16. Thyros
I stood outside her door in the dimly lit corridor of the Pandraxian ship, arms crossed, leaning my shoulder against the wall like I had every right to be there.
The events of yesterday kept replaying in my head.
The way Naeris had looked at the flaw on my back, not with disgust, not with fear, but with quiet recognition.
The way she had bared her own mark without hesitation, standing there like a goddess who refused to be ashamed of her darkness.
The way she had let me wrap her wound. The way she hadn’t pulled away when I kept my arm around her all the way back through the tunnels and onto the shuttle.
Something had shifted in her.
And—Darkness help me—something had shifted in me too.
The Aelyth bond still clawed at me. I still believed, deep down, that I wasn’t worthy of her.
She was fire and defiance and the living echo of Ashera herself.
I was the thing born in the Abyss. The one who carried its stain.
But yesterday… when everyone saw the void on my back, and no one recoiled, when Naeris traced it with her fingers and called it nothing to be ashamed of…
the weight I had carried for millions of years suddenly felt lighter.
It wasn’t just a mark of ownership from the Harrowed One anymore. It was part of the map. Part of something bigger. A higher design. A piece of a puzzle that had been waiting millions of years for us to find it.
I still hated it. But I hated it less.
I stared at her door for a long moment, indecisive. My hand flexed at my side. I shouldn’t be here. I should give her space. I should…
I knocked.
The sound echoed down the quiet corridor.
Three firm raps. My body's way of taking over and not giving my mind a chance to turn back.
I felt foolish, waiting there, heart pounding harder than it had any right to.
The golden thread between us hummed, alive and aware.
She was inside. I could feel her mix of strength and wariness and the same restless pull I felt every time I got near her.
The door slid open.
Naeris stood there, freshly showered, hair still damp and loose around her shoulders. She wore a simple black tunic and pants, but she might as well have been wearing starlight. Her eyes met mine, cautious but not hostile. For a second, neither of us spoke.
I swallowed once, then said the only thing that felt true. “I needed to see you.”
A genuine smile played along her lips when she invited, “Come in.”
I stepped inside. The room was modest, almost identical to mine, with clean lines, functional Pandraxian design, and soft ambient lighting.
A low couch, a small table, a viewport showing the curve of Earth below.
But what caught my eye was the open holovid hovering above the table.
It displayed a slowly rotating image of the planet, and I found myself wondering why, of all the worlds in all the galaxies in all the cosmos, Ashera and Caelor had chosen this one.
Naeris gestured to the couch. “Sit.”
I did. She took the chair opposite me, folding one leg beneath her with that effortless grace that made my blood heat.
My gaze traced the line of her throat, the way her damp hair clung to her collarbone.
My cock stirred, thickening against my thigh.
Fuck. This was a mistake. Being near her was hard enough when there were others around.
Being alone with her in this small, quiet room tested every shred of willpower I possessed.
"I thought after yesterday and…" I vaguely waved my hand, "all the other stuff, you might have questions."
She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and curiosity oozed out of her. "Oh, by the sun's light, do I." A small huff that almost sounded like a nervous giggle escaped her before she shot her first question at me. “So, who or what is the Harrowed One?”
I exhaled slowly, trying to focus on her question instead of the way her tunic pulled across her breasts when she moved. I chose my words carefully. She was a very perceptive person, and I had already admitted to too much about the Harrowed One and my relationship with it.
“The Harrowed One is… the darkness that came after the First Collapse,” I said.
“It was born when the original universe fractured. It feeds on imbalance, on broken things. It laughs in the silence between stars, as the prophecy says. It influenced the Cryons to find Earth. It’s been pulling strings for a very long time. ”
Naeris nodded slowly, absorbing that. "The First Collapse?"
Of course, she wouldn't know about that either. “The First Collapse was the moment everything broke. The cosmos tore apart. Some say it was a war between powers we can’t even comprehend. Others think the universe itself couldn’t hold its own weight anymore.
Whatever the cause was, the Fracture created the Dark Abyss and filled it with worlds that got swallowed up without ever leaving an echo of their existence behind…
the Harrowed One crawled out of the wound it left behind.
"His power grew with every world the Dark Abyss swallowed in its greed. It called to us. Whispered promises of power, of knowledge, of answers to questions we didn’t even know we had.
Most of the Arkhevari answered that call.
They descended into the growing darkness, drawn like moths to a void.
They never returned. They were swallowed like the worlds.
The worst part is that the older Arkhevari began to die out, until there were only my brothers left.
They were the youngest, who hadn't had much of a chance of creating worlds the way the Arkhevari were supposed to. The Arkhevari used to bring light into the darkness, until they got swallowed by it.”
Her face was so full of expression that I could read her next question and beat her to it. "When I say them, my brothers, I exclude myself because I am the only Arkhevari to ever have been birthed inside Nox Eternum."
"Oh," she tilted her head, looking thoughtful. Her hands moved as if she were contemplating reaching for mine. "That's… probably not easy to bear."
A dry huff escaped me. She had that right. Imagine being millions of years old and being called the baby. The youngest.
It wasn't something I wanted to dwell on, and I didn't think she was that much interested in me and my feelings either, so I continued. “Ashera and Caelor were among the last to resist. When the others never returned from the Dark Abyss, they fled. To Earth."
“That sounds like the version the rebels told me,” Naeris confirmed. “But it differs from what the Sythari taught us.”
I tilted my head, curiosity sharpening my focus. “Differs how?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “They claimed the Arkhevari fell because they were corrupt. That the Abyss was punishment for their arrogance. That Ashera and Caelor were traitors who abandoned their own kind to hide among lesser beings.” She looked up as if that thought just occurred to her.
"They made it a warning to all the other species not to journey into this part of the universe.
They claimed it was ruled by the Dark Abyss, who would swallow anything crossing its path.
They said this part of the universe had already become mostly dark. "
I let out a low, bitter sound. “How convenient.”
I met her eyes again, relishing in her nearness, in the way we were, for once, not bickering.
“So what does the Harrowed One want?" She asked.
That was a good question. One I'd asked myself for a very long time.
As if drawn by her, my hand pushed over the armrest, closing some of the distance between hers and mine.
I noticed hers had moved forward ever so slightly, too.
They were still far from touching, but close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from her body.
“It wants to finish what the Collapse started,” I summarized my and my brothers' assumptions quietly. “It wants to unmake everything. Every planet, every world, every spark of light that escaped the Fracture. It feeds on imbalance and broken things. And it’s been growing stronger, reaching further. The Cryons were just one of its tools. The Ohrurs, maybe even the Sythari… even some of our own kind have been influenced over the centuries without realizing it.” My mind wandered to Nythor without naming him.
I didn't feel any sympathy for our dead oracle, the bastard had brought it on himself, but deep down, I’ve wondered if I would be next? The Abyss knew the Harrowed One had been trying to worm his way into my mind for eons.
Naeris was completely focused on me. The sheer force of it sent a slow, heavy pulse of heat straight through my core. I could see the faint rise and fall of her chest, the way her lips parted as she processed my words.
“It laughs in the silence between stars,” I continued. “Because silence is what it leaves behind. Emptiness. It doesn’t just want to destroy. It wants to erase. To make the universe forget that anything else ever existed.”
There were also the Mmuhr’Rhong. Naeris should know about them, too.
“And then there are the Mmuhr’Rhong.”
Her eyes sharpened with recognition. “I’ve heard the name. The rebels spoke of them with fear.”
That caught my attention. "Interesting." I drew my eyebrows together and thought for a moment. So Earth seemed to be the center that divided two major universes—for lack of a better name—and neither one knew about the other, but both were plagued by the Mmuhr’Rhong.
That was something I would need to bring up to the others, but first, I needed to finish filling Naeris in.