Chapter 41
The blast of black-white radiance swallowed the entire chamber.
Not violently.
Not gently.
But with the inevitability of a truth rising to the surface after being drowned for millennia.
The crowned Watcher shielded its eyes with a wing of star-dust.
The messenger collapsed onto one knee, every nerve burning with the overload of paradox.
But Orion—
He did not move.
The light curled around him like reverence.
Like recognition.
Like memory.
When the radiance faded, the chamber had changed.
The throne floated higher now, surrounded by spirals of fractured time like planetary rings. The monoliths had shifted position, aligning themselves into a vortex pathway leading directly toward Orion.
Reality had rearranged to witness this moment.
But the woman—
the half-formed silhouette of brilliance and shadow—
remained exactly where she had been.
Her blurred outline pulsed, flickering between clarity and distortion.
For a moment, she looked like a goddess.
The next, like a ghost.
Then, like someone painfully familiar—
a presence Orion felt in his bones, in his blood, in every fragment of shattered history that led him here.
She stepped closer.
This time, the world didn't explode.
It knelt.
The monoliths halted mid-orbit.
The cosmic mist retreated.
The entire cavern dimmed, forming a stage for her presence alone.
Her voice came again, layered with overlapping echoes—
as if countless versions of her were speaking slightly out of sync.
"You've grown," she whispered.
"Even without the memories I stole from you."
Orion's fingers tightened.
Stole?
He stared at her, wings half-raised, unsure whether to attack or reach out.
"You speak as if you know me."
A soft laugh answered him.
Not mocking.
Not cruel.
Just unbearably sad.
"Know you?"
She tilted her head, and for a split second—
her face sharpened.
Revealing eyes like dying stars.
A smile both bright and broken.
Cheekbones shaped like echoes of someone Orion remembered in nightmares he never understood.
And just as quickly—
the clarity shattered, returning her to a blurred silhouette.
"I shaped you," she said.
"I unmade you."
"I hid you."
"And I lost you."
Orion's heart hammered.
"…Mother?"
The word slipped out—
not chosen by thought,
but dragged out by instinct.
The woman didn't confirm.
She didn't deny.
Instead, she lifted her hand.
Space bowed.
Time knelt.
Winds froze.
And she extended her fingers until they hovered a hairsbreadth from Orion's cheek.
"You still call me that…"
Her voice fractured, glitching between ages.
"…even after everything."
The crowned Watcher behind them stiffened.
The messenger's voice quivered with panic:
"M-my lord—this energy… this resonance—she's not just connected to your bloodline. She predates it. She predates the Ten Pillars."
Orion didn't react.
He couldn't.
Her presence pinned him in place—not with force, but with an emotion he didn't have a name for.
Then—
Her form flickered violently.
A glitch.
A tear.
A corruption in existence itself.
She staggered, pressing a hand to her chest as static seeped from the edges of her figure, dripping like black rain onto the floor before evaporating.
"Not… stable…" she muttered.
"I stayed too long in the forgetting."
Orion stepped forward instinctively, catching her even though his hands passed through portions of her dissolving form.
She managed a weak smile.
"Always protecting. Always reaching. Just like before."
"Before what?" he demanded.
Her eyes—those flickering, failing lights—met his.
"Before you died."
Silence dropped like a guillotine.
Even the island's heartbeat halted for a moment.
Orion's breath froze.
"…I died?"
"Yes," she whispered.
"Long ago. On this island. In my arms."
Her form blurred further, the silhouette flickering in and out with frantic pulses.
"I brought you back. But the price…"
Her voice cracked.
"…was everything you once were."
The messenger collapsed completely.
The crowned Watcher slowly closed its eyes.
Orion felt the chamber tilt.
The Throne of Paradox hummed—
a deep, resonant vibration that echoed the truth she spoke.
He swallowed.
"What was I?"
She looked up at him—
not as a goddess, not as a ghost—
but as a woman who had carried a burden the universe refused to remember.
"You," she said slowly, each word heavy with cosmic consequence,
"were the last heir of the Unwritten Line.
My son.
The one meant to sit on that throne…
and choose whether the universe continues—
or ends."
Orion's wings trembled.
The Throne pulsed.
The island shuddered.
But she wasn't finished.
Her body flickered, shape collapsing inward.
She reached for him, fingers trembling, each motion cutting through the chamber like a blade of unfolding truth.
"I erased your identity to save you…
but now—"
Her face wavered through dozens of versions—
youthful, ancient, broken, divine.
"—the universe needs you to remember."
She pressed her dissolving hand to his chest.
A shockwave rippled outward, forming rings of memory.
And from her mouth—
soft, shaking—
came two devastating words:
"Awaken, Orion."
Her body shattered into black-white brilliance.
Light consumed the chamber.
And everything changed.