I tried to rise. Gods, I tried. My elbow slipped in my own blood, chaos sputtering like a dying star in my veins. My body shook, my breath came ragged, but I pushed anyway, because I couldn't watch this on my knees. Not again. Not ever again. Aerion, that bastard smiled. Not the smile of a king returned. Not even the glee of a conqueror. Disgust. Like he'd just found us groveling in filth. "Look at you," he said, voice low and vicious. His boots crunched across the shattered marble like the world itself bowed to him. "You were gods once."
I wanted to spit. Wanted to curse. Wanted to shove his words back down his throat with a blade of chaos. But the Binding held me. I couldn't. He crouched down, close, too close, and I saw it in his eyes: the coil of madness, shining bright beneath all that polished order.
"You forgot what it means to kneel," he whispered. His breath was poison. His voice slid under my ribs like a knife. He stood, tall, arrogant, dripping blood and triumph like perfume. He declared it for all of us, for the Realms themselves: "You will remember. Why you exist. Who you serve. What it means to obey."
Every word seared itself into my bones. I ground my teeth until I tasted iron. My chaos shrieked inside me, wild and furious, but I couldn't break the chains. Not here. Not yet.
He raised his hand and ripped the sky open. Not a portal. Not a doorway. A command. Every realm bent to it: mortal, divine, fae, supernatural. Every screen, every sky, every mirror turned into his theater. They all saw us, bruised, bleeding, broken.
"Witness your gods," he said. The worlds did.
Ravina was first. Of course she was. She smiled. The serpent was trembling with ecstasy as she dropped to her knees. "I swear," she breathed. The Fae forests dimmed. I wanted to vomit.
Calavera bowed next, solemn as always. No rebellion. No shame. Death never fights order, it embraces it. "I swear." Her voice rang like funeral bells.
Then Vitaria. One hand clutching her swollen belly, the other braced against the cold stone. She wept as she knelt. "I swear." Across the Mortal Realm, babies cried. I heard them in my head. I felt the loss.
Ahyona stumbled forward, tear-streaked and tiny, looking far too much like a child dragged into war. "I swear," she sobbed, collapsing to the floor. My heart cracked at the sound of it.
Then Navir. Brilliant, broken Navir. He didn't even see Aerion. Didn't see us. Didn't see the Realms watching. He just knelt, like a puppet with its strings tangled, muttering numbers into the silence. "Recursion vector at 15... 21... cross point collapse at 18, 8... pattern fracture at 15, 16, 5... recalibration node 12, 9, 22... error bleed at 5, 19..." His eyes were glazed, hands twitching through invisible equations only he could see. Like a line of corrupted code, he whispered the words that made my stomach drop: "I swear."
Across the Mortal Realm, screens blacked out. Phones. Streetlights. Whole cities went dark. Navir didn't even notice. His voice kept unraveling, code spilling from his lips like prophecy in reverse: "The variable 21, 14, The Axiom, 2, 5, Factor in infinity 14, 20..." He didn't bow to Aerion. He bowed to math. To inevitability. To something none of us could see but him.
Then Aerion pointed. At us. At the rebels.
Luxor, burned and battered, tried, gods, he tried, but his light was sputtering. He bent, golden and broken. "I swear." I saw mortal eyes widen as their sun dimmed.
Tairochi. The mountain. I thought, hoped, he'd resist. But even stone breaks under enough weight. He bowed. "I swear." The earth itself trembled.
Leyla's shadows writhed, but even nightmares falter. She dropped, darkness leaking out of her in waves. "I swear."
Maximus. The fool. The indulgent. He didn't even try to posture this time. He just fell. "I swear." Joy died across the Realms.
Yara. My pearl. My storm. She snarled even as she dropped, spitting the words through salt-bitten teeth. "I swear." The oceans thrashed.
One by one. Gods. My gods. Our Pantheon. And me? Pinned. Shaking. Rage bleeding from every seam in my body. I couldn't move. Couldn't fight. Could only watch as they surrendered their voices, their oaths, their freedom.
"Welcome home, my Pantheon," Aerion said, arms spread wide. "Welcome back to the natural order."
All I could think was, If this is home, then burn it. Burn it all. He looked to me. Chaos incarnate. Flat on the stone, spitting blood and broken magic like a drunk god vomiting starlight. Aerion didn't gloat. He didn't need to. He just waited. Watching. If hate could kill, he'd already be a pile of ash at my feet. But I knew. Gods help me, I knew. The thread of death was there. Woven deep, binding my life to hers. If I fell here, if I chose rebellion over restraint, Asha would die with me. That truth cut deeper than his gravity, deeper than his throne. He tilted his head at me, patient, mocking, cruel. Waiting for me to break. My lips pulled back in a soundless snarl. Rage poured out of me in sputters of chaos, the kind that should've unraveled the floor beneath him. But the Old Laws held me, tight as iron. Gods forgive me, I folded. One knee to the shattered stone. Chaos bleeding out of me like blood. The chamber went silent. The Realms, all of them, watched.
Malvor, Trickster King, Untamable, Uncatchable, bowing. Not by choice. Not by surrender. But because it was the only way to keep her alive. The words scraped my throat like glass. "I swear."
They tasted like ash and iron.
Forgive me, my Forever. I sent it through our bond. Knowing if I fought, she died. If I resisted, she died. At least this way… she lived. A little longer. The chains answered. I felt them twitch across my collarbone, old iron burned into me from a rebellion long past. They moved. Slithering up my throat, link by link. Scraping against soul and spirit. Not ink. Not memory. Alive. Hungry. I gasped, instinctively trying to pull away. But it was useless. The Binding was stronger. It wrapped me. Around my throat. Around my magic. Around my will. Not a symbol. A collar.
Forged not of iron, but of stolen consent. The links hissed molten as they fused, searing into me, soul and skin alike. Aerion didn't just take my strength. He took me. When the light dimmed, the chain wasn't iron anymore. It was gold. Gleaming. Mocking. Heavy with law. With legacy. With ownership. The chaos runes along my arms, the living, laughing, impossible ink of everything I was, shuddered once. Flickered. And died. Gray now. Ash.
For the first time since my first laugh cracked stone, I was silent. But worse than the silence was the violation. I had bowed. I had been forced. The Realms had watched. The Trickster King, chained. Tamed. Hope itself shackled in front of billions. It didn't even feel like noise when it happened. It was silence. The kind that follows a star's death. The kind that makes you realize you'll never laugh the same way again. Because Aerion hadn't just broken me. He'd desecrated something sacred. Choice.
Aerion straightened, looming tall over us all. His hand lifted and the world, every world, shuddered. The command came. Not sound. Not language. A decree older than thought. Bow.
It didn't move through ears or mouths. It pressed itself into marrow. Into blood. Into the root of will itself. It was ownership. The end of choice. The death of freedom. Bow.
My chaos shrieked inside me, clawing at the iron bars of my ribs. My body shook against it, every vein burning like a fuse. Still, I felt it clamp down, around my throat, my soul, the core of me. It wanted me kneeling. Gods help me, it wanted everything kneeling.
In the Mortal Realm skies fractured. Clouds twisted into grotesque knots, sunlight bleeding through them like rust through cotton. Drivers convulsed at their wheels. Cars slammed into medians, into storefronts, into each other. Sirens screamed, cut off mid-howl as ambulances jackknifed into sidewalks. Markets collapsed in heartbeats, screens black, numbers eaten alive by chaos. Currency dissolved faster than human throats could scream. People in churches, offices, playgrounds, airports, everywhere, dropped. Bodies hit linoleum, stone, grass, pavement. News anchors froze mid-sentence, choking on silence before bowing over their desks. Pilots slumped in cockpits. Planes faltered, drifted, and fell. Children screamed. Elders wept. Mortals begged gods who no longer heard them. Because the gods themselves were already forced to their knees. A tremor passed across civilization like an invisible hand sweeping a board clean. Collapse.
The Supernatural Realm was no better. Alpha werewolves howled as their bodies folded, claws gouging trenches into sacred soil. Vampires crashed to the marble floors of their towers, jaws snapping uselessly as if fangs could tear air. Witches tumbled over their altars, cauldrons boiling over, wards collapsing like paper in rain. Even the oldest monsters, those who remembered when gods first learned to breathe dirt into man, buckled. Howling. Burning. Broken. The Supernatural Realm knelt.
The Fae Courts fought the command. Of course they fought. Seelie kings raised emerald banners and swords, glamour shattering as wings beat the sky bloody. Unseelie queens shrieked their defiance, courts of thorn and bone splintering around them. They lasted longer than most. Pride always does. But even they fell. Crowns clattering to stone floors. Wings dragging through dust. Throats choked by a command deeper than magic, deeper than pride. Their pride broke last. But it broke. The Fae bowed.
I shook so hard blood ran from my mouth. My chaos roared, clawed, begged for release. But I was still pressed down, bound by the command. Rage isn't freedom when consent has already been stolen. Aerion's voice rang across every fractured realm, smooth as poison: "You were made to rise at our command… and fall at our whim."
The worlds obeyed. Not because they wanted to.Because choice had been stolen. Aerion lowered his hand slowly. Deliberately. Like a tyrant blessing the ashes of a conquered world.
Somewhere, Beyond even my reach, beyond all known realms, something ancient stirred. It turned its head and smiled. Because this? This was only the beginning.