Chapter 36 Nadine
Nox Eternum did not welcome us. I suspected it never had in the first place.
The Arkhevari homeworld existed in a state that defied human understanding, vast, luminous, and heavy with a presence, as if the space itself remembered too much.
When we arrived, the stars seemed to dim around it, swallowed by that familiar sense of gravity that wasn't physical at all. Memory. History.
Power that had never learned how to rest. Through the bond, I felt Dravok feel it the moment we crossed the threshold. The same bond allowed him to steady himself beside me. This was where he had been shaped. Where everything he was had been refined, restrained, and ultimately fractured.
The Hall of Seven revealed itself gradually, unfolding from the living stone like a thought taking form.
It was circular, impossibly vast, its ceiling lost in a soft, internal glow that had no visible source.
The floor was smooth and dark, veined with slow-moving light, like currents beneath deep water.
I had seen great halls inside massive domes meant to observe the stars, but this one wasn't built to impress. It was built to contain.
The others were already there. Five figures stood spaced evenly around the hall, each one a gravity well unto itself.
I felt them before I could properly look at them; the weight of their presence pressed against my senses, and their power vibrated just beneath the surface of reality.
None was monstrous, nor corrupted in any obvious way.
But their auras were layered, turbulent, threaded through with darker hues that pulsed and shifted as if barely restrained.
Power held too tightly. Control sharpened into something brittle.
I understood, suddenly and viscerally, what Dravok had meant when he spoke of discipline as survival.
They were gods. And they were tired. The darkness in them was managed, not hidden, in all of them except one.
Zapharos stood apart without standing away; his presence was unmistakable the moment my gaze found him.
His aura glowed gold, pure, even, unwavering.
Not blinding, not soft, but balanced. The light around him didn't surge or flicker; it simply existed, steady and immense, like a star that had never learned to burn unevenly.
It was beautiful and terrifying all at once. Because, unlike the others, his power didn't feel compressed. It felt whole.
I inhaled sharply, my human instincts finally caught up with what my body already knew. Standing among them felt like standing inside a storm frozen in time; each Arkhevari was a different expression of the same elemental force.
Six gods.
The seventh space remained empty. Nythor's absence was a wound in the symmetry of the hall, a silence that carried more weight than presence ever could. I felt it like a missing note in a chord, wrong, unresolved, impossible to ignore.
Dravok stepped forward, and his posture straightened as the Hall responded to him; the light beneath our feet shifted subtly, acknowledging his authority.
I stayed beside him, acutely aware of how small I was and how deliberate my presence here was.
I had never felt awe like this. Not the kind that inspires worship.
The kind that makes you understand, all at once, how much damage beings like this could do…
how desperately the universe needed them to be better than their worst instincts.
As the Hall of Seven closed around us, living stone sealing the moment into place, I knew with sudden certainty: whatever answers we were about to uncover here would not be comforting. But they would be true. And truth, I was learning, was the most dangerous power of all.
Zapharos' gaze found Dravok; something passed between them: relief. Relief, sharpened by concern, and beneath it all, the weight of shared history that had never fully been spoken. Beside Zapharos stood Ella.
I recognized her instantly, though we had never met.
She was human, unmistakably so, standing amid gods without shrinking or posturing; her presence was calm and grounded in a way that made the air around her feel…
breathable. Her eyes met mine with curiosity and warmth.
With certain clarity, I knew she had been waiting for me as much as I had been for her.
Unfortunately, there was no time to get to know her right now. Questions came immediately, layered and insistent.
"What happened to Nythor?"
"Where is he?"
"What did the Cryons do to him?"
Dravok waited patiently until the questions died down, until the others realized he wasn't going to say anything until they were done.
Only then did he step forward and announce, "Nythor is dead.
" The chamber stilled. "I didn't execute him.
The Cryons sold him to the Ohrurs, who were under the influence of Nox Eternum.
He was used. Whatever exists within the Dark Abyss used him as a conduit. As bait."
A ripple passed through the gathered Arkhevari. Not shock—shock was too small for beings who had witnessed the death of worlds—but something colder. A tightening. An awareness that a boundary had been crossed. One of them was dead. Gone.
An Arkhevari stepped forward, his aura darkening at the edges. I didn't know his name. "Used him how?"
Dravok didn't answer immediately. I felt him chose his words with care, wanting to ensure whatever he was going to say next would land cleanly.
"He wasn't interrogated. He wasn't tortured for information.
He was positioned." His jaw tightened. "Whatever exists within the Dark Abyss required a voice.
A presence familiar enough to draw me in. "
A low murmur spread through the chamber.
"Nythor was unstable," another Arkhevari said. "His mind fractured long before—"
"That fracture was exploited," I stepped forward, the words escaping before I even realized I was going to speak.
The Hall shifted, subtly but unmistakably, as attention turned to me.
I felt the weight of six godlike intelligences settle on me, not hostile, but assessing.
"He wasn't chosen at random," I continued, my voice steadier than I felt.
"Nythor was chosen because he could hear it.
And because it knew Dravok would come after him. "
Silence followed, heavy and charged.
One of the others turned toward Dravok. "You were lured."
"Yes," Dravok agreed. "And I was vulnerable there in a way I didn't understand until it was too late."
Zapharos, who had remained silent until then, moved. Not forward. Not away. Simply enough to make his presence undeniable. His golden aura did not flare or sharpen; it settled, radiating outward in even, measured waves that seemed to steady the Hall itself.
"We have long believed," he stated quietly, "that the darkness we fought was the Abyss." His gaze swept the chamber, lingering briefly on each of the others. "That it was an external force pressing inward."
"You believe otherwise now?" One of his brothers asked.
"I do," Zapharos replied.
More silence ensued, heavier than the last. Uninterrupted until one of the others stepped forward.
He was… different. Not stronger, not brighter, but older in a way that had nothing to do with years.
Where the others' auras shifted and layered, his was precise, contained, and refined, as if centuries of power had been honed down to something deliberate.
All Arkhevari felt ageless, but he carried the weight of continuity.
Of having been there when the rules were first written.
He inclined his head slightly, and the Hall responded.
"Enough," his voice was neither loud nor soft, yet it carried effortlessly to every corner of the chamber. "We will proceed with order."
Everyone stilled at once. He turned his gaze first to Dravok. Then to Zapharos. And finally, to me. "Before we continue, it is fitting that the Hall of Seven be introduced and named, and that those present understand who stands before them."
He gestured subtly, and the living stone beneath our feet pulsed once, as if acknowledging an ancient protocol. "I am Selkaris. Arbiter of Memory. Witness to the Crossing."
The name settled into me with crushing weight. I felt it instantly, the burden of civilizations remembered in perfect clarity, of histories preserved without mercy or forgetfulness. Selkaris did not merely recall the past. He carried it.
His hand moved next, indicating Zapharos. "Zapharos," Selkaris intoned. "Praetor of War. Commander of the Arkhevari legions."
Zapharos's aura burned gold, brilliant, balanced, and terrifying in its steadiness. Unlike the others, there was no turbulence to it, no visible strain. His power felt complete, honed, and utterly unapologetic.
"He bears the martial essence of fallen worlds," Selkaris continued. "Strategy, instinct, weapon-memory. The living arsenal of our people."
Zapharos inclined his head once. Not pride. Not denial. Acceptance.
Selkaris turned toward another Arkhevari. "Thyros," he said. "Keeper of Death and Sacrifice. Executioner."
The Hall seemed to darken at the edges. Thyros stood like contained violence, his presence fierce and poetic all at once.
I felt the echo of every sacrifice he had ever claimed, the moment of death, the release of light, the cost paid and remembered forever.
Next, Selkaris' gaze shifted toward Dravok.
"Dravok. Warden of Shadows." The air bent subtly around him.
"Infiltrator. Keeper of secrets. Hunter of treachery.
" Selkaris' voice sharpened. "He walks unseen where others cannot. He hears truth where lies take root."