Qaritas woke with a jolt. The breath tore through his lungs like he'd been drowning in something deeper than sleep—something older. His hands shook. Not from cold. From memory.
He could still feel the child's eyes on him. Like a memory that had teeth.
Beside him, Niraí was passed out, breath shallow but steady. Her body curled slightly toward his—seeking warmth or reassurance, even in sleep.
Then—from the darkness, a voice.
"Place her beside Komus."
He looked up.
Ayla stood a few feet away, glowing faintly in the dimness of the Library. Her voice was soft. Tired. But certain.
Qaritas obeyed. Gently, he lifted Niraí and walked across the room. As he laid her beside Komus, he hesitated—only to watch Komus stir in his sleep. One arm reached out, as if searching for something he'd lost. When it found Niraí, his body relaxed, curling around her like a memory trying to hold itself together.
Ayla stood beside him now, arms crossed loosely, eyes unreadable.
"He's always the shy one," she said quietly. "Pretends it's just a crush. Plays the part of the distant protector."
She paused, watching them.
"They've always found each other," Ayla said softly. "Lifetime after lifetime. Different names. Same ache. Sometimes they're strangers. Sometimes they're lovers. But always—" she paused, watching Komus' hand clutch Niraí tighter in his sleep, "always, they're Beloveds."
Qaritas turned toward her slowly.
"That's the second time you've used that word," he said. "Beloveds. What does it mean?"
Ayla's eyes lingered on Komus and Niraí. The way they clung to each other in unconscious devotion, like twin stars orbiting the same ancient gravity.
"Beloveds," she said softly, "were not born of love."
Qaritas tilted his head.
"What do you mean?"
She didn't look at him. She was somewhere else—sifting through memory like it was ash in her hands.
"Hrolyn created the concept. Originally. He called it 'strategic pairing.' It was never about romance—it was about bloodlines. Strength. Securing the continuity of powerful lineages among Ascendants."
Her lip curled, just slightly. "The idea was that if you paired complementary traits—logic and intuition, flame and stone—you could craft better gods. Ascendants who wouldn't fracture as easily. Bloodlines strong enough to withstand the Fold."
"So it was... genetic manipulation?" Qaritas asked carefully.
Ayla gave a slow nod. "At first."
A beat.
"But then Hydeius got involved. And Xriana."
"Xriana?" Qaritas echoed. "The Ascendant of Fate?"
"Yes," Ayla said. "She saw threads where others saw chains. And Hydeius... he'd spent too long watching stars die alone."
"Together," she continued, "they changed it. They created something Hrolyn hadn't planned for. Something wild. Eternal. Beautiful."
She turned to him now, her voice like glass—fragile and sharp.
"They made true Beloveds."
Qaritas furrowed his brow. "What does that mean?"
"It means," Ayla said, "that two souls—if shaped just right, if paired not by force but by essence—can be fated to find each other."
Her voice was quieter now, reverent.
"No matter how many times they're reborn. No matter what bodies they take. What names. What memories. They'll find their way back."
"Every time."
Qaritas said nothing. He was afraid to breathe.
"Sometimes they meet as strangers. Sometimes as enemies. Sometimes they fall in love in a week, or hate each other for years before remembering why they ache."
She looked at Komus and Niraí again.
"But always—they find each other."
"The universe doesn't let them stay apart."
She exhaled.
"They weren't chosen. Not really. Not by anyone.
Just... drawn. Pulled toward each other. Over and over.
Like gravity that forgot how to let go."
"Hydeius once said it was his greatest heresy. And Xriana called it her only mercy."
Qaritas stared.
"So Komus and Niraí...?"
Ayla nodded slowly.
"They've been this way since the beginning. Over and over. War after war. Life after life. Sometimes they die for each other. Sometimes they die without finding each other. But they always try."
Qaritas didn't speak. He watched the way Komus clutched Niraí in sleep—like drowning people clinging to the same dream.
"And if the universe tears them apart again?" he whispered.
"Then," Ayla said, already turning away, "we tear the universe back."
She didn't wait for him to follow.
"Come," Ayla said again. "There's more you need to understand."
Qaritas cast one last glance at Komus and Niraí, entwined like fate refusing to forget itself.
"Does the universe really fight to bring them together?" he asked.
"It does," she replied. "And it tears them apart just as easily."
Then she turned and led him into the dark.
The past was waiting. So was the war.
She scanned the Library—others still asleep, Others missing
"Not here," she said.
She walked toward the center of the Library's chamber, her footsteps soundless on the floor of folded light. Qaritas followed, sparing one last glance at Komus and Niraí, locked in their unconscious embrace.
As they moved through the stillness, he noticed something.
Daviyi. Cree. Hydeius. Gone.
Then—two books.
Open.
Side by side.
Each glowing with pale, unreadable script.
The Words of War.
Qaritas paused, his gaze caught by the text.
"What do those books lead to?"
Ayla looked over her shoulder.
Her eyes were dim. Not with fatigue—but grief.
"They're training for war," she said. "Ecayrous is still alive."
"But why fear him?" Qaritas asked. "Is it just because he's a fragment of Eon?"
Ayla stopped walking.
"No," she said. "It's because of which fragment he is."
Her voice darkened.
"Ecayrous is... the closest any fragment ever came to being the first Eon again. Unbroken. Original. Hungry."
Her tone shifted—softer. Older.
"He's also the version of Eon I knew."
She turned to face Qaritas fully now.
"I was born as Consort Kriri, in the thousandth universe—in a realm called Mrajeareim."
She let the name hang in the air like smoke.
"It was a place built on torment. Suffering was the air. My mother was one of Ecayrous's consorts. My father was a servant. A man beneath notice."
Qaritas's breath caught.
"And Komus?" he asked.
Ayla nodded slowly.
"We had the same mother. But only Komus was Ecayrous's blood. I wasn't his child. Just… born of betrayal. In that life, he was called Lord Lexen."
Qaritas reeled. "That explains his reaction to Ecayrous..."
Ayla continued. Her voice never trembled—but her words ached.
"When Ecayrous discovered my mother's betrayal, he tried to destroy me. Tortured her. Skinned her. Devoured them both to celebrate my birth."
Qaritas's stomach turned.
"I survived," Ayla said. "And he grew intrigued. A baby that refused to die. When I turned twenty, he placed me in his harem. He said I had been born for him."
She didn't raise her voice.
"I won't tell you what he did to me. Just know it was torment that didn't end."
Then her tone shifted—sharp, cold.
"But one night... after he was done... one of his followers came to finish what Ecayrous had started."
Her gaze dropped to her fists, trembling.
"That was the first time I killed."
A bitter, joyless smile crossed her lips.
"I cut off his manhood. Forced him to eat it. He choked to death."
A beat of silence.
"I was so far gone. I didn't even notice the door had opened. Ecayrous stood there, smiling."
A breath. Just one.
"He kissed me."
Ayla's voice cracked.
"Called me perfect. Praised me. That's when he made me his assassin. Trained me. Broke me."
She looked up again.
"He made me into his weapon. I let him. Because in that place, pain was inevitable. Power wasn't."
Qaritas's voice was quiet. Reverent.
"What changed?"
Her answer was immediate.
"He sent me to help destroy a world."
Her eyes flared.
"A place called Arcdasia—the new home of the Ascendants."
"That's where I met Hydeius. Cree. The others. And... Hrolyn."
Her voice lingered on the name like a wound.
Qaritas felt the shape of her pain settle somewhere beneath his ribs. Cold. And furious.
"They didn't ask me to be a hero. Just a witness with a blade."
Ayla looked up. "I said yes." Her voice was steady now. Not from pride—but purpose.
Ayla's voice dropped low, almost tender.
"At that time... he had already conquered most of our universe."
She didn't need to say who. The name hovered between them like a ghost with teeth.
"I didn't trust the Ascendants, not really. But I wanted to believe in something again. Anything that wasn't him."
Her gaze softened, unfocused, as if she were watching something beyond the Library's walls.
"The plan to stop Ecayrous took seventeen years to form. Seventeen years of silence. Of pretending. Of watching. He was never predictable. He could erase himself from reality and still see through it. I don't know how. I just knew he was always watching."
"But he never had access to Arcdasia."
Qaritas tilted his head. "Why?"
"Because of Rlaucus," she said. "Ascendant of the Abyss. You haven't met him yet."
Her voice twisted slightly at that—like Rlaucus was not someone one met lightly.
"He found a way to blind Ecayrous to Arcdasia's existence. To tear it from his perception entirely. It wasn't shielded. It was erased from Ecayrous's world-map."
She sighed.
"That's why I could meet with the Ascendants in secret. That's how the whispers never reached his ears."
Qaritas frowned.
"But if even Ecayrous couldn't find it... how did you?"
Ayla looked at him then. Long. Measured.
"Because Hrolyn said I was a pawn," she replied. "And if I ever betrayed them, I was no better than Ecayrous."
There was no bitterness in her tone. Just memory, carefully held.
"Cree was the one I reported to. I trusted him. I don't know why. Maybe because he never asked me to confess. Just to continue."
She let the silence settle a beat before continuing.
"I worked in shadow for years. Until he created them."
Something like light flickered in her voice.
"The only joy I ever remember feeling in that place... came from them."
Her eyes warmed—just a little.
"Seven children. Created, not born. Forged by Ecayrous's will."
She spoke their names like a litany of ghosts:
"Ación...
Rykhan...
Zcain...
Nyqomi...
Xasna...
Laxiae...
Shanian."
"Ascendants. Each bound to a primal force:
Creation. Time. Sin. Cosmic Horror. Nebulae. Galaxies. Entropy."
She let the names sit between them like sacred wounds.
"He called them weapons. Others whispered that their souls had been destroyed to make them obedient. To erase emotion. To leave only silence and power."
She closed her eyes.
"But the first time I saw them... they weren't quiet."
She smiled—small, sharp.
"A squad of the Forsaken tried to test their limits. Got too close. Hit one of them."
"The children didn't hesitate."
And suddenly—
Qaritas staggered.
The world around him didn't fall—but tilted.
The floor beneath his feet remained firm, but space curled sideways.
His breath caught.
Because he saw it.
Not just in Ayla's words.
He saw it.
They stood like living concepts.
Children—yes—but not fragile. Each one glowed with impossible power, not worn like armor, but baked into their bones.
Ación raised a single hand—reality buckled around him like clay. Entire buildings blinked out of existence and reappeared upside-down, restructured mid-air.
Rykhan blinked once—and time folded. A soldier charged, and the boy reversed their heartbeat until they aged into dust in one second.
Zcain grinned, eyes glowing crimson, fingers twitching like a puppeteer pulling on sin itself. One Forsaken dropped to his knees, weeping, whispering confessions in languages Qaritas didn't know—but felt.
Nyqomi's presence made the world flinch. Their smile was wide, too wide. And from it spilled whispers that weren't sound but memory. Tentacles of truth unspooled into air. Soldiers clawed at their eyes, not from pain—but revelation.
Xasna raised her palms—nebulae swirled in them, galaxies born inside her knuckles. She reached out, and a soldier dissolved into stardust with a touch.
Laxiae simply looked skyward—and constellations realigned. Her voice sang a single note, and the world trembled in harmony, caught in a gravitational hymn.
And Shanian—oh gods, Shanian.
A child with a hollow expression. Their body didn't move—it unmoved. Wherever they stood, entropy bloomed. Swords rusted in hand. Limbs decayed. Hope unraveled into a scream.
Qaritas gasped and stumbled forward.
The vision shattered like glass struck by a breath.
Ayla caught his arm without blinking.
"You saw it, didn't you?"
He nodded slowly. Pale. Breathless.
"I wasn't just listening," he whispered. "I remembered it."
She didn't flinch.
"You're waking up," she said quietly. "To your other lives. Your other selves. The ones the Fold buried. The ones Eon broke."
Qaritas blinked. The names of the seven still danced like fire on his tongue.
"What happened to them?"
Ayla looked away.
Her face closed like a curtain drawn over pain too old for words.
"They were supposed to be weapons. But children remember how to be more than what they're told to be."
She looked up again, voice trembling but firm.
"They called me Mother.