There was no sky, no ground, only the shimmer of something vast and breathing.
Aiden woke to silence that wasn't silence at all. The Dominion hummed beneath his skin, a low, continuous vibration that matched the rhythm of his pulse.
When he tried to move, the world moved with him. The ground rippled like liquid glass, every motion painting new patterns of light. His body felt heavy, not with gravity, but with memory. Each breath carried whispers that weren't his.
He pushed himself upright. The light around him thickened and retreated, forming into translucent shapes, arches, corridors, fragments of what might once have been a city. Every structure shifted when he looked at it, like the Dominion couldn't decide what it wanted to be.
"Where… am I?" His voice didn't echo. It simply vanished, swallowed by the air.
He remembered stepping through the corridor of light, then pain, then nothing. Now, he stood inside the heart of that nothing, surrounded by what felt like the bones of a world too ancient to exist.
When he looked down at his hands, he froze. They glowed faintly, veins of white fire running beneath the skin. The light pulsed in time with the Dominion's hum.
Aiden's chest tightened. He could feel something crawling beneath his skin, tiny threads of heat weaving into his nerves. His heartbeat stuttered, then merged with the sound around him. The Dominion was inside him, rewriting him.
He staggered forward, clutching his chest. Every step sent ripples through the floor. When his hand brushed a nearby wall, light bled from his fingertips, and the wall responded, unfurling like a living thing.
Images flickered through his mind: a city of glass and stone, not Ares but something older, standing proud beneath a golden sky. Figures walked its streets, tall, radiant beings who spoke in light instead of words. He felt their sorrow before he saw their end.
The sky above their world cracked, just as Ares' had. The beings reached for salvation and built the Dominion, a refuge carved out of reality itself. But it became their cage. What was meant to preserve them began to consume them.
Aiden fell to his knees, gasping. The vision ended, but the pain didn't.
His skin burned from the inside out. The light within him flared, searing bright. For a moment, he could see his own reflection in a floating shard of crystal, his face flickering between human and something else. Eyes pale and hollow, veins glowing like molten silver.
"No…" He dug his hands into the shifting floor. "I'm not one of you."
The Dominion disagreed.
A pulse of energy surged through the air, slamming into him. He cried out, his body arching as the floor cracked beneath him. The light wrapped around his limbs, threads of brilliance weaving into muscle and bone. His breath hitched; he could feel his heartbeat stop, then restart in a slower, heavier rhythm.
The hum deepened. The Dominion's pulse merged with his. He was part of it now.
Then, through the storm of sensation, something broke through. A sound, not a voice, not entirely, but familiar.
Lira.
He didn't hear her words; he felt them, carried on a tremor of despair and will. The Dominion translated the emotion into light, washing through him in a wave of aching humanity. Cold resolve. Fear. Compassion.
He clutched his head, trembling. The connection deepened, and images flashed across his mind:
- A city in ruins, glowing faintly in the dark.
- A woman standing amidst the ash, rallying the lost.
- Children gathered around a dim blue fire.
Her eyes met his through the impossible distance, though he knew it wasn't real and for a heartbeat, he felt warmth again.
Then the vision shattered.
Aiden fell forward, panting. The light around him dimmed to a soft, rhythmic pulse. His hands were steady now, but they no longer felt like his. The Dominion had changed him. His veins glowed faintly even in shadow, his skin too pale, his senses too sharp.
He could feel the Dominion breathing around him, alive, aware. Watching.
He rose slowly. "You're feeding on me," he said, voice raw. "But I can feel you feeding on them, too. On Ares."
The Dominion didn't answer. Instead, a figure began to form in front of him, tall, fluid, faceless, its body made of flowing light. It radiated both calm and sorrow.
Aiden tensed, preparing to fight, but the figure didn't move. It only tilted its head, as if studying him.
When it finally spoke, its voice was inside his mind.
"You carry the key."
"What key?"
"The fracture of what we were. The seed of what you will become."
The light around the figure dimmed, revealing for an instant the faint outline of a human face beneath. Not alien, not divine, just tired.
"Do not fear what changes. Fear what remains the same."
The figure dissolved into the air. The Dominion fell silent again, its pulse fading to a whisper.
Aiden stood there, breathing hard, the echo of Lira's presence still faintly burning behind his eyes. He didn't know how, but he could sense her through the Dominion's current, like two heartbeats trying to find each other across a sea of light.
He looked up. Far above, through the endless glow, he saw the faint outline of the fracture in the sky. Beyond it, the ruined shape of Ares.
"I'm coming back," he whispered.
The Dominion's light flickered in answer, uncertain, half a warning, half a welcome.
Aiden clenched his fist, feeling the pulse of alien power in his veins. Whatever he was becoming, he would use it to reach her.
He turned toward the shifting horizon. The floor beneath him rippled, forming a path that led deeper into the Dominion's heart.
With every step, the hum grew louder.