The Second Coming (Hell of a Time #2)

Prologue

THE WHISPERS OF the Myrion

Before this world, there was the Myrion. It was endless, uncounted, without edge or name. And even still, before the Myrion, there was the Vastness, and there walked the Auctrix.

She was the First Spark, the Maker and the Unmaker, a flame given form. Beneath Her feet lay a dark and waiting land, untouched, unnamed. She wandered it for an age until at last She came upon water.

It was warm and alive. She touched it with Her toes and felt it welcome Her. She called it the Prima Matrix.

Curiosity got the best of Her, and She stepped forward into it. The water rose around Her ankles, Her knees, and then Her waist, until She surrendered and sank beneath the surface.

The Auctrix did not drown. She breathed under the surface, and with every breath, She released shimmering bubbles, each one swelling, drifting, expanding, until it became its own universe.

Each one, a boundless cradle, filled with many spinning worlds and stars and suns, with galaxies turning like slow thoughts and dark places where nothing yet sang.

From Her breath, many universes rose through the Prima Matrix until it glittered with creation.

And for a time, the Auctrix was content.

She drifted among the universes like a gardener tending endless beds, shaping and pruning, learning what each universe wished to become.

But without anyone to share in Her wonder, loneliness found Her.

So the Auctrix reached inward, not into thought alone, but into longing, into memory, into the flame that had never known another. Without thought, she shaped companions from the water and Her own essence, breathing Them into the Vastness one by one. They weren’t subjects or children, but equals.

She created a council, and thus, the Arcana were born. With her, there were twelve.

The Boundless, drawn from the endless stretch between universes, carrying infinity and silence. They spoke rarely, but when They did, the Myrion listened.

Next was the Weaver, shaped from the turning of galaxies, holding time and pattern in careful hands. She saw beginnings and endings as one continuous thread.

Then, the Forgeheart, forged from compressed fire, was given shape, creation born through heat. He burned without consuming.

The Gatekeeper, rose from thresholds where one state becomes another, guardian of crossings and gates. He stood where no one else could linger.

Soon came the Mourner, formed from the Auctrix’s first ache of loneliness, grief given purpose, compassion given voice. She wept, and oceans followed.

Next was the Mirror, born where light fractured through the Prima Matrix, reflection and truth entwined. She showed what was, not what was wished.

Then there was the Cipher shaped from what the Auctrix did not say, restraint and secrecy made manifest. He governed absence as power.

And the Voice was breathed into being with song, the giver of language, names, and meaning. She taught the universes how to speak themselves into being.

The Tide surged forth in motion, change embodied, erosion, and renewal bound together. He never stayed.

Then the Auctrix drew the Illuminator. He was made from brilliance distilled, radiance meant to reveal, to guide, to illuminate the dark. He rose gleaming, and the universes tilted toward Him.

Last of all, the Auctrix shaped the Crownless. She formed Him slowly. From humility. From restraint. From the quiet strength of refusing dominion. He bore no crown. He sought no throne. Where others burned bright or vast, He held stillness. He listened. He yielded. He endured.

The Auctrix stood among Them and swore, “I am not a queen, but a companion, a sister. What is mine is now ours. Let no one rise above the circle.”

And so for a time, The Arcana ruled the Myrion together. They learned one another. They argued, failed, and tried again. They discovered that no universe could endure on a single gift alone. Creation required balance. Destruction required empathy. Silence required voice. And light required shadow.

Through the ages, the Auctrix found Herself turning, again and again, to Orrphyos, the Crownless. At first She came for counsel, then for clarity. And then, simply because She trusted Him, and He understood Her more than others.

He never told Her what to do. He asked what She wished. He reminded Her that She did not need to carry the Myrion alone. Where others dazzled or challenged Her, He grounded Her. And through it, something unfamiliar took root.

The Auctrix, who always was and always will be, and the one who made universes with Her breath, found Herself undone by the simple joy of being seen fully by another.

And the Crownless, who had never desired dominion, chose Her. They loved in the spaces between councils, in pauses, in glances, until the Myrion itself exhaled and shifted to make room for them together, as if it had always been waiting.

In time, other Arcana began to find one another. Not by decree. Not by design. But by choice. Mirror and Gate. Flame and Secret. Great powers bending toward each other, choosing and being chosen in return.

But one remained alone not by choice. The Illuminator.

He watched love gather around Him and remain beyond His reach, and the emptiness inside Him soured. What He wanted most was the one thing no amount of light could force to bloom.

So where He was once content to reveal, He began to covet. Then He began to possess. He carved a universe apart from the others. And in secret, He began to steal from them, gathering carefully, never calling it theft.

He called it creation.

First He stole the angels from one universe and then the Lustrines from another, their skin still glistening with the memory of the oldest seas.

Humans were taken from a third, and Celestines from yet another.

They were some of the most precious for they had the power to shape and create.

They are who shaped the realms of his universe.

But He didn’t stop there. He continued to fill the universe with others, from so many places He eventually lost count, until He built what He believed was perfection.

He called Himself The First Light and claimed this universe as His sole making, these beings as His pure creations, made in his own image.

And when His fear followed—fear of discovery, fear of judgment—He sealed this universe away from the Myrion, away from the rest of The Twelve, locking it behind law and light.

But the Arcana were already moving, for they had discovered His lies. The Gatekeeper found the way in, but they arrived too late to stop it. The corruption struck Them like poison. Their gifts weakened. Their forms faltered.

To remain awake was to be unmade. So They chose sleep, binding Themselves into vessels of flesh, into heavenly and mortal lives, into stolen beings hidden inside the sealed universe, waiting to heal, waiting to remember.

And so the universe The First Light built became both cradle and cage. A place where gods slept deeply. And a place where the first shadow fell across the Myrion.