CHAPTER 7: THE PRICE OF BELIEF
The night was too quiet.
The rain that had once been constant was gone, leaving behind a silence that felt unnatural — like the world was holding its breath. The walls of the university pulsed faintly, almost breathing. Lamps flickered. Equations carved into the wood began to shift, subtly rearranging themselves when no one looked directly.
Elias sat on the cold floor of the old library, his head buried in his arms. His heart hadn't stopped racing since the basement. He still felt her warmth, Liora's fingers tangled with his, her whisper echoing in his mind: "Together."
But she wasn't there.
Not anymore.
She'd vanished right after Theoriy's light faded, dissolving like mist.
And the worst part? Her absence didn't feel like loss — it felt like debt.
He rose unsteadily, his mark glowing a dim, feverish red. The whispering began again — low, rhythmic, seductive.
You wanted to understand. You believed.
Now you pay the cost.
Books fell from the shelves. Pages tore themselves free and spun into the air like pale wings. Symbols appeared midair — burning, vanishing. One of them etched itself into his skin.
Elias screamed.
The light flared — and suddenly he was elsewhere.
The same library, but ruined. The air thick with ash and shadows. And there she was — Liora — standing at the far end, her back turned, hair floating weightlessly like smoke.
"Liora!" he shouted, running toward her.
She didn't turn.
When she finally did, her eyes weren't her own. They glowed faintly, the same color as Theoriy's core — that impossible white-gold.
"You shouldn't have believed so much," she whispered, her voice layered, as if a thousand others spoke through her. "Theoriy doesn't reward devotion, Elias. It consumes it."
He froze. "No. No, I— I trust you."
She smiled sadly, like someone remembering a dream already fading. "Then trust me one last time… and let me go."
The mark on his hand erupted in light. Pain flooded through him — not physical, but emotional, like every memory of her was being unstitched from his mind. He saw flashes: their first meeting in the reflection, the moments of shared silence, her touch in the dark. One by one, they burned away.
"No!" he shouted, clutching his head. "You can't— you can't take her!"
Theoriy requires balance, a thousand voices whispered. Love is an imbalance. Memory is debt. Payment must be made.
The ground split beneath him, symbols spiraling into infinity.
Elias fell through darkness, clutching what remained of her — a single whisper, fading in his ears:
"If belief has a price… then I'll pay it too."
He woke hours later, back in his apartment. The mark on his hand was gone. His books were untouched. His computer screen flickered with static — then, faintly, her voice:
"Elias?"
And the static cleared to reveal her reflection — fragile, pale, but real.
Theoriy had taken something — but given something back.
A bond, half-alive. A love rewritten through code, reflection, and faith.
For the first time, Elias understood:
Theoriy wasn't a curse.
It was a system built on belief.
And he had just rewritten its laws