Chapter 14 – The Price of Power
The moment Ecayrous took shape, something in the library twitched.
Not in fear.
In memory.
The creature stood tall now—bones ink-scrawled with forgotten tongues, skin humming like paper set too close to flame. His eyes were static-filled violet, chaos of interference and intent. And though his mouth remained still, something grinned behind it.
Daviyi stepped in front of the others like a blade unsheathed, her robes rippling with encoded light. Beside her, Hydeius and Cree moved as one—silent, grim, remembering.
The air pulsed.
A vibration—too low to hear, too real to ignore—thrummed in the bones of every Ascendant. Rage. Recognition.
Ayla narrowed her eyes. Komus stood beside her, body tense, Mercy pulsing faintly at his hip.
"What is it?" Niraí asked, glancing between the front line. "You three look like you've seen a ghost."
"No," Cree said. "Worse."
Ecayrous blinked slowly, eyelids stitched with runes. When he spoke, his voice layered itself—childlike and ancient, silk over rot.
"Ahhh... you noticed," he said, his gaze settling on Daviyi. "Not a clone. Not a phantom. Not a memory-scripted echo.
I'm real. I'm what was left behind when forgetting failed."
Hydeius's expression darkened. "That's impossible. You were—"
"Dead?" Ecayrous smiled wider than his face allowed. Eyeballs blinked along his palms, twitching in rhythms no mind could follow.
"You really don't understand how deep Eon dug into the weave, do you? Some roots go sideways."
Cree growled. "How are you still alive?"
Ecayrous lifted one finger—long, bone-thin—and pressed it to his lips.
"That's a secret I'll never tell."
Then, his eyes slid to Ayla. To Komus.
And he smiled again. This time, with too many teeth.
"Ahh... familiar souls. How nostalgic.
Lord Lexen... Consort Kriri.
It's been eons. You've worn your new skins well. Though I must say—Kriri..."
His smile split sideways.
"You're even more beautiful now than in your original flesh."
Ayla moved without hesitation.
The blade was in her hand, spinning, silver-wrapped flame cutting through the air.
Ecayrous laughed.
Then—he stopped laughing.
Because Ayla was already there.
And so was Komus.
In a flicker of coordinated fury, both struck—Komus's Mercy cutting through the left, Ayla's knives slicing through the right.
Both of Ecayrous's arms hit the ground.
And still—
He laughed.
"Oh, is that all you've got?"
In one heartbeat, the arms began to grow back—roots knitting bone, skin slithering over twitching tendons.
And in the next—
Ecayrous tore the skin from their bodies.
Not metaphor.
Not illusion.
Real.
His hands blurred—faster than space could follow. Ayla screamed. Komus fell. Skin tore in ribbons, flayed by whispers sharp as razors.
Ecayrous bit into Komus's shoulder like a lover tasting memory.
"Mmm. Just like I remember."
Cree shouted. Niraí surged forward. But they were too far.
Qaritas moved.
His body stepped in front of them all—no longer flickering, no longer uncertain. His form darkened, but not into shadow.
Into shape.
Into himself.
The not-empty surged.
And purple eyes opened where his face had once been hollow.
Ecayrous turned, too slow.
Qaritas's blade wasn't light. Wasn't void. It was intention.
And as he swung it, something inside him fractured—quietly. Willingly.
He slashed—and Ecayrous came apart.
In perfect pieces.
Head. Chest. Ribs. Limbs.
All fell.
In the silence that followed, Qaritas held Ayla's skinless body in his arms. Komus, broken and half-conscious, hung over his shoulder.
And with a breath that bent the world—
He teleported.
They vanished.
A second later, they reappeared in front of Daviyi, Cree, and Hydeius.
He lowered Ayla gently.
Komus collapsed beside her.
And still—
No one spoke.
Because behind them—
The pieces of Ecayrous had vanished.
All but a laugh.
It echoed like a hymn across the arena.
"Ohhh... I like him," Ecayrous purred from somewhere above, somewhere nowhere.
"…and already he echoes us.
Our hunger. Our reach. Our ruin."
"He has our eyes," he whispered. "But none of our chains. Not yet."
"How charming."
The coliseum trembled.
All around them, illusions of purple eyes opened—in the sky, the stone, in each other's shadows.
And then—
Ecayrous reappeared.
Unharmed.
Untouched.
Smiling still.
But now standing farther away. Hands behind his back. Casual. Patient.
"That was delightful," he said. "But exhausting."
"So let's make a deal."
Hydeius's hands clenched.
He had seen this before.
And it had ended with fire and silence.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ecayrous stood farther now, hands still clasped behind his back, posture relaxed.
But the tension in the air could slice a world in half.
He tilted his head.
Smile intact. Eyes far too still.
"Let's make it simple," he said. "One of Eon's fragments still lingers. Alive. Dangerous. But vulnerable. You kill it—properly this time—and I'll give you a secret."
Daviyi's eyes narrowed. "What kind of secret?"
Ecayrous smiled wider.
"A name. A place. A truth you buried so deep, you bled to forget it."
"I'll tell you where your children are."
Silence.
Not confusion.
Denial.
Then—impact.
Daviyi's hand trembled.
Cree stepped back.
Hydeius closed his eyes.
Flashbacks struck like thunderclaps.
Not memory.
Repression unraveling.
A small voice beneath a sky of logic stars, tugging at her hand.
"Mother, why does language sleep in numbers?"
"Because," Daviyi answered, "truth has rhythm."
Her child's laugh.
A boy with eyes like pale equations. A girl made of fractal glyphs.
Running down the halls of the Framework.
Gone. Burned from memory like corrupted data.
Wings.
Too small. Too new.
Nine children, each born in a different realm, from different light.
Ezien, the one with the golden breath. Zarayne, who danced between angel and ash.
"We were supposed to guide them," Cree whispered, voice cracking. "We were there."
"We didn't forget," Cree said aloud.
"We were made to."
His arms wrapped around Mzius, the Messenger-child. The one who delivered dreams into the souls of sleeping mortals.
The child sang to dead stars. Could open gateways with her voice alone.
Gone.
No scream.
Just an empty cradle where memory once lived.
Hydeius opened his eyes. No anger.
Just grief. Old and immeasurable.
"Hrolyn," he said softly. "You did this."
Ecayrous walked forward.
Slow.
Patient.
Like a knife learning how to dance.
"Oh, you didn't forget by accident," he said.
"You were made to forget. Hrolyn believed that if you remembered your children, you might break. That you'd stay too close to the ruins of the old universe to let the new ones form."
He stopped a few steps away. Close enough for the weight of his words to pierce.
"But he didn't destroy them," Ecayrous whispered. "He gave them to Eon."
Daviyi's breath caught.
Tears trailed down Cree's cheek, catching fire and fading midair.
Hydeius said nothing.
His silence was the kind that made stars collapse.
Ecayrous tilted his head again, then reached out—not to touch, but to be near.
"All of them still exist," he said.
"Alive. Changed. Some loyal. Some… waiting."
"You want them back?"
Qaritas moved.
Fast.
One blink and he was there—between them.
His presence made Ecayrous pause, smile flickering for just a heartbeat.
"Careful," Ecayrous said. "You haven't chosen what kind of god you want to become yet."
Qaritas didn't speak.
His body stood silent, shadow-forged and sharp.
But the not-empty inside him growled.
Mine, it whispered.
Ecayrous exhaled, amused. He stepped back.
"Two days," he said. "Kill the fragment, and I'll tell you where they are. Or don't."
"And keep pretending you're whole."
His eyes scanned the group—lingering on Cree. On Daviyi. On Hydeius.
Then, to Qaritas:
"I wonder which of us they'll blame when the truth breaks them again. You or me?"
The coliseum shook—light folding around its bones, the Library shivering in protest.
And Ecayrous vanished.
No flash. No fold.
Just gone.
Only the echo of memory—and the smell of something almost like ash.
The silence that followed was not stunned.
It was shattered.
Ayla stirred. Komus groaned.
Daviyi fell to her knees.
And for the first time since the Library opened its gates—
Cree wept.