60. After the Collapse
After the Collapse
The portal to the Bone Spire closed behind us.
We stood in the familiar black stone halls, none of us speaking.
"I need to contact the others," Xül said, already moving. "Aelix, I’m sure my father will call a meeting."
"I’m coming," Aelix assured. "The sooner we understand what happened, the better."
I waited for Xül to look at me, but he kept his gaze fixed on Aelix.
"Xül," I started. “I need to speak with you.”
"Not now, Thais." He still wouldn't look at me. "This takes precedence."
"Come on," Marx said softly, taking my arm. "Let them handle the mysterious god stuff. You and I can raid the kitchen."
I let her lead me away, though my stomach was knotted. Behind us, another portal tore open.
"He's scared," Marx said once we were alone in one of the Spire's sitting rooms. She flopped onto a velvet couch, all sharp elbows and careless grace. "Men always get weird when they're scared."
I sank into a chair across from her. "He’s certainly something. "
"You claim he doesn’t care, but he was awfully quick with those death hands," Marx observed. "When he saved Thatcher."
“I don’t really want to talk about that right now.”
She pulled her knees up to her chest. "Of course you don’t.” She sighed. “Can we talk about the other elephant in the room, then? Or is that off limits too?"
I rolled my eyes. “Which elephant are you referring to, exactly?”
"The resistance, Thais. We're both caught up in it now." Her voice dropped.
I nodded slowly. "It seems that way."
"Being around it and being in it are different things." She picked at a thread on the couch. "Do you think they'll ask us to join officially? After we ascend?"
"Probably. If we survive."
"When," Marx corrected. "When we survive." She studied me. "You're planning to say yes, aren't you? When they ask."
"My brother's already sworn. I won't leave him to face this alone."
"And Xül?"
"What about him?"
"Don't play dumb. You're involved with the Prince of Death, whose father leads all of this. That's not exactly a neutral position."
"We’re not involved, Marx. Not anymore."
"So, it’s over then, just like that?"
"You've been warning me against him this entire time."
"Yeah, well." Marx had the grace to look sheepish. "That was before."
"So now you're team Xül?"
"I'm team Don't-Die-With-Regrets." She tossed the pillow at me. "Look, we're about to become gods tomorrow. Or die trying. And somehow you've been sneaking around with Death's son without getting caught."
"He’s engaged to be married."
"I'm just saying, if you made it this far without divine retribution raining down, maybe it's meant to be." She waggled her eyebrows. "Plus, have you seen the way he looks at you? It’s absurdly abnormal."
"You're ridiculous."
She shrugged. "But hey, what do I know? I'm just the girl who's been watching you two eye-fuck across every room you're in."
"Marx!"
"What? It's true."
She got serious for a moment. "He chose you today, Thais. When it mattered."
“Well, as I stated rather clearly before,” I murmured. “This is not a topic I want to discuss at the moment.”
Marx held her hands up in mock surrender. “Whatever you say, Morvaren.”
“How many of us made it out? I forgot to count.”
"Four." She unfolded from the couch. "Aelix says the Forging is unlike the other Trials. Olinthar himself oversees it. No games, no tricks, just a test of whether we can handle divine power without being destroyed by it."
"Comforting."
“I can’t imagine what it’s like for you,” Marx said. “Having to be in his presence.”
“Nearly unbearable, really. But I have it easy compared to Thatcher.”
Marx simply nodded.
"Any idea what domain you’ll choose?" she asked, moving to the window and looking out at the crimson sky.
“I haven’t really thought about it.”
Would it even make sense to stay here?
It was Xül who had made this place feel like home.
His domineering presence in the black castle.
Our sessions on the beach overlooking the midnight sea.
The Eternal City and its roaring gardens, where beauty bloomed even in darkness.
The way he'd gradually transformed from jailer to mentor to. .. whatever he was now .
And he still felt like a huge uncertainty. It was hard to believe that all of this was finally coming to an end. That I could be leaving this domain and sleeping in another tomorrow.
My heart throbbed at the thought. Leaving, after everything that had happened. Not waking up to crimson skies or black seas. Not knowing he was just down the hall, his presence a constant, complicated comfort.
I wondered if the other domains had places like the cliffs where Xül and I had stood watching the stars, if I could find one with an ocean, something that would tie me back to Saltcrest, to here.
Or maybe I didn't want that. Maybe I needed something new. Something that didn’t remind me of everything I'd lost.
Thatcher would be in Sundralis.
Maybe I'd follow him there.
My head spun with possibilities, and my mind wandered to darker futures.
The wedding that would seal Xül's political alliance.
Nyvora claiming him as her own. Would she move to Draknavor, turning this place into a daily reminder of what I couldn't have?
Would Xül leave, abandoning his sanctuary on the edge of the world?
Maybe they'd split their time between domains.
I couldn't imagine watching them together. Not for a long while. I couldn't have it shoved in my face decade after decade.
My chest seized as the concept took root.
Time, and the passing of it. Eternity. I couldn't fathom what that meant.
Would I feel heartbroken forever, or would time heal, as so many stories suggested?
Or was it different once immortality sank its claws in, making every feeling bright and burning and terrible forever?
I'd seen Xül's library, filled with journals documenting centuries of existence. How many of those pages held heartbreak? How many recorded loves lost or loves never realized at all?
Hours passed before a portal tore open. I was on my feet immediately, Marx right behind me.
Xül and Aelix stepped through, and one look at their faces told me the news wasn't good .
"Well?" Marx asked when neither of them spoke.
"Vorinar never showed," Aelix said grimly. "His seat at the meeting was empty."
"That's concerning," I said.
"Indeed." Xül's voice was tight with control. "And unlike him."
"How did the others feel?" Marx asked.
"Confusion. Concern. Suspicion." Aelix ran a hand through his hair. "Some think he's behind the domain's collapse. Others worry something's happened to him."
Aelix moved to Marx's side. "We should go. You need rest before tomorrow."
Marx glanced between Xül and me, clearly reluctant to leave. "You sure?"
"Go," I said.
She hugged me quickly. "Don't die before you become immortal, okay? Would be terribly anticlimactic."
Despite everything, I smiled. "I'll do my best."
After they left, Xül sauntered off without a word. I followed him all the way to his study, biting back the wince as his desk came into view. Those memories were still too painful.
He was already moving about, pulling books down from his personal collection.
"What are you looking for?" I asked.
He didn't look up.
I moved closer, reading the spines of the books he'd gathered. Divine Architecture. Realm Stability through the Ages. "You left so quickly earlier."
"The situation required haste."
"You're worried about more than just Vorinar."
Finally, he looked at me, and the mask cracked. "The domains don't just... break, Thais. Divine infrastructure has existed for millennia without failing."
"So, what could cause it? "
"That's what concerns me." He gestured at the texts. "Either something is fundamentally wrong with the domain itself, or?—"
"What?"
"Or something powerful enough to break a god's domain is among us."
We looked at each other across the chaos of his research, both thinking thoughts we didn't want to voice. The resistance existed because Olinthar had become a tyrant. But what if the threat was bigger than that?
"I need to tell you what I saw in the sanctum," I finally said, keeping my voice steady.
He looked up, his mismatched eyes finding mine. Then they hardened. "Being honest now?"
The edge in his voice made my jaw tighten. "Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Act like you have the moral high ground here."
"I wasn't aware I was acting." He set down his book with deliberate care. "Please, tell me about the sanctum."
“A prophecy unfolded while I was in there. Before everything went to shit.”
His attention sharpened. "What did you find?"
"More like something found me." I took a breath, then told him everything. The living prophecy, the visions of reality breaking, the hordes of creatures. And the woman.
Xül went very still as I described everything. When I finished, he moved to a different shelf, pulling out a tome that looked older than the others. The binding was some kind of scaled hide.
"Those sound like..." He flipped through pages. "But that's impossible."
"What is?"
He turned the tome towards me. The drawing was crude, ancient, but I recognized the wrongness immediately. Creatures that defied explanation—too many joints, too many legs, too many teeth.
"These were fabled monsters from the Cursed Lands of Vaerhuun," he said. "But those lands had been sealed for millennia, even before the four realms were separated. The creatures are long dead."
"Why did I see them?"
"I don't know." He studied the page intently.
I leaned back against the desk, careful not to let my eyes linger on it for too long. “The line of fate that led me to the door, it was intertwined with mine. Intertwined with Thatcher’s.”
"And this woman you saw—you said she looked directly at you?"
"Right at me. Like she could see me watching."
"That shouldn't be possible." His frown deepened. "Prophecies are echoes of potential futures, not windows. For her to see you would mean..."
"What?"