"Let me show you where mercy ends."
Ecayrous's voice slid beneath their ribs like a blade wrapped in silk.
He extended one arm—and the horizon split.
"Welcome," he whispered, "to the Hellbound."
The colosseum rose ahead like a wound in the world—obsidian walls clawed into the sky, festooned with corpses twisted into garlands. Towers bled ash. Fire curled upward like prayer turned against its gods.
Then—
BOOM.
A massive glyph-covered arm exploded through the arena's upper tier, crashing into a spire beside them. A bestial roar answered, loud enough to bend the wind.
"They're early," Ecayrous said. "The gladiators are already hungry."
Flames burst from the colosseum. A shadow moved inside—twenty feet tall. Eyes like moons. Teeth like saws.
"This," he whispered, voice low, "is where you will train."
Qaritas flinched inward.
*Training*, he echoed in his mind.
But this wasn't discipline.
This was devouring.
This wasn't where gods were forged.
It was where they were unwritten.
No one spoke.
Because the scream rising from the arena wasn't pain.
It was joy.
No one spoke.
Because the scream rising from the arena wasn't pain.
It was joy.
"Welcome to the Hellbound," Ecayrous said. "Let's see who breaks first."
Daviyi's eyes narrowed, scanning the glyphs lining the inner arena walls.
"That pattern," she muttered. "That's not just for containment. It's preservation. Someone wants the pain here to echo beyond time."
She glanced toward Ayla. "I'd ask if this is familiar. But I already know it is."
Daviyi's voice dropped lower, almost reverent—like she was afraid to name what she saw.
"It's not training. It's transcription."
Her eyes followed one burning glyph as it blinked in sequence with a scream far below.
"Every scream that breaks here writes something in the next world."
A pause.
"That's how he rewrites reality—through the echo of agony."
Ayla didn't respond. Her eyes were locked on the arena.
Ecayrous inhaled deeply as they reached the Colosseum gate, like someone smelling bread before a feast.
"They said I couldn't train Ascendants. That your kind only learns through prophecy."
He turned, smiling like a knife learning to love.
"So I gave you prophecy written in muscle. In fracture. In the sound of gods begging not to win."
The roar that followed didn't echo—it took root.
Ecayrous spread his arms like a host welcoming guests into ruin.
"Welcome to the Hellbound. Let's see what your breaking point tastes like."
The moment they stepped through the coliseum's archway, the sound hit them like a blow.
Not just a cheer. A worship.
Howls. Screams. Laughter like knives.
The walls inside seethed with movement—thousands of beings packed shoulder to shoulder. Some humanoid. Some not. One crowd member had six mouths. Another lacked a face entirely.
The crowd roared, but Ayla didn't hear it.
Her breath hitched. Her fingers twitched. Her eyes—locked on the figure below—refused to blink, as if blinking would unmake him.
Qaritas reached for her—not with his voice, but his mind.
"Ayla?"
She didn't answer right away.
The bond pulsed softly between them.
A warmth passed through it—not just presence, but familiarity. Like the quiet between old friends who'd bled together.
Cree stepped slightly closer, flame dimmed along one shoulder.
"I don't know his name," they whispered. "But his soul remembered yours the second it looked up."
Their voice dropped to a murmur. "That kind of bond doesn't burn out. It waits."
Qaritas felt Ayla's pulse shift—not panic. Recognition.
"That's him," she said. Softly. Like she was afraid the thought might break if she held it too tightly.
"Zcain."
"He remembers," Qaritas replied.
"He looked at you like a prayer he thought he forgot."
A pause.
Then, in her voice, something delicate: not joy—relief.
"They survived."
"At least one."
Hydeius didn't look away from the arena.
"Fragments of Eon aren't the only things that survived."
He flexed his hand once. "Sometimes the pieces we leave behind become sharper than what broke us."
Then, quieter: "You gave him something worth surviving for. He's not just remembering. He's hoping."
Her thought trembled like a door opening for the first time in lifetimes.
"If Zcain is here… maybe the others…"
Hydeius didn't look away from the arena.
His voice came low—roughened by memory, softened by mercy.
"He was made from the same shrapnel that broke us."
A pause. The faintest curl of tension in his fist.
"But some fragments don't want to cut anymore."
"Some want to rebuild what they shattered."
Qaritas did.
"Ación. Rykhan. Nyqomi. Xasna. Laxiae. Shanian."
Ayla inhaled sharply.
"Do you think…?"
"I do," he said.
"You planted something in them stronger than Eon's will. Even in a dead universe, a root remembers how to reach sunlight."
"But the universes—" she hesitated. "There were only supposed to be two thousand. Niraí and Nysaeon said they fractured the rest to keep the Fold from consuming the core. All those echoes… all that pain…"
"And in all that ruin, something lived," Qaritas replied.
"You. Them. Fragments of mercy. Seeds."
The bond between them shimmered. Qaritas could feel her awe trying to hold itself still, like wings remembering how to unfold.
"How many do you think we'll face?" she asked.
Not fear. Not hesitation. Just... wondering. Wondering what kind of reckoning might wait on the other side of love.
Qaritas's answer was a whisper wrapped in quiet certainty.
"As many as it takes to find the ones who still remember your name."
Komus stepped forward, voice just above breath.
"I'd recognize that stance anywhere."
He nodded toward Zcain. "He's not fighting to win. He's fighting to be seen."
A pause.
"He used to do that when he wanted you to praise him."
Ecayrous's voice cut through the bond like a poisoned thread.
"Touching, isn't it?"
They turned to see him watching Zcain with something unreadable in his eyes—pride wrapped in something older.
"He remembers you. Sweet. But he's mine now. Born of your pain. Forged in my breath."
He turned his gaze toward Ayla.
"Didn't you wonder why I let that one live?"
A pause. A smile.
"Because Zcain wasn't just the strongest. He learned. He adapted. He broke and remembered the shape I needed him to be."
His voice lowered.
"He's my heir."
He smiled faintly—almost painfully. "He was always the loudest when he needed your silence."
A pause.
Then Ayla smiled. Not the blade-smile she wore in battle. But the soft one. The one she used only for memory.
For the children who once called her mother.
"I thought I lost them."
"You didn't," Qaritas said.
A silence threaded through the bond—not absence, but pause. Like the story itself was holding its breath.
Ash swirled in the arena light. Somewhere, a blade clinked against bone. The world didn't wait, but it didn't press either.
For one breathless moment, time stepped aside. Just long enough for her to feel something old stir inside her ribcage.
"He's calling me. He doesn't know how—but he is."
Niraí exhaled hard through her nose, arms crossed tight.
"Then let's find the others before Ecayrous does."
Her voice sharpened. "Because if he's using Zcain as bait... I will gut this coliseum with my bare hands."
The bond flared slightly with her fury—then steadied.
Not rage.
Loyalty.
The bond went still. Then warm again. Brighter.
Qaritas's voice was steady. Reverent.
"Then we'll find the rest. One by one. And when the time comes…"
"We free them."
Ayla's next thought came slow, but radiant.
"You'll help me do that?"
"Every step," Qaritas said.
"Until even the last universe remembers what mercy looks like."
And then—just before the silence closed—Ayla whispered:
"Thank you."
Not for the plan.
Not for the fight.
For the hope.
Below, Zcain shifted.
Not dramatically—just a subtle movement. A flick of his fingers. A small pattern traced near his heart.
Ayla blinked.
Her breath caught.
The lullaby glyph.
Seven small spirals, curling inward—drawn with invisible ink, meant only for memory.
She used to sketch it in the air above their beds, one for each of them, her voice soft as starlight.
Zcain had never sung it.
But he'd watched.
Always.
And now—beneath flame and fang, before the crowd screaming for blood—
He remembered.
Not her power.
Not her training.
Her love.
Ayla didn't move.
But her heart did.
It didn't race.
It opened.
"He's still mine," she whispered. Not to Qaritas. Not to the link. Just to the space where grief once lived.
And for the first time in eons—
It didn't echo back empty.
All were chanting one word, over and over, like prayer:
"Break. Break. Break."
The air inside was thick with ash and sweat. Magic coiled through it—old magic, blood-bound and hungry. Qaritas felt it grind against his bones, like it was testing the shape of him. Measuring him for destruction.
The arena floor was a vast pit of obsidian sand, lined with jagged pillars and teeth-like spikes. Corpses twitched where they'd fallen. Some still wept.
A great gong sounded.
The obsidian floor split.
The colosseum screamed for a break.
But Ayla no longer feared what would shatter.
She was already whole where it mattered.
First, what seem 100 dragons emerged.
Twenty-five feet of coiled muscle and nightmare. Scales like charred glass. Wings crusted with bone. Its breath hissed flame laced with whispers—not fire, but history. As they roared, memories combusted in the air. Someone in the stands forgot their own name.
Then the challengers appeared.
Two shadows stepped forward—not toward each other, but toward it.
The first:
A tall, raven-haired man 10 feet tall—shoulders loose with arrogant grace. His hair was a chaos of uneven strands, falling over sharp cheekbones and crimson eyes that smoldered without blinking. A lazy smirk tugged at his mouth as if this was all a game he'd already won. He wore a simple black cuirass, arms bare, scars like runes trailing down each bicep. A single blade rested on his shoulder—unmarked, ancient, sinful.
The second:
A woman 8 feet—or the shape of one—wrapped in skintight black leather that seemed grown from her own flesh. Her face was hidden behind a porcelain snake-mask, mouth slightly parted, hissing with every breath. Small, glass bottles clinked at her sides—filled with vapor, venom, memory. Her hips swayed like blades. Her nails dripped something luminous.
The dragon reared back. The man spun his blade once. The woman uncorked a vial.
The crowd didn't cheer for sides. It screamed for the break.
Qaritas felt Hydeius tense beside him.
But Ayla—
The way he shifted his weight—right foot sliding slightly forward—tore something loose in her mind. A forgotten rhythm. A memory pretending it doesn't exist.
Her breath caught. Her eyes locked on the man.
Something in her breath stuttered. A rhythm she hadn't remembered in Eons. Not his face. His presence.
Not the woman. Him.
The gladiator raised his eyes toward the platform—toward them—and smiled.
Komus stepped forward, voice a whisper drowned in thunder:
"Zcain."
Ayla didn't answer. Couldn't.
Ayla whispered, barely audible over the chant,
"He's still mine."
She didn't say it like a vow.
She said it like a prayer that had finally answered itself.
She didn't say it like a vow.
She said it like a prayer that had finally answered itself.
Below, Zcain's chest rose—not in exertion, but like breath had returned to something that forgot it was alive.
It was the kind of movement too quiet to be noticed—unless you had once sung him to sleep.