The screams behind the door thinned out into hoarse gasps, then sharpened into jagged, animal-like rasps.
Rnarah didn't move at first.
But when Qaritas asked—
"How long… how long has she had this curse?"
—Rnarah's breath caught.
Something in her face fractured, just for a heartbeat.
Then she walked toward her daughter's bed.
Even the insects parted for her, the swarm shifting like a tide around her feet. Rnarah sat beside Xheavaend, unbothered as bugs crawled over her palms, her wrist, her sleeve.
She touched the girl's half-regrown cheek, voice soft and knife-sharp.
"Her whole life."
Qaritas went still.
Rnarah continued, her tone slipping into the voice of a mother who has repeated a nightmare too many times to fear it anymore.
"This curse has only one rule:
the moment she sleeps… she watches the worst evils in every universe as if they're her own body."
She brushed tangled hair from Xheavaend's brow.
"So she forced herself awake for years, terrified that if she closed her eyes she'd spend the night watching worlds burn. She was ten when Zcain began training her. Ten. Your age when you learned to hold a knife… she was learning how to hold back extinction."
Qaritas swallowed hard.
"She never had a childhood," Rnarah whispered.
"Only this. She used to disappear for entire years. Traveling through universes. Saving billions by helping forge the heroes destined to stop the apocalypse on their worlds."
A small, proud, broken smile.
"Zcain thought she was running away. I knew better. Our daughter was building salvation before she even understood the word."
Qaritas stared. "She was… a child—"
"—who had to become a god far too early," Rnarah said. "And out of nearly two thousand universes, she was the first Ascendant to kill a Fragment."
Even Eon went utterly still in Qaritas's chest.
Rnarah's voice dropped further.
"Every time she slept, the curse tore her apart faster. She'd scream for hours. Tavren used to sit on the floor beside her bed, holding her as she dissolved in his arms."
Her throat bobbed.
"He would sing to her. Even as she melted. It was the only thing that grounded her."
Qaritas closed his eyes.
Rnarah stroked Xheavaend's hair as her body spasmed violently.
"Why show me this?" Qaritas whispered.
Zcain answered.
He didn't raise his voice.
He didn't turn around.
"Because I want Eon to meet an equal besides me."
Qaritas stiffened.
Eon snapped awake in his ribs.
Zcain continued, gaze fixed on the ruined body in the bed:
"And because we need to make a deal."
Before Qaritas could speak, Zcain turned—
not to him,
but to Eon.
He spoke directly into the hollow place where the primordial god waited.
"Sin and Evil need to talk."
A pause.
"The First Evil. Will you hear me out?"
Qaritas's eyes widened.
"Hold on—" he began.
Too late.
Eon ripped control away.
It felt like being yanked backward into his own skull.
His limbs stiffened.
His lungs seized.
His vision tunneled.
He fell inward—
past memory,
past thought,
into a dark throne room inside his own conscience.
Chains wrapped around him, binding him to the center of a great empty void.
Eon took his place in the body with a sigh of pleasure.
"Finally," he murmured, flexing Qaritas's fingers.
"God, I've missed being tall."
Qaritas screamed inside, but the sound had no air.
Eon turned his borrowed head toward Zcain.
"Speak, Sin."
Zcain didn't flinch.
"Break her curse," he said. "And break mine."
Eon tilted Qaritas's head, amused.
"And what do I get? Because so far it sounds like you benefit, she benefits, the universes benefit… and I get unpaid labor."
Zcain's voice was steady.
"If you agree to help us kill the Fragments of Eon,
I will build you a new body.
A body worthy of the First Evil."
Eon laughed—a low, delighted sound.
"Tempting," he said. "But not enough."
Zcain's eyes narrowed. "Then name your price."
Eon leaned forward—
—and the world cracked.
For a heartbeat, everything held unnaturally still—like the room forgot how to move.
He stepped closer, Qaritas's borrowed shadow stretching impossibly long behind him.
"If I break her curse—and yours—then you belong to me."
Zcain's expression didn't change, but something behind his eyes flared.
Eon continued, purring:
"Your loyalty. Your service. Your obedience. Unconditional."
The air thickened abruptly, pressing against their lungs as if the ward sensed the danger.
His fingers tapped Qaritas's sternum like knocking on a door.
Zcain's jaw tensed. "Name it."
The sigils along the walls dimmed, like the ward was holding its breath.
Eon's grin widened—slow, predatory.
"If Xheavaend becomes mine."
A faint tremor passed through Zcain's aura—gone as soon as it appeared, but enough to crack the air like a fault line.
The temperature in the room dropped.
"She'll be my bride. Bound to me. And that bond will break our deal.
Brutally simple. Elegantly cruel."
For a heartbeat, no one breathed.
Qaritas felt his own mind slam against Eon's grip, a silent, frantic pounding.
Even the insects stopped moving—hanging in the air like suspended ash.
Zcain's aura flickered, just once, a sharp crack of scarlet through the dim.
Something inside Qaritas recoiled violently, like his soul tried to claw its way out of Eon's grip.
He tilted his head, delighted with himself.
"A curse like this requires balance. To undo such divine rot, something must be given. A life debt. A life price."
His eyes glowed golden, ancient.
"And either you… or your daughter… will owe it."
A pause.
Soft.
Deadly.
"Agree to the price, and I will do the impossible for you."
Eon leaned forward, voice a seductive whisper:
"Refuse… and she sleeps until the multiverse ends."
Qaritas's breath stuttered
The walls trembled.
Insects SCATTERED in a frenzy, swarming toward the ceiling like smoke.
The lights flickered until the room drowned in darkness.
A growl rose from the foundations of Taeterra—
not animal,
not human,
not divine.
Something older.
Bones erupted from the stone, forming skeletal hands that grabbed Qaritas's—no, Eon's—arms and pinned him against the wall.
The entire ward shuddered like a beast waking up.
Zcain stepped back, eyes blazing crimson.
Rnarah clutched her daughter's arm, whispering a prayer older than light.
From the bed—
Xheavaend rose.
Not like a person waking.
Like a corpse obeying an ancient command.
Her head lolled. Her neck snapped itself back into place. Maggots and insects formed a shawl around her shoulders as she stood.
Her eyes opened—
One pink.
One red.
She stared directly at Eon.
"Don't."
Her voice was both a whisper and a thunderclap.
"Don't make this deal."
Eon grinned.
"Oh, I LIKE you."
She stepped forward—her half-decayed foot hitting the floor with a wet slap.
"Father," she said to Zcain, "he will not touch my curse. I will break it myself."
Eon laughed.
"Bold. Pretty. Furious. I want her."
Zcain's aura exploded in scarlet.
"She is married."
Eon tilted Qaritas's head, smirking.
"You didn't say beloved.
And we both know that bond is… powerful."
His gaze flicked to Aarion's sleeping, comatose form.
"I assume that's the husband? He looks deliciously useless."
Xheavaend's lip curled.
"You don't know anything about him."
"I know he's unconscious," Eon said.
"Which makes him a terrible conversational partner."
Xheavaend didn't hesitate.
She lifted her hand—
And threw a knife straight into Qaritas's chest.
Qaritas SCREAMED inside his own mind—
—but Eon didn't even flinch.
The blade missed Qaritas's heart by inches.
It buried itself directly into Eon's true heart
—the one inside the sigilmark deep within his essence.
Eon stared at the knife.
Then he laughed.
Wide.
Wild.
Beautifully unhinged.
"I don't know if I should be impressed…
in love…
or afraid."
Xheavaend rose taller, her body knitting itself just enough to let her speak clearly.
Her voice was ice.
"First warning, First Evil.
Never threaten my family."
Eon laughed harder.
"This is the SECOND time someone got the upper hand on me.
The last was my father.
Though that was a fluke."
"Never," Xheavaend hissed, and collapsed—
bones cracking, body melting into her bed.
Rnarah caught her mid-fall, voice breaking into real fear.
"Not yet," Xheavaend whispered.
"It's not time yet…"
Her eyes dimmed.
She went still.
Zcain moved toward them on instinct—then stopped, hands half-lifted, as if afraid his touch would shatter her further.
Eon bowed his stolen head.
Elegant. Mocking.
Dangerous.
"Fine. I'll break her curse
And yours."
Zcain inhaled sharply.
Eon added, voice dripping with heat:
"But only AFTER you build me a proper body."
He glanced back at Xheavaend's unconscious form.
"And my earlier offer stands.
She is the one escape clause in this deal."
Zcain's jaw tightened.
Eon smiled.
"Shame to chain her to someone she was never meant for."
And just like that—
Eon released Qaritas.
Qaritas crashed into himself like someone falling into their own skin.
His lungs worked again.
His hands obeyed.
He gasped for air like he'd been drowning for hours.
A bell chimed through Taeterra.
Soft.
Echoing.
Gentle.
Completely opposite of the horror still clinging to the room.
Zcain sighed, rubbing his temple.
"Breakfast. Then more training.
Tonight you'll fight with a weapon."
Qaritas tried to stand—and his knees buckled.
The world swayed, vision doubling for a second, the echo of Eon's presence still clawing at the edges of his skull.
His hands shook, traitorous and weak.
His body still trembled.
The echo of chains clung to his bones.
Xheavaend's scream twisted under his ribs.
He could still feel Eon smiling behind his eyes.
It was too much.
All of it.
Eon's voice slid in, smug and nostalgic.
"Gods, I've missed negotiations.
Back in the First Universe, my deals were legendary.
Deals like this one are how I helped make the First Universe fall."
Qaritas closed his eyes.
And realized—
Everything had just changed.
Forever.