Part Thirteen The Altar of Unmaking
Part Thirteen
The Altar of Unmaking
Light swallowed them whole.
For a blinding instant, there was no world, only brilliance and the feeling of falling through a star collapsing into itself.
Then the ground slammed up beneath them.
Liora staggered, Kael’s hand locked tightly in hers. They stood again atop the black glass floor, but now the Heart hung directly above them, closer than before, sagging on its chains like a dying sun.
Chains creaked under immense strain. The fissure running through the Heart pulsed red-gold like a wound refusing to close.
Below, Liora’s stomach dropped.
The floor beneath the Heart had split open.
A circular shaft dropped away into bottomless darkness, its rim a ragged ring of stone. Runic lines glowed faintly along the walls, trailing downward like veins leading to something ancient and hungry.
Kael stared at the opening, voice dropping to a rough whisper.
“. . . the Altar.”
The Remnants materialized around the chasm, forming a silent ring as guardians, no longer the damned. Their eyes, once hollow, now glowed faintly with purpose.
Liora squeezed Kael’s hand. “Then this is where we end it.”
The Heart pulsed violently, as if in answer.
He hears you.
The god’s voice slammed into the chamber, a sound like ten thousand bells shattering underwater. The Heart’s veins lit with savage gold.
Chains snapped tight around Kael’s wrists, jerking him forward.
His body seized, knees hitting the floor.
“Kael!” Liora lunged, arms around him, fighting the pull.
He gritted his teeth, chains burning brighter.
“He knows,” Kael gasped. “He sees the bond; he wants to break it.”
Liora wrapped both arms around his torso, pulling back as the chains dragged him toward the altar pit. Her heel skidded on the slick surface; she was nothing against a god’s pull.
Then her fury outran her fear.
“No,” she hissed, voice shaking like a drawn bowstring. “You don’t get to take him.”
Her free hand hit the chain.
White-hot.
Agonizing.
But the bond sealed them together, and instead of devouring her, power detonated outward.
The chain snapped.
Kael’s breath collapsed into hers, their bodies colliding as the recoil sent them tumbling backward. Sparks scattered across the floor like stars breaking loose.
They stared at the severed chain end, glowing, dripping light like molten metal.
Kael looked stunned. “You severed it without severing me.”
“Looks like the bond works,” she said, breathless.
He stared at her, stunned, as if the ground had just given him back the sun.
Then a laugh rose from the Heart, inhuman and echoing, pure mockery.
YOU THINK YOU HAVE WON.
YOU DO NOT EVEN UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE FACING.
The Heart heaved, wings of chain stretching, tearing cracks wider. The chamber shuddered. One Remnant flew backward as the floor crumbled beneath her feet, barely catching herself midair.
Kael struggled up, one knee still to the ground.
“Liora, behind me.”
She stepped into place at his side. “Beside you.”
The god snarled through the walls of the world.
YOU DEFY ME WITH TOYS YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND, AND POWER YOU DID NOT EARN.
I WILL SHOW YOU WHAT A GOD IS.
The Heart burst.
Chains whipped outward like spears.
Kael shoved Liora aside, barely, one chain slicing a burning gash across his ribs. Another punched through the ground where she had stood, cracking stone.
The fissure surged open, revealing the Altar below.
A monolith of white bone, carved into spiraling patterns that pulsed like veins and glowed with the same cruel gold as the god’s voice.
Kael’s eyes widened in horror.
“That is not just an altar,” he breathed. “That is a corpse.”
“The first god,” Liora finished.
Every prayer, every story, every warning whispered over guttering candles had been built on this rotting spine.
Kael nodded once, grim.
“That’s the root. If we destroy it—”
“We sever the god above it,” she said.
“And sever me,” he reminded.
She turned, grabbing his face with both hands, pulling him close, mouth a whisper from his.
“We are bound now. If you go, I go. So we end this together.”
His breath shook against hers, fear and devotion mingling.
“Together,” he echoed.
The Remnants pressed their hands to the ground around the pit.
We will hold the Heart.
You must unmake the Altar.
Hurry.
Their ghost-bright fingers tremored; holding it meant letting its agony pour through them instead.
The Heart screamed again, chains raining down like arrows.
Kael moved before he could think, dragging Liora down with him, shielding her body with his.
“Go!” a Remnant cried. “He is weakening!”
Kael’s fingers locked around Liora’s. He pulled her toward the chasm. They stared into the abyss, runes blazing up at them like a pulse of molten light in the dark.
Kael looked at her, wild determination and terror in equal measure.
“You jump,” he said. “I follow.”
Liora squeezed his hand. “We jump.”
If the curse had dragged her toward one altar after another, this was the first fall she chose with her eyes open.
For a stolen moment, even the screaming Heart went quiet.
Then, hand in hand, they stepped off the edge.
They fell.
Their bodies tangled together, wind tearing at their clothes, the Altar rushing up like a blazing star.
Kael pulled her tight, voice a hoarse pledge against her ear:
“If I lose myself—pull me back.”
She pressed her mouth to his ear, answering without doubt:
“I will never let go.”
Their bond cinched between them like a white-gold thread, humming with everything they’d already refused to surrender.
The Altar’s light swallowed them.
The god roared, and the world broke along its hidden seams, bursting into white noise.