, grabbing his arm. "Do not—"
But Tavran wrenched free.
"I said CONTACT HER!"
Still Shanian did not look up.
But the hall changed around him.
The gold-red brilliance dimmed.
The warmth faded.
The world seemed to sigh—
a long, weary exhale that turned the air brittle.
Komus shivered violently.
Niraí's petals wilted in her hands.
Even Zcain turned, attention sharpening.
Entropy had noticed.
At last Shanian lifted his gaze.
His eyes were empty in a way that did not speak of hollowness—
but of endings.
Of things forgotten by memory itself.
"Watch your tone," he murmured.
The nearby table cracked down the center.
A fracture of pure absence.
It did not break—it aged into ruin in an instant.
Heat drained from the air.
Frost crawled along the floor without cold to birth it.
Light flickered as though growing tired of existing.
Rivax's breath hitched.
Dheas backed away, hands raised.
Tavran swallowed—his fury momentarily overtaken by instinctive fear.
But he pushed through it, voice hoarse:
"She needs to be here. You know she does. She's the only one who can—"
"She left for a reason," Shanian replied, his tone soft, almost gentle…
but the weight of it made the air tremble.
Tavran's jaw clenched.
"She left because you told her to."
Shanian's eyes narrowed by the smallest, quietest fraction—
and the lantern nearest him shattered, raining sparks that aged into dust before touching the ground.
The silence after the sound was suffocating.
Tavran stepped closer.
"Do you hear me?" he whispered, voice breaking. "She left because of YOU. And now—now the pain is worse. It is worse, Uncle. Every night. Every scream. Every time I try to—"
His voice cracked.
He pressed a hand to his temple, breathing like someone drowning.
"…I do not know if she will ever forgive me," Tavran whispered. "I spoke words I cannot take back. I broke something between us. And now… now she is gone… and I—"
He couldn't finish.
Rivax moved toward him—
—but Shanian raised a hand, stopping him with a gesture sharper than a blade.
Shanian stood slowly.
Entropy spilled from him like a quiet storm.
A plate beside him rusted to ash.
A candle grew old and died.
A stretch of marble floor turned brittle, crumbling under its own age.
Yet when he spoke, his voice held no anger.
Only truth.
"Then mend what you broke."
Tavran looked up, breath caught in his throat.
Shanian stepped closer, the faintest tremor of colorless aura trailing behind him.
"Send the call," he said. "And she will come."
Tavran's lip trembled.
"Even after everything I said…?"
Shanian reached out—
and flicked Tavran's forehead with a single finger.