The room held its breath.
Shadows clung to the walls like velvet regrets, curling around obsidian stone carved with runes long since silenced. Gold veining ran through the walls in thin, irregular lines—like cracks in something ancient that refused to break. When the aether shard pulsed, the gold shimmered faintly, a quiet heartbeat echoing in the dark.
The floor was made of smooth basalt tiles, etched faintly with constellations only visible when the light caught just right—maps of memory, half-erased. A heavy drape of black silk hung over the far window, unmoving, but threaded with threads of gold so fine they shimmered like a galaxy suspended in fabric.
Dust drifted in the air like abandoned time, catching on a low current that wasn't wind so much as the breath of magic long asleep. In the center of the far wall, a constellation glyph flickered weakly—its points not glowing, but trembling, like a star trying to remember its own name.
The bed was simple, but noble—frame carved from abyssal wood, black as midnight, with gilded inlays that caught the light like molten starlight. A single pillow. A folded blanket. Sparse. Impersonal. Like the room had been waiting for someone it knew would never stay.
This was the first and last night Qaritas would sleep here.
The walls would forget his warmth by morning.
The room wasn't empty—it was holding its breath the way grief does, quiet but too full to bear much longer.
The walls listened. Not with ears, but with age.
Every stone felt like it was storing the sound of Ayla's voice, the warmth of her presence, the way silence touched skin like prayer.
Every object felt like it was pretending not to watch—like the walls knew he didn't belong to tomorrow.
The gold would dull.
The glyph would fade.
But for this one night, the room remained still—caught between ending and echo. And Qaritas sat in the middle of it, shadows crawling gently across his skin, as if even the dark was trying to learn his shape before he was gone.
Ayla walked up to the desk, her fingers brushing the jar Najen had left as if it might vanish if she touched it too fast. She carried it like something sacred and sat beside him on the bed.
"Can't sleep?" she asked softly.
"I'm not looking forward to returning to Mrajeareim either... but your thoughts were screaming. Too loud to ignore."
Qaritas looked up, guilt flickering behind his eyes. "Sorry. Didn't mean to wake you."
"Forget about that. Is the balm not working?" she asked, frowning.
"No, it's working," Qaritas said. "The problem is... the pain still lingers."
Ayla held the jar in one hand, her brow furrowed. "Najen meant well, but this version's for surface wounds. Mild curses. Yours..." she trailed off, eyes narrowing.
She reached through the stillness like drawing breath between galaxies, her voice barely audible—but it bent the air like truth. A single ripple spread outward, and from it bloomed a sliver of dying light and cold breath:
"The Shattered Breath," she murmured. "A remnant of a dying nebula. Cold enough to slow time inside pain."
The fragment hovered, pulsing with a pale blue glow.
She climbed onto the bed, moving behind him. Qaritas pulled off his shirt just before the balm touched his skin.
The balm didn't just numb. It cooled the fire of memory beneath his skin, turned the ache into a lullaby. Her fingers didn't tremble, but his breath did.
It wasn't healing. It was permission—to stop bracing for pain that hadn't yet come
"Not stars. Not galaxies. I am the silence between them—the invisible pull that keeps the universe from forgetting its shape. I hold the weight of distance. Of everything left unsaid."
"You called me in Ranaesa. Gave me my name back. Gave me a choice. You brought me to the others. Stood by me through Becoming…"
She had called him from the river between life and curse. Had held his name in her hands like something sacred.
This—this quiet—is what that call had always meant.
He hated how small his voice sounded. Like it couldn't carry the weight of everything he wanted to ask, and everything he was afraid to hear.
"And I keep waiting for the catch," he admitted, voice barely above a breath. "For the moment you decide I'm too much. Too broken. Or not enough."
Ayla was quiet behind him, fingers stilling on his back.
"Sometimes," she whispered, "I forget what shape I used to be before I became someone who had to hold everything together."
That was the part he didn't understand. Not the loyalty. The patience. The quiet certainty. No one stayed for monsters still learning how to be people. No one had before.
Ayla paused, her hands glowing faintly as she pressed the balm deeper into his skin. "I'm the Ascendant of the Cosmos," she said quietly.
"Not stars. Not galaxies. I am the silence between them—the invisible pull that keeps the universe from forgetting its shape. I hold the weight of distance. Of everything left unsaid."
"You haven't awakened yet," Ayla whispered, pressing her forehead to his back. "But I know who you are. I knew long before you remembered your name. You are my beloved, even in forgetfulness."
Qaritas felt the words settle into him like gravity. It made too much sense—too much. Of course she was the silence. Of course she was the one who stayed. "Of course you are," he murmured. "That's why... you see me. Because you've always held what's coming undone."
She didn't answer. She just pressed her palm to his back, steady and silent.
The pain didn't vanish—it exhaled. Like a beast curling beneath her touch, not tamed, but willing to sleep for now.
____________________________________________________________________________________ Ayla put her forehead against his back—soft, reverent. Not as a lover. As someone praying at the last temple that hadn't yet fallen. "That's not true. I see you, because I have always known you. You don't need to awaken for me to recognize you. Some love predates memory."
The silence between stars was not an end. Just a breath before the reckoning.
"Ayla I don't know what it means—"
"I know. And I'll wait," she said, her voice no longer strong—just real
"I've waited through collapse and echo. Through the silence between dying stars. What's another lifetime? Just... can I stay here till we go?"
"Tonight..." she whispered, "I just want to be near someone who still remembers how to break without shattering."
The realization struck—not as thought, but as ache. Komus. Ayla. They were going back to the place that turned them into survivors. Mrajeareim wasn't a battlefield. It was a wound with a name.
And she would walk into it smiling. As if she hadn't bled there before.
Then, let Qaritas break the silence in a low, tired voice:"What... was it like? Mrajeareim."The constellation glyph on the wall pulsed once, then flickered—one of its stars going dark.As if it remembered what came next.As if it had seen this question before.
The question sat between them like a blade laid flat on holy ground.
"What… was it like? Mrajeareim?"
Ayla didn't answer at first.
She moved slowly, hands resting in her lap, gaze distant—like the word had touched something behind her ribs and she was still deciding whether to let it surface. When she finally spoke, her voice was thinner than usual. Not weak. Just scraped raw.
"Mrajeareim doesn't exist in any universe," she said. "It exists in scars."
"Born of Ecayrous's body. A place that vanishes and reappears at will."
Qaritas didn't move.
"The air there," she began, "wasn't breathed. It was endured. It clung to your skin like regret—wet, metallic, and always hungry. The stench of burning flesh never faded. And the screams... the screams weren't just from pain. They were from people remembering what it meant to feel, just before that was taken from them."
Her voice lowered further, curling like smoke.
"You couldn't walk without hearing it. Bone cracking. Ash sobbing. And the ground—gods, the ground—was slick with bile and blood and tears. It moved sometimes. Shifted underfoot, like it wanted to claim you. Wanted to drag you into itself and forget you ever had a name."
A long silence.
The aether shard on the wall pulsed softly, casting blue shadows across her cheek.
"The geography was... wrong," she said finally. "Jagged cliffs that bled. Rivers of molten despair—yes, real despair, Qaritas, turned liquid by rituals older than light. Nothing in that place stayed still. The cliffs would move. The sky would scream. Chasms whispered. Not words—just promises. Promises of despair. If you stood too close, they'd offer you the names of everyone you'd failed. And they were always right."
Qaritas swallowed hard. The back of his throat felt tight.
Ayla went on, her voice a ghost between grief and memory.
"The sky never cleared. It was always storm-dark. Not thunderstorms, not rain—just wrongness. Cracks of violet light that didn't illuminate, just showed you what was already broken. Shadows stretching in directions light didn't understand."
Qaritas turned his head slightly. "What about the people? The ones who lived there?"
"You mean survived," Ayla corrected gently.
She sat straighter, voice sharper now.
"At the top were the Djallra—Ecayrous's warlords. They were once Iyrian. Peacekeepers. Gods from the old realms. Our kin. But Eon twisted them into tyrants. They use pain like paint. Create art from suffering. Some of them... they learned from Ecayrous. Others—" she paused, bitter, "taught him."
"Below them were the Forsaken. They led the Light-Eaters, the Skotosar—his soldiers, his assassins. Mortals made into demigods. Some of them volunteered. Others were taken and broken until they forgot the word 'no.' Each one bore a Mark. Each one dreamed only of silence… and power."
Qaritas's fingers twitched slightly. His jaw clenched.
Ayla noticed, but didn't stop.
"And beneath them…" Her voice went still. Cold.
"The harem. Where I was born. Where I was taken. Where pleasure was just another way to scream. Ecayrous didn't keep us because he desired us. He kept us because it proved he could. We were symbols. Living reminders that even gods had no sanctity when faced with him."
"The harem is not a place. It is a sentence."
She turned slightly toward him now.
"You ask what it was like? Imagine waking up every day to be reminded your body was not yours. That your soul was currency. That your memories were taken and fed to beasts. That every kindness you showed would be punished—not to break you, but to teach others what breaking looks like."
Her eyes met his.
"And yet," she whispered, "we found ways to be kind. Even there."
Qaritas didn't breathe for a moment.
Then, softly: "That's how you survived?"
Ayla shook her head.
"No. That's how I remembered I was alive."
She leaned back slightly, the pain in her voice now paired with something else—steel.
"The Djallra wielded ritual magic so dark, the sky bled to watch. Torment Shards floated above every execution pit—crystals that amplified pain, rewrote memory, unraveled names. If you disobeyed, they didn't just kill you. They rewrote your soul. Erased your past. Made you loyal in ways your mouth couldn't speak against."
"And still, we fought. Quietly. Softly. With glances. With songs hummed too low for monsters to hear. With touches we pretended were accidental but meant: I remember you. You are still here. We are not broken."
Qaritas turned fully now, meeting her gaze. He had no words. He didn't need them.
Ayla looked down, the balm jar still in her hand, glowing faintly like a dying star.
"I don't want to go back," she admitted.
"But if my children are there... if even one of them still lives..."
Her voice didn't shake. It sharpened.
Qaritas didn't speak.
He reached for her hand. Quietly. Gently. No pressure. Just presence.
Her fingers closed around his.
For a long moment, the constellation glyph on the wall flickered back to life.
One of its stars pulsed once—steady, like a heart remembering how to beat.
The constellation glyph pulsed once more—steadier this time, no longer flickering, but burning low and sure. Like it, too, had made a decision.
Qaritas didn't speak.
Neither did Ayla.
Their fingers remained linked—not with urgency, but with quiet understanding. Not everything had to be spoken. Not tonight.
Outside, the aether shard dimmed, shadows stretching longer across the floor like time slowing to listen.
They sat together in that silence. Not afraid. Not strong. Just... present.
And in that presence, something unspoken passed between them: not a promise, not a vow—but a recognition.
They were preparing for war.
A war waiting in Mrajeareim.
To the place carved by suffering .
Where Ecayrous waited—to shape Qaritas in his own image, to test the others, to press salt into scars not yet healed.
And still... they didn't move.
Not until the room whispered the hour.
Not until only two remained.
Two hours before departure.
Two hours before darkness reached out with familiar hands.
They stayed that way—wound in quiet, wrapped in memory—until time, relentless as ever, reminded them it was time to rise.