As the others settled around the table, he felt the silence shift again. Not hollow now—but filled with ghosts.
Truth was coming. He could feel it pressing against his spine.
The starlight warmth was gone. What remained was older. Graver. A light that remembered pain.
Qaritas sat unmoving, the shimmer of untouched food forgotten. Even the constellations carved into the obsidian table felt like old wounds now—memories etched in stone.
Silence returned—not hollow this time, but full of ghosts. Even the air seemed to grieve.
Komus sat beside Qaritas, arms crossed, silent as if the weight of past lives pressed against his shoulders.
"Enough mystery," Niraí said, her smile gone. "If he's going to carry it, he should know what came before."
Cree placed their fingers lightly on the table. "Then let us begin... at the First Light."
Ayla looked across the table and gave a single, solemn nod. Komus didn't interrupt. Hydeius, beside Cree, simply folded his hands and closed his eyes, as though steadying himself.
Cree's voice dropped lower, richer with memory. "Before there was dark and light, there was The Radiant Genesis. The dawn of awareness. And from that dawn, we—the first ten—were born."
They looked at Qaritas.
"We were not created."
Qaritas's skin prickled.
"We awakened."
Hydeius opened his eyes, his voice like distant thunder in a deep cave.
"There were ten of us in the beginning. We were known as the Primarch Ten. Not kings. Not warriors. We were... anchors."
"We kept reality from tearing at the seams," Cree said. "Each of us a pillar holding back collapse. We weren't rulers. We were the first laws the universe whispered into being."
"Jrin, who shaped Order. Daviyi lit the first mortal's mind with flame—Knowledge incarnate. Rlaucus? He looked into the Abyss—and taught it fear. Najen, who named Death, not as an end, but as a transition."
"Kelene, the one who made Matter breathe," Hydeius said. "Oreian, who mapped the dance of Planets. Xriana, who wove Fate from unspoken strings. Tysesh, who wrapped secrets in veils even we could not peer through."
Cree smiled faintly. "Hydeius, who gave mortals their first Souls. And I... who returned them, when their time was done."
"And Hrolyn," Hydeius added. "The first king of the Ascendants. The one who gave us purpose."
"But even kings have sons," Cree whispered.
Qaritas looked between them, the pressure rising behind his ribs.
"Who... was he?" he asked, though something inside already knew.
"I felt it first," Hydeius said. "When I looked into the boy's eyes. There was no soul. No echo. No beginning."
He paused. "I tried to warn Hrolyn. But his hope was blinding."
Cree leaned forward. "I felt it too. The boy, Eon, was missing something. It wasn't evil, not yet. It was emptiness. Hunger without shape."
"Hrolyn didn't listen," Hydeius murmured. "And Hex—Ascendant of the Universe—his queen... she defended the child. She believed he could be saved."
Cree looked down. "We knew he couldn't."
"Eon grew quickly. Too quickly," Hydeius said. "And when he began to speak, he whispered to the void."
"They say the void whispered back," Cree added.
"He created the Forsaken first," Hydeius said. "Mortals twisted into demigods. Given dark power beyond comprehension. They became his assassins. His spies. His monsters."
"And worse," Cree said. "He corrupted the Djallra."
Niraí leaned forward, her voice no longer playful but edged with grief.
"He did more than corrupt the Djallra. He shattered the gates—turned them into traps. I opened one during the fall of Lurnas... thought it was clean."
Her hand twitched on the table.
"It brought in screams. For seven hours. That's all we heard. Screams from things we couldn't see. Couldn't unhear."
She exhaled shakily.
"Since then, every time I shape a gate, I listen for the echoes before I step through."
Qaritas looked up. "What are the Djallra?"
"The Djallra were once called the Iyrian—gods born of us and the realms we shaped. Peacekeepers. Until Eon made them weapons."
"Eon became a warlord," Hydeius said. "And the first universe fell under his dominion."
Qaritas gripped the edge of the table. Something trembled in him.
Then the vision struck.
He saw chains made from starlight and bone. A throne of severed wings. A woman's scream echoing across collapsing galaxies.
His breath caught.
The vision clawed back into silence, leaving his skin cold with recognition.
"I saw her."
The scream wasn't sound—it was shape. A spiral of galaxies caving inward.
"It wasn't memory," Qaritas whispered. "It was inheritance."
"Hex. She was screaming his name."
His voice cracked. "Not from memory... from marrow. That scream lives inside me, like a scar I never earned."
Hydeius nodded, eyes closed in sorrow. "She was the last to believe in him. And the last to suffer."
"He devoured her," Cree said, softly. "Bit by bit. While she begged him to stop. Not for herself—but for the universe."
"He took her eyes," Hydeius said. "Carved them into his own skull. Said they helped him see into the soul of everything—before he broke it."
"He began... harvesting eyes," Cree whispered. "From gods. Mortals. Ascendants. It became his signature. His mockery."
"And his power," Hydeius added. "He learned how to take the gifts of others by destroying them from the inside. He didn't conquer—he consumed."
The silence that followed was not mere quiet.
Ayla's voice finally cut through.
"The rest of us," she said, "were not born in the light."
Qaritas looked up.
"We were mortal once. All eighteen of us. Warriors, rebels, protectors. The ones who rose against him when no one else would."
Ayla's voice wavered—just once. Then steadied.
"I remember my first life. I was born of one of his concubines. Raised as a servant. Trained as a weapon. I was his assassin. And I hated him."
She didn't meet anyone's gaze.
"Komus... he was my brother in that life. He tried to free us."
She fell silent.
Komus spoke, his voice low and raw. "He made us watch. As he carved out our eyes. As he fed on us."
"Our heads were displayed on the high spire of his palace," Ayla finished. "But our souls didn't die."
Komus added quietly, "Space remembers everything. Even the screams. Especially the screams."
"We came back," Komus said. "All eighteen. And this time... we were born to stop him."
Ayla looked down at her hands. "But I remember her—the girl I was. And I wonder if she'd hate what I've become."
She finally looked at Qaritas. "Ascension doesn't cleanse pain. It just gives it a shape you can survive."
Cree met Qaritas's eyes.
* * *
As their fingers curled against the obsidian. "But that... was only the beginning."
And far below his thoughts, beneath even fear... something remembered her scream.
Qaritas closed his eyes. He wasn't ready to answer—but he was beginning to understand the question.
"That thing," Niraí said, "that called itself a child—it became something else. Too powerful to bind. Too cruel to comprehend."
"He destroyed planets," Komus added flatly. "Shattered the threads of time. Turned entire realities into prisons of ruin."
"Eon ruled the universe with the Djallra and the Forsaken at his side," Hydeius said. "But even that wasn't enough for him."
A pause fell. Cold. Razor-edged.
Cree exhaled. "He created a harem of stolen lives. Mortals. Ascendants. Hybrids. No one was spared."
Their voice hardened. "He experimented on them," Cree said, their voice cracking. "Twisted blood. Warped souls. Turned them into breeding grounds for... oblivion."
A silence fell.
"From that horror," Niraí whispered, "came the Light-Eaters."
He didn't realize he'd spoken until the words left him: 'What... are they?'"
Cree's voice, when it came, was almost reverent. "Wombs of ruin," they said.
"And from them came the Skotosars—Eon's children. The Children of the First Evil."
Hydeius's voice dropped. "Most were monsters. But not all."
"They say twin children were born in the harem," Ayla added. "Not Eon's, and yet... touched by him. They weren't meant to live, but they did."
"They were mortal," said Komus, "and yet the first to rebel."
"Skotosars by name," Niraí murmured, "but not by will."
Qaritas felt a tremor beneath his ribs. Something ancient stirring, listening.
"But Eon didn't stop," Hydeius continued.
"Then came the Six. No names. Just screams. Born from dead gods. Bound by spells even we couldn't unwrite."
"They don't obey," Cree said. "They remember hunger."
"And then," Hydeius said, "Eon's crimes became so vile... even Hrolyn could no longer bear it."
A stillness dropped over the table like a tomb-lid.
"He was ready to kill him," Cree said.
"They fought," said Komus. "It tore apart the stars."
Ayla nodded. "Their battle fractured the first universe. Some say that was the real Big Bang—not creation, but a wound."
"In that battle," Hydeius said, "Hrolyn ripped Eon's heart from his body. He forged it into a weapon bound by a single word."
Cree spoke the word like a breath turned blade: "Aun'darion."
Qaritas flinched.
It wasn't just a word. It was *weight*. It folded through him like a buried command he didn't understand—and couldn't ignore.
Something in his shadow stirred.
As if it had heard that word before.
As if it had once spoken it.
"One word," Cree said. "That's all it took."
"But it didn't last," Hydeius said.
"Because Hrolyn," Niraí said bitterly, "didn't kill him."
"He only delayed him," Komus added. "He scattered his essence. Sealed it in folds of void and rebirth."
Cree growled low in their throat. "We've lived through this cycle. One thousand, nine hundred, ninety-nine times. And every time... he comes back."
"I don't know how," they admitted. "Maybe because he has no soul. Maybe because the universe can't purge what was never whole."
"Every time a new reality begins," Hydeius said, "he returns. Changed, but the same. And the cycle begins anew."
Qaritas, who had listened in growing silence, finally spoke.
"Isn't there another way?" His voice was quiet, but steady. "A different weapon? One that won't destroy the universe on the 2000th turn?"
The table went still.
Hydeius looked to Cree. Cree looked to Ayla. No one spoke for a long moment.
Finally, Niraí said, "Hrolyn forbade us from searching for alternatives."
"His law is binding," said Komus, though his tone was laced with tension.
"But Hrolyn isn't here," Ayla said softly. "And we are."
Hydeius turned his gaze to Qaritas. "If we were to find another way—something that doesn't shatter the universe—we'd need access to things even we aren't meant to know."
Cree nodded slowly. "We'd need the Library of Knowledge."
"Daviyi," Ayla said. "Ascendant of Knowledge. She keeps the gate, and the lock."
Komus let out a slow breath. "And she doesn't give answers lightly."
Qaritas felt the pressure inside him pulse once, like a heartbeat in shadow. Something was waking.
"Then I want to speak to her," he said.
The others exchanged glances. The path ahead was dangerous—maybe forbidden.
But no one objected.
And so, to the Library of Knowledge.
The 2000th cycle wouldn't begin with war.
It would begin with a question.
And end with the answer the universe feared most.