Chapter 5 — The Child Who Heard the Dead
Xheavend went to her room.
That was what Tavran believed.
Technically—
it was even true.
For a little while.
The room waiting for her inside the Deepcrest inn was beautiful in the strange, quiet way everything near the coast seemed beautiful.
The walls hadn't been built.
They had been grown.
Layers of ivory, pearl, and soft coral shell curved together as though centuries of tides had patiently convinced them to become architecture. They spiraled upward in overlapping patterns that caught every shift of lantern light, changing the room from pale moon-white to shallow-water green to the faintest wash of ocean blue.
Xheavend dragged her fingers along one wall as she entered.
Ridges.
Grooves.
Tiny imperfections.
The memory of tides preserved beneath her fingertips.
She liked that.
Perfect things made her nervous.
Rezorin would probably call that offensive.
The thought almost made her smile.
Almost.
She closed the door behind her.
The air smelled of salt, minerals, wet stone, sea grass, and distant cliffs warmed beneath a sun that had disappeared hours ago.
Normally, she loved it.
Tonight—
something felt wrong.
Xheavend stopped.
Her mismatched eyes slowly moved around the room.
One red.
One pink.
Nothing.
The bed remained where it had been earlier, low and wide, carved from one enormous shell whose curling edges made it resemble a cradle. Seafoam-green, pale-blue, and silver fabrics lay across its mother-of-pearl interior.
The dresser stood untouched.
The balcony doors remained open.
The bookshelf waited along the wall.
Nothing had changed.
Yet—
Xheavend could feel them.
Four presences.
Not behind her.
Not in the room.
Not exactly inside her either.
Somewhere between thought and existence.
Watching.
Waiting.
Holding her in place.
Her fingers curled.
"End?"
No answer.
Xheavend swallowed.
"Are you there?"
Still nothing.
That should have comforted her.
It didn't.
Because End was always there.
She didn't know exactly what End was.
Not really.
There were four of them.
Four beings.
Four voices.
Four presences that had followed her for as long as she could remember.
Sometimes masculine.
Sometimes feminine.
Sometimes neither.
Sometimes all four spoke separately.
Sometimes they spoke as one.
They had told her something once that Xheavend still didn't understand.
They had brought her back.
Back from where?
Death.
Apparently.
She had asked how she'd died.
They wouldn't tell her.
She'd asked why they'd brought her back.
They wouldn't tell her that either.
Only—
Your life is important.
That was End's favorite answer.
Important to whom?
Why?
For what?
Nothing.
Secrets.
Always secrets.
Xheavend hated secrets.
She pulled off her hood.
Black hair spilled free around her face.
Then she removed her mask and placed it beside the bed.
Tomorrow—
she would be ten.
Ten.
The thought should have made her excited.
It almost did.
Because tomorrow wasn't merely her birthday.
Tomorrow she would see her parents.
Her mother.
Her father.
After almost a year.
Xheavend sat on the edge of the shell bed.
She missed them.
More than she ever admitted to her brothers.
She missed her father's lessons.
Zcain had never taught her merely how to swing a sword.
He'd taught her weapons until she could feel the difference between balance and weight before she'd even learned the weapon's name.
Sword.
Spear.
Staff.
Axe.
Bow.
Daggers.
Things that weren't supposed to be weapons until someone clever enough picked them up.
But he'd taught her something more important than fighting.
People.
Never merely she's sad.
Why?
Never merely he's angry.
What did he want?
Who was lying?
Why were they lying?
Who was dangerous despite smiling?
Who wanted something?
Who was pretending not to?
How long should you remain silent before someone became uncomfortable enough to reveal something?
When should you negotiate?
When should you manipulate?
When should you walk away?
How did you recognize the beginning of cruelty before cruelty had enough time to become a pattern?
How did you detach—
without becoming cold?
Those lessons had always been strange coming from the Ascendant of Sin.
But Father had once told her that understanding darkness didn't require loving it.
Sometimes—
understanding it was how you survived.
Her mother taught differently.
Rnarah taught her dancing.
Writing.
Calligraphy.
Painting.
Archery.
Mapmaking.
Music.
Perfume blending.
Poison.
That last one had surprised Xheavend.
Her mother had laughed.
Beauty doesn't stop something from being dangerous.
Xheavend hadn't mastered most of those things.
Not yet.
She was nine.
For one more night.
Her brothers sometimes seemed to forget that.
So did she.
Her smile disappeared.
Because none of those memories answered the question that had bothered her for years.
Fragments.
Why wasn't she allowed to know about them?
Her parents were always with Ecayrous.
The Fragment of the Thousandth Universe.
She knew that much.
Everyone knew enough to fear the Fragments.
They were enemies of the Ascendants.
Enemies of her family.
But whenever Xheavend asked what they actually were—
You're too young.
Whenever she asked why they were dangerous—
When you're older.
Whenever she asked what Ecayrous wanted—
Not yet.
She had searched libraries.
Hours upon hours.
Nothing.
Records disappeared exactly where she needed them.
Books skipped entire periods of history.
Names were removed.
Pages were missing.
For someone who loved information—
it was infuriating.
Deepcrest was the farthest she'd ever been allowed to travel.
And even that had only happened because they were supposed to meet their parents, aunts, uncles, and the rest of their family.
Tomorrow.
Xheavend stared toward the balcony.
Tomorrow she'd ask Father herself.
And this time—
she wasn't accepting you're too young.
She grabbed a book from the shelf.
Something simple.
Something safe.
Twin sisters traveling across distant lands.
Adventures.
Places she'd never seen.
She carried it outside and climbed onto the balcony railing.
She read.
Or tried to.
Because something wouldn't let her relax.
End.
The four presences felt closer than usual.
Almost as though four invisible beings stood around her.
One behind.
One beside.
Two somewhere she couldn't place.
Holding her.
Protecting her.
Imprisoning her.
Xheavend didn't know which.
Then Tavran appeared.
"Xhea."
She looked up.
"Yeah?"
"I'm going to train. You want to come?"
Normally—
yes.
Always yes.
She loved training with Tavran.
Tonight her mouth opened—
and something inside her screamed.
NO.
Xheavend stiffened.
Four voices.
For once completely united.
She forced herself to smile.
"Not tonight."
She raised her book.
"I'm reading."
Tavran teased her.
She teased him back.
He promised they'd have adventures someday.
Then he left.
Xheavend watched him disappear.
Her smile remained until he was gone.
Then—
it vanished.
She looked down at the book.
The words weren't making sense anymore.
Because End was screaming.
Not speaking.
Not warning.
Screaming.
Four voices overlapping inside her skull.
DON'T.
WAIT.
NOT YET.
STAY.
Xheavend grabbed her head.
"Stop."
The voices stopped.
Immediately.
Her breathing didn't.
"What is wrong with you?"
Silence.
Then—
another voice answered.
Not End.
A woman.
Help me.
Xheavend froze.
Slowly—
she looked toward the balcony doors.
Nobody.
Please.
Another voice.
A man.
Then a child.
Then—
hundreds.
Help.
Please.
Find us.
It hurts.
Xheavend slid from the railing.
"No..."
She knew these voices.
She hated these voices.
Because whenever they came—
the dead followed.
The first corpse appeared beside the bookshelf.
A woman.
Bloody.
Half her face gone.
Xheavend squeezed her eyes shut.
"You're not here."
I was twenty-seven.
"Please."
I had two sons.
Another appeared beside her bed.
A man with something buried through his chest.
Thirty-nine.
Another.
A child.
Seven.
"Stop."
More appeared.
Ten.
Twenty.
Thirty.
Standing shoulder to shoulder inside the beautiful shell room.
Blood dripping onto floors that never became wet.
Bodies bearing wounds from deaths Xheavend had never witnessed.
And yet—
she knew them.
Names entered her mind.
Ages.
Births.
Loves.
Failures.
Kindnesses.
Cruelties.
Their happiest days.
Their worst.
How they'd lived.
How they'd died.
Their—
beginning.
And their end.
Xheavend stumbled toward the dresser.
Her fingers found a journal.
Hries had given her the first one years ago.
Her sixth-oldest brother.
The Ascendant of Compassion and Grief.
He'd found her surrounded by stacks of paper after one particularly terrible night.
Hundreds of names.
Hundreds of lives.
He hadn't told her to stop seeing them.
He hadn't told her they weren't real.
He'd simply brought her proper journals.
So she wrote.
She always wrote.
Because forgetting them somehow felt worse.
Her hand shook as ink scratched across the page.
Name.
Age.
Approximate period.
Family.
Life.
Death.
Best trait.
Worst trait.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Until—
the voices changed.
Come.
Xheavend stopped writing.
Every corpse turned its head.
Toward the balcony.
Help us.
Another turned.
Save them.
Another.
Stop it.
Then all of them spoke.
THE APOCALYPSE IS COMING.
Xheavend stared.
"What apocalypse?"
No answer.
"What does that mean?"
The dead began walking.
Through the balcony wall.
Xheavend rushed after them.
"Wait!"
End erupted.
NO.
She stopped.
Four voices spoke over one another.
STAY.
YOU ARE NOT READY.
DO NOT FOLLOW THEM.
XHEAVEND.
Her red eye burned.
Her pink eye watered.
"Then tell me what's happening!"
Silence.
"Tell me what I am!"
Nothing.
Xheavend's voice cracked.
"You won't tell me anything!"
That was what frightened her most.
She didn't know what kind of Ascendant she would become.
Her abilities hadn't awakened.
Not properly.
Whatever curse lived inside her was getting worse.
The dead.
The voices.
The memories.
Things she couldn't control.
Things that frightened everyone around her.
All twelve of her brothers took turns watching her.
All except Tavran.
Tavran hated switching.
He'd stay until someone practically forced him away.
She knew they loved her.
That made it worse.
They were Ascendants.
Powerful.
Important.
And they kept stopping their lives because their little sister couldn't even sleep without dead people crawling into her dreams.
Pathetic.
She hated that word.
She hated thinking it.
But sometimes—
when she was alone—
that was exactly how she felt.
The weakest of Zcain and Rnarah's thirteen children.
The one everyone protected.
The one everyone worried about.
Xheavend looked at the dead.
Maybe someday...
she could become something else.
Someone her family could be proud of.
Someone the universe could be proud of.
She closed her journal.
Then jumped from the balcony.
The dead made a road.
Xheavend followed.
She ran through Deepcrest with her hood pulled low and her mask covering her face.
Nobody saw her.
That was Tavran's doing.
A covenant laid upon her protection.
Temporary concealment.
Not true invisibility.
Something stranger.
People's attention simply refused to keep her.
Eyes slid past.
Thoughts misplaced her.
Memory struggled to hold her shape.
It had always made sneaking tremendously entertaining.
Tonight—
it saved her life.
At least for a while.
She ran.
Past darkened shops.
Past docks.
Past sailors.
Past buildings glowing beneath Deepcrest's strange lights.
The corpses continued ahead.
Hundreds now.
None of the living reacted.
Xheavend alone could see them.
They pointed.
Toward the road she'd been told never to take.
Hellbound.
Her feet slowed.
"No."
The dead continued.
Her parents were there.
That changed everything.
Mother.
Father.
Tomorrow suddenly seemed unbearably far away.
Xheavend looked back.
She could return.
Wake Icardà.
Find Tavran.
Tell Rezorin.
Drag Varin out of bed.
That was what she should do.
Then a child's corpse stopped ahead of her.
Turned.
And whispered—
Please.
Xheavend followed.
She was nine.
She was frightened.
And someone needed help.
Sometimes those three things create heroes.
Sometimes—
they create disasters.
Tonight they would create both.
The threshold opened.
And Mrajeareim remembered her.
Mist did not merely drift through the realm.
It clung.
Like breath trapped inside a throat that had forgotten how to finish dying.
Xheavend stepped through—
and immediately wanted to go back.
Reality looked wrong.
Not broken.
Corrected.
As though someone had written existence, disliked the result, scratched portions away, then rewritten them according to some private cruelty.
Bone towers stood where mountains should have been.
Vertebrae stacked upon vertebrae, fused into impossible architecture that faintly pulsed.
Above—
the sky sagged.
Different nights had been stitched together badly.
Stars appeared where they shouldn't.
Some vanished too soon.
Others refused to die.
Xheavend looked down.
Then wished she hadn't.
Faces existed beneath her feet.
Not bodies.
Impressions.
Prayers, mouths, eyes, and memories compressed beneath a dark lacquered surface.
One blinked.
The corpses drifted downward
Xheavend jumped sideways.
The floor sighed.
"Nope."
She backed away.
"Absolutely not."
The dead continued walking.
"You're all terrible guides."
One turned.
Sorry.
Xheavend stared.
"...At least you're polite."
She followed.
The farther she traveled—
the more everything leaned toward one place.
Hellbound.
Paths curved toward it.
Wind whispered toward it.
Even the pulse beneath the ground synchronized around it.
The chaos gradually became deliberate.
Rib-shaped arches repeated at exact intervals.
Sigils marked the path.
The ground became smoother.
The air smelled of iron.
Heat.
Something burned.
Something sweet.
Then—
the world opened its ribs.
Hellbound waited inside.
Xheavend stopped.
Every instinct she possessed told her to run.
End agreed.
LEAVE.
"I can't."
YOU CAN.
"My parents are here."
Silence.
That silence frightened her more than the warning.
She stepped across.
Hellbound accepted her.
She found her parents in the arena.
Not because she intended to.
Because the dead brought her there.
Xheavend emerged onto an elevated passage overlooking something so enormous her mind initially refused to understand its scale.
Then—
she saw him.
"Father..."
Zcain.
Below.
Fighting.
Rnarah was beside him.
Her mother moved through the arena like beauty sharpened into violence.
And opposite them—
something enormous screamed.
One eye.
Eight arms.
A body towering above structures Xheavend had thought were buildings until the creature smashed through them.
Her parents attacked together.
Xheavend's hands slammed against the railing.
"Mom!"
Nobody heard.
"Father!"
Zcain vanished beneath one enormous fist.
Xheavend screamed.
He erupted through the creature's wrist a heartbeat later.
Alive.
Fighting.
Her eyes filled.
"I have to help them."
End answered immediately.
NO.
Xheavend turned.
"What?!"
THAT IS NOT YOUR ROAD.
"They're my parents!"
WE KNOW.
"Then let me go!"
She tried moving.
Her legs refused.
Not paralyzed.
Held.
Four invisible presences wrapped around her existence.
Xheavend fought them.
"LET ME GO!"
Her mother disappeared beneath the monster's shadow.
Xheavend sobbed.
"I have to help them!"
Four voices surrounded her.
For once—
they sounded almost sorry.
TWO THOUSAND UNIVERSES NEED YOU ELSEWHERE.
"I DON'T CARE!"
The words ripped from her throat.
She immediately hated herself for saying them.
But she was nine.
Her parents were below.
And someone was telling her that strangers mattered more.
"I want my mother!"
Her voice broke.
"I want my father!"
WE KNOW.
"Then why?!"
No answer.
Her body turned.
Against her will.
Away from the arena.
Away from her parents.
And began running.
"No!"
Xheavend fought every step.
"No—stop!"
The dead appeared again.
A path.
Always a path.
Her tears blurred them.
"Why me?!"
Nobody answered.
"What did I do?!"
Nothing.
"I don't want this!"
Still—
her feet ran.
And for the first time in her short life—
Xheavend hated destiny.
The deeper Hellbound became—
the more alive it became.
Walls pulsed.
Floors contracted beneath her feet.
Passages narrowed around her as though measuring her.
Then she entered somewhere different.
The air became sweet.
Warm.
Almost comforting.
Xheavend immediately stopped.
Father's lessons returned.
Dangerous even when smiling.
Something could feel safe—
and still want to hurt you.
She backed away.
The wall behind her breathed.
Xheavend spun.
Flesh.
Not exposed wounds.
Not gore.
Something worse.
Smooth living tissue stretched into architecture.
Veins threaded through it like writing.
Faces occasionally pressed outward.
Eyes closed.
Mouths open.
Trapped.
Xheavend's stomach turned.
"The Flesh Ring..."
She'd heard the name.
Never what it meant.
Now she understood enough.
Hellbound didn't merely imprison bodies.
It learned people.
Memories.
Fear.
Pain.
Identity.
Then rearranged those things until victims stopped knowing which belonged to them.
And everywhere—
something else's presence lingered.
Ecayrous.
She had never met him.
Yet somehow she knew.
The Fragment of the Thousandth Universe had touched everything here.
Not physically.
Like an author leaving handwriting in the margins.
Xheavend hurried onward.
Then—
voices.
Not dead ones.
Living.
Crying.
Begging.
Arguing.
Languages she'd never learned.
Yet somehow—
she understood them.
Xheavend followed.
And found the market.
Cages.
Hundreds.
Some barely large enough to hold the people forced inside.
Men.
Women.
Children.
Creatures she had no names for.
Some wore armor.
Some ceremonial robes.
Some nightclothes.
One man still wore an apron.
They hadn't been dressed for imprisonment.
They wore whatever they'd been captured in.
Xheavend stared.
Her entire body went cold.
This wasn't—
She didn't even know what this was.
People couldn't own people.
Could they?
One guard shoved a woman into a cage.
Her head struck the bars.
Xheavend moved before thinking.
She grabbed the latch.
Opened it.
The woman stared.
Nobody was there.
At least—
nobody she could see.
"Run," Xheavend whispered.
The woman didn't ask questions.
She ran.
Xheavend opened another.
Then another.
Then another.
Alarms screamed.
"RUN!"
Prisoners scattered.
Guards charged.
Xheavend grabbed one woman's hand.
"Come on!"
The woman couldn't see her.
But she felt her.
They ran.
Around cages.
Beneath chains.
Through screaming crowds.
Almost—
Almost—
They were going to make it.
Then a man stepped into the road.
Seven feet tall.
Lavender skin.
Silvery-white hair falling to his chest.
A burgundy uniform fitted with military precision.
Gold bars at the collar.
WARDEN written across a dark-purple armband.
A medallion bearing the number 3 rested against his tie.
But Xheavend barely noticed the uniform.
She noticed the eyes.
Everywhere.
Tattooed across his arms.
His collarbone.
His throat.
Eyes stitched onto his white gloves.
Eyes embedded into the gold-rimmed decorations climbing his black boots.
Dozens.
Watching.
His actual eyes were lavender.
Narrow pupils.
Each surrounded by a halo of living shadow.
The woman beside Xheavend stopped.
"No."
The man smiled.
Not cruelly.
That frightened Xheavend immediately.
He looked like someone's older brother arriving to retrieve children who had stayed outside too late.
"Easy."
The woman shook violently.
"Please."
His voice was warm.
Deep.
Almost kind.
"You've hurt yourself."
Xheavend looked at the woman.
She hadn't.
The man sighed.
"You shouldn't run."
The woman turned.
He spoke one word.
"Break."
Crack.
The woman's left leg collapsed.
Xheavend screamed.
Another word.
"Break."
Her other leg folded.
Then—
"Arms."
CRACK.
Both arms shattered.
Not bent.
Not struck.
The bones simply obeyed him.
The woman fell.
Xheavend stumbled backward.
The man watched calmly.
No strain.
No glowing eyes.
No dramatic magic.
He had simply—
spoken.
And flesh had listened.
The woman's ruined limbs began crumbling.
Bone becoming powder beneath the skin.
Xheavend's breath caught.
The man stopped.
Instantly.
The destruction stopped too.
Control.
He had complete control.
He could have done worse.
He'd chosen exactly how much she would suffer.
That realization terrified Xheavend more than the ability itself.
The man bent down.
Grabbed the dead woman by loose skin near her shoulder.
Then looked directly toward Xheavend.
Her heart stopped.
He shouldn't see her.
Tavran's covenant—
He couldn't.
Could he?
His smile widened.
"Found you."
RUN!
End screamed.
Xheavend turned.
Something closed around her wrist.
Not fingers.
Magic poured from the man's gloved hand and wrapped around her arm in bands resembling chains made from shadow and lavender light.
Xheavend pulled.
Nothing.
The man tilted his head.
"Interesting."
She kicked him.
Hard.
He barely moved.
His eyes brightened.
Not angry.
Amused.
"Very interesting."
He began walking.
Dragging the corpse with one hand—
and Xheavend with the other.
She clawed at the magical chain.
"Let me go!"
He couldn't hear her.
Could he?
The covenant should have hidden even her voice.
His head tilted slightly.
A smile.
Xheavend stopped struggling for half a heartbeat.
He knew.
Maybe not what she looked like.
Maybe not what she was.
But—
he knew she existed.
End whispered urgently.
GO WITH HIM.
Xheavend nearly screamed at them.
What?!
HE DOES NOT KNOW YOUR FACE.
HE'S DRAGGING ME!
WE KNOW.
THAT IS NOT BETTER!
The four presences tightened around her.
WAIT.
The man stopped before a seller.
The creature barely reached two feet tall.
Boils covered his body, yellow-white fluid leaking from several swollen patches. One enormous eye dominated his face.
The seller bowed so deeply his forehead nearly struck the floor.
"M-Master Yzer."
Yzer.
Xheavend froze.
The Third Universe.
The Fragment.
This—
was Yzer.
He looked down at the seller.
"How much for the Dulajan child?"
Silence.
The seller blinked.
"My lord?"
"The child."
"I... don't see a child."
Yzer's smile grew.
Xheavend felt sick.
The seller hurried onward.
"But the woman—yes, yes, the woman belongs to my inventory, Master Yzer, and you'll have to pay for damages. Otherwise—"
Footsteps approached.
Slow.
Confident.
Metal whispered against stone.
"Yzer?"
The voice belonged to a woman.
Beautiful.
And horrifying.
Cropped light-purple hair framed her face.
Where ordinary eyes should have been—
three dying stars burned inside her sockets.
Chains covered her body like clothing, decorated with pieces of things Xheavend refused to examine closely.
The woman lifted one hanging piece toward her mouth and lazily dragged her tongue across it.
Yzer's expression changed immediately.
Not fear.
Not respect.
The exhausted irritation of an older brother discovering his sibling had arrived specifically to become annoying.
"Eirisa."
Eirisa smiled.
"I'm surprised."
She circled him.
"The Fragment of the Third Universe visiting Mrajeareim himself?"
Yzer's jaw tightened.
"Warden."
"What?"
"You said Fragment."
"You are one."
"Here, I'm Warden."
Eirisa laughed.
"Of course you are."
She leaned against his shoulder.
Xheavend expected Yzer's grip to loosen.
It didn't.
Not even slightly.
Eirisa continued.
"Ecayrous will want to welcome you properly. He's promised me time with some of his favorite prisoners."
Her dying stars flared.
"Perhaps he'll offer you something too."
Then she noticed the corpse.
"Oh."
Eirisa crouched.
The dead woman's face stared upward.
Eirisa stared back.
Then—
she drove her heel down.
Xheavend flinched.
Blood struck the floor.
"Although," Eirisa said casually, "he may be angry you ruined his merchandise."
Yzer smiled.
"Not when I found something worth purchasing."
Eirisa straightened.
Her three stars searched the market.
Nothing.
"And that would be?"
Yzer looked down.
Directly at the place where Xheavend stood.
"My new pet."
Xheavend stopped breathing.
"And ward."
His tone was gentle.
Protective.
Almost affectionate.
"She appears to be a Dulajan child."
His grip tightened.
"But I don't believe that's what she is."
Xheavend's skin crawled.
"And finding a child wandering the Flesh Market alone..."
Yzer smiled down at empty air.
"...makes me want to protect her."
Lie.
Xheavend knew immediately.
Not suspected.
Knew.
Her father's lessons screamed through her mind.
Who wants something?
Yzer.
Who's lying?
Yzer.
Why?
She didn't know yet.
Who's dangerous even when smiling?
Her red eye burned.
And suddenly—
she saw him.
Not as he stood.
As he was.
Blood.
So much blood.
Bodies.
Cities.
Screaming.
People begging someone they trusted to stop.
A hand resting affectionately on someone's shoulder moments before bones broke.
A smiling face.
A comforting voice.
Doors closing.
People disappearing.
Prisoners calling him protector.
Others calling him father.
Brother.
Friend.
Warden.
Then learning—
too late—
that every kindness had been a cage.
Xheavend recoiled.
This was what they hadn't told her.
This was why her family hid the Fragments from her.
Not because she couldn't understand monsters.
Because monsters could look like this.
Clean.
Calm.
Friendly.
Beautiful.
Safe.
While innocent people screamed behind them.
Her stomach twisted.
Yzer leaned closer.
"There."
His voice softened.
"You're safe now."
Every instinct inside Xheavend screamed.
Because somehow—
those were the most threatening words he'd said.
She pulled away.
His chain tightened.
"Don't."
One word.
Her body stopped.
Xheavend's eyes widened.
Not completely.
Her fingers still moved.
Her mind still screamed.
But her muscles had hesitated.
Yzer noticed.
His lavender eyes narrowed with fascination.
"Oh."
End spoke.
Four voices.
No fear now.
Something else.
Something ancient.
Something that suddenly made Xheavend feel as though the four beings surrounding her were staring through Yzer rather than at him.
DO NOT DESPAIR.
Xheavend's breathing slowed.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
Yzer studied the empty space before him.
End spoke again.
THE MONSTERS SHOULD FEAR THE END.
Xheavend didn't understand.
Not yet.
But she remembered.
Eirisa stepped closer.
"Is she wearing anything?"
Yzer glanced at her.
"I assume so."
"I can't see her."
"That is generally how concealment works."
Eirisa frowned.
"A Dulajan..."
Her expression soured.
"I've tried acquiring one before. Miserable creatures. They only pledge themselves to Ascendants."
She sighed dramatically.
"The ones in my universe have become particularly troublesome."
A smile returned.
"I may deal with them soon."
Xheavend stared at her.
Another monster.
Another smiling monster.
Eirisa wrapped herself around Yzer's left side.
"Take me back with you."
"No."
She blinked.
"No?"
"I'm busy."
"Doing what?"
Yzer lifted the hand connected to Xheavend's magical restraint.
"Getting my ward settled."
Xheavend pulled furiously.
I AM NOT YOUR WARD.
Yzer's mouth twitched.
For one horrifying moment—
she wondered if he'd heard that too.
Eirisa pouted.
"You've become boring."
"Perhaps."
"Can I visit?"
Yzer sighed.
"Eventually."
"Promise?"
"No."
Eirisa grinned anyway.
Yzer reached into his coat.
And pulled out a watch.
Old.
Worn.
Ordinary.
Xheavend stared at it.
Something about the object made End go completely silent.
Yzer pressed his thumb against the clasp.
Click.
The watch opened.
There were no hands.
No time.
Only numbers.
Layered.
Spiraling.
Moving over one another.
1.
2.
3.
Numbers multiplied.
97.
213.
600.
More.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
1,999.
Then—
2,000.
All visible simultaneously.
All shifting.
Rearranging.
Searching.
Choosing.
At the center of the watch—
was an eye.
Closed.
Yzer's thumb moved across the rim.
Numbers spun.
Xheavend's heart pounded.
Three slowed.
Others vanished.
Then—
the dead screamed.
Not the people around her.
Her dead.
Thousands of voices suddenly howled inside her mind.
Xheavend dropped to one knee.
"No—"
Then—
footsteps.
Six sets.
Running.
Coming closer.
Fast.
One presence struck her senses harder than the others.
Covenant.
"Tavran..."
Yzer looked toward the rooftops.
Xheavend followed his gaze.
A figure launched from one building.
Landed.
Jumped again.
Tavran.
His face—
She had never seen him look like that.
No calm.
No control.
No careful eldest-brother patience.
Only terror.
"XHEAVEND!"
Behind him—
Varin.
Wrath rolled around him hard enough to distort the air.
Rezorin followed.
Icardà.
And then—
Xheavend's heart broke.
Her parents.
"Mom..."
Rnarah.
"Father!"
Zcain.
They'd come.
All six.
They could see her now.
Tavran's covenant was breaking beneath panic, distance, and whatever Yzer was doing.
Her body flickered into visibility.
Black hair.
Mask.
One red eye.
One pink.
Tavran saw her.
His expression shattered.
"XHEA!"
Xheavend reached toward him.
"TAVRAN!"
He jumped.
One rooftop.
Then another.
Faster.
Closer.
Varin tore through the street rather than bothering to go around anything.
Rezorin shouted something.
Icardà's power erupted behind them.
Rnarah screamed her daughter's name.
And Zcain—
Zcain saw who held her.
He stopped.
Only for a fraction of a heartbeat.
But Xheavend saw it.
Recognition.
Then horror.
"YZER!"
The Fragment smiled.
Not at Zcain.
At Xheavend.
Like a father reassuring a frightened child.
"It's alright."
"No!"
Xheavend fought the chain.
"LET ME GO!"
Tavran jumped from the final rooftop.
His hand stretched toward her.
Xheavend stretched hers toward him.
Twenty feet.
Ten.
Five—
Yzer turned the watch.
The central eye opened.
Xheavend saw nothing inside it.
Not darkness.
Nothing.
Absolute absence.
The number 3 burned.
Reality split.
"TAVRAN!"
His fingers nearly reached hers.
Almost.
Almost—
Yzer pulled.
The world vanished beneath Xheavend's feet.
Tavran screamed her name.
"XHEAVEND!"
She saw him one final time.
Falling toward the place where she'd been.
Her brothers behind him.
Her mother reaching for her.
Her father moving with murder in his eyes.
Deepcrest.
Hellbound.
Her family.
Home.
All of it collapsed into a narrowing wound of light.
Xheavend reached through it.
"TAVRAN!"
Then—
the opening closed.
Her brother disappeared.
Her parents disappeared.
The screaming disappeared.
Everything disappeared.
Except Yzer.
His hand remained around the chain.
His expression remained gentle.
And somewhere inside Xheavend—
four voices whispered together.
Not comforting her.
Not promising rescue.
Promising something else.
REMEMBER THIS MOMENT.
Xheavend stared at the place where her family had vanished.
Tears slipped beneath her mask.
She was nine years old.
Tomorrow—
she was supposed to turn ten.
She was supposed to see her parents.
She was supposed to eat cake.
She was supposed to complain when Tavran watched her too closely.
She was supposed to demand answers about the Fragments.
She was supposed to have adventures with her brothers.
Instead—
the Fragment of the Third Universe had her chained beside him.
And for the first time in her life—
Xheavend finally understood why everyone had been so afraid to tell her what monsters looked like.
They didn't always have claws.
They didn't always scream.
Sometimes...
they smiled at frightened children.
Sometimes they called themselves protectors.
And sometimes—
they spoke so gently that the whole world believed them.
Yzer looked down at the invisible child beside him.
His smile softened.
"Come."
Xheavend's body went cold.
The command pressed against her bones.
Her muscles wanted to obey.
Her mind did not.
And beneath her fear—
something else stirred.
Something without a name.
Something that had been sleeping since End returned her to life.
Something that heard the dead.
Something that knew beginnings.
Something that knew endings.
Something that, one day, would make two thousand universes remember the name Xheavend.
But tonight—
she was only a child.
A terrified nine-year-old girl who wanted her brothers.
So when Yzer began walking—
Xheavend looked back at the empty place where Tavran had almost reached her.
And cried.