The Dominion was silent.
For the first time since Aiden had entered its depths, the hum that had filled every breath, every heartbeat, was gone. The air was heavy and still, thick with the faint scent of metal and ozone. Around him, the crystal walls shimmered faintly, cracks glowing where his power had surged moments before.
He looked down at his hands. Faint veins of light pulsed beneath his skin, weaving intricate lines along his forearms. The glow beat in rhythm with his heart, no longer just within him, but as him.
When he moved, the Dominion moved with him.
The floor beneath his feet shifted smoothly, forming a path that led upward, spiraling around the edges of the vast hollow that had once held the Heart. The walls rippled, flowing away from his presence like water disturbed by touch.
Every step felt like walking through the pulse of something alive.
"Let's see where you lead me," Aiden murmured.
The path widened into a corridor of light and shadow. Shards of crystal floated in the air, drifting weightlessly, each one reflecting fragments of memory, battles, cities, faces he didn't know. The Dominion wasn't dead. It remembered.
He reached out and brushed one of the shards with his fingertips. The world around him shifted instantly.
For a heartbeat, he stood in another time, a bright hall filled with figures in gleaming armor, the architects of the Dominion. They stood before the Heart, arguing in voices that echoed like thunder.
"It must be contained!" one shouted. "If it merges with will again, it will devour us all!"
"We can't destroy it," another said. "It's bound to our essence. If it dies, we die."
Aiden's chest tightened. The image blurred, then shattered like glass.
When the vision faded, he stood once more in the corridor, his breathing uneven.
The Dominion was showing him pieces, fragments of its own history, of what it once was.
"You're trying to make me understand," he said quietly. "But I don't know if I can forgive you."
No voice answered. Only the faint vibration of light pulsing through the walls.
He continued walking. The higher he climbed, the more the Dominion changed. The crystal gave way to black stone streaked with veins of light. The air grew colder, sharper. The whispers began, faint at first, then multiplying.
Help us…
You carry the Heart…
Free us before it's too late…
He stopped. The whispers came from the walls themselves, faint silhouettes trapped within the crystal, their eyes dim sparks. The architects. The ones who had become part of the Dominion's will.
Aiden stepped closer. "You're still alive in there."
One of the figures moved, a flicker, barely perceptible, but enough. The whisper came clearer. Alive is not the word. We are echoes. Bound by choice, then by hunger. You are its new tether. Be careful what you feed it.
Before he could respond, the figure dissolved, light fading into the wall. The corridor darkened.
Aiden exhaled slowly. "Bound by choice, huh? Sounds familiar."
The ground trembled beneath him, soft but steady like a heartbeat deep below. The Dominion still pulsed with his energy. He could feel the current of power stretching upward, toward the surface. Toward Lira.
He didn't know if she could sense him, but he could sense her, faint warmth flickering like a star in the distance, a tether he hadn't realized he carried until now.
The corridor narrowed again, rising into a tunnel lined with shifting light. Aiden felt resistance, as if the Dominion hesitated to let him go.
"Don't even think about keeping me here," he said. "You had your chance."
The walls rippled but obeyed. The path opened into a vertical shaft filled with slow-moving light, a column stretching endlessly upward.
Aiden hesitated only a second, then stepped into it.
The light enveloped him instantly, lifting him without weight. He floated upward, body relaxed but senses sharp. Energy flowed around and through him, the Dominion's heartbeat merging with his own.
At first, the ascent was smooth. Then came the distortion.
Visions flashed before his eyes, the faces of the architects, cities crumbling, worlds bending. He saw the Dominion's reach spreading through dimensions, threading through veins of reality itself.
And in the center of it all, he saw himself, suspended in the same light, the Heart beating in his chest.
You are the bridge, the voices whispered. Through you, the world will be remade.
The words pressed against his skull like knives. He clenched his fists. "No. The world doesn't need another god. It needs a way out."
The light darkened, fighting him, the Dominion's will resisting his defiance. His pulse quickened, the glow under his skin flaring bright. "I said...no!"
With a surge of force, he broke free from the current, slamming his hand against the wall of the shaft. The entire structure shuddered, cracks splitting the light.
The Dominion yielded.
A roar like thunder rolled through the depths as the light around him turned from gold to silver. The current carried him faster, upward, until the walls became a blur.
Then, light exploded.
He emerged from the fissure like a streak of fire, collapsing onto the broken surface of Ares. The air hit him like cold water, heavy with dust and smoke. He gasped, his lungs burning with the taste of the real world.
For a long moment, he just lay there, feeling the pulse of the Dominion still inside him, quieter now but ever-present.
The stars above the ruined city burned faintly, their light fractured by the haze. The wind howled through the broken towers. Somewhere far off, he heard voices, human ones.
He pushed himself to his feet, unsteady but alive. The faint glow beneath his skin faded as he looked out over the ruins.
Ares was still standing, barely. Fires burned in the distance.
And somewhere among them, he felt her, Lira. The tether between them pulsed faintly in his chest, like an unseen thread pulling him forward.
Aiden looked back once at the fissure behind him. Blue mist still rose from its depths, curling into the night.
"You're part of me now," he said softly. "But I'm not yours."
Then he turned and began walking toward the light of the campfires, the Dominion's heartbeat echoing faintly behind him, a promise and a threat both.