27. Naeris #3
Nadine rolled her eyes.
"Okay, all jokes aside," I interrupted, "since the women were gone and several men survived the initial attack on the Harrowed One, the one where Caelor was taken, none of you would have ever had an Aelyth?"
The men looked at each other, and I could feel the incredible sadness coming off them.
Thyros mumbled, "Essentially."
By the sacred Tomb, how sad was that? These men had lived millions of years, thinking they were doomed to be alone?
"We did venture out of Nox Eternum to relieve some… pressure, every now and again," Zapharos stated with a grin at Ella.
Still, that wasn't the same as having his Aelyth, and we all knew it.
Suddenly, Nadine let out a small, “Oh.”
Ella frowned. “Oh, what?”
Nadine turned slowly toward us, her expression pale with astonishment. “Ashera didn’t just scatter herself randomly through humanity. She split intentionally,” Nadine continued softly. “Into aspects.”
Understanding detonated inside me. Mind, soul, heart.
I looked at Ella.
Then at Nadine.
Then at myself.
“No,” Ella breathed.
“Yes.” Dravok's eyes remained fixed on Nadine like he was seeing the universe rearrange itself in front of him.
“The original Aelyth died,” he continued slowly. “There were no surviving bonds left for us, the younger Arkhevari.”
“So Ashera…” Zapharos murmured.
“She compensated,” Nadine finished.
The implications crashed through the room all at once. Ashera had not only tried to preserve Caelor. She had tried to preserve all of them.
“She split herself into the emotional and spiritual qualities the Arkhevari needed most,” Nadine whispered, now fully caught in the realization. “Not exact replicas. Complementary balances.”
Ella looked overwhelmed. “So, I’m… what? Part of an ancient superwoman?”
“A terrifyingly powerful one,” Thyros offered.
I elbowed him automatically. He smirked.
But his eyes never left me. And beneath the humor, I felt his awe. Zapharos slowly sat down. For the first time since I had known him, the ancient warrior looked genuinely shaken.
“Ashera created new Aelyth,” he mused quietly.
“Yes,” Dravok added softly. “She ensured we would never be alone.”
Emotion swelled painfully in my chest. Millions of years ago, standing on Terra Nova, believing the universe had lost its light forever, Ashera had still thought of the others. Others she didn't even know for sure were still alive. She still loved them enough to leave behind hope.
Not only for Caelor.
For any surviving Arkhevari.
Suddenly, Thyros' existence made horrifying sense too. Ashera’s heart had refused to forget Caelor.
And somewhere inside Nox Eternum, a fragment of Caelor had refused to die.
The universe itself had answered that impossible longing.
It had shaped Thyros from the surviving spark of the male Ashera loved most. It wasn't reincarnation or fate.
It had been a cosmic correction. A second chance.
Thyros stared at me with an expression so intense it stole the air from my lungs. For once in his life, he seemed entirely speechless. No arrogance. No teasing. No sharp-edged confidence hiding old wounds. Just stunned disbelief.
He searched my face as though he were trying to reconcile everything he had ever believed about himself with this new, impossible truth.
“So, me…” he tried to articulate hoarsely.
Zapharos looked at him for a long moment. All traces of mockery had vanished from the older Arkhevari’s face. “Part of Caelor must have rallied to create you. Just as Ashera created Naeris, Ella, and Nadine.”
The room fell silent again. I watched the words hit Thyros. Watched centuries of self-loathing collide violently against something entirely different.
Dravok spoke next, with a dark certainty. “You were never the flaw.” Thyros' throat worked once. Dravok held his gaze steadily. “You've always been the hope.”
The words shattered something inside him. I felt it happen through the bond. All the old pain. The isolation. The fear that he had been born wrong. Corrupted. Less than the others. For so long, he had believed the darkness in him was proof of failure.
But now it had become something else entirely.
Proof that even inside the Abyss, even surrounded by endless corruption and grief and rage, some part of Caelor had refused to surrender.
Had refused to let Ashera’s light disappear forever.
So the Abyss itself had answered. It had created Thyros.
Not as a mistake. As resistance. As survival.
A love enduring where it should have died.
Emotion crashed through him with terrifying force. I moved before thinking, crossing the distance between us and taking his face in my hands. His eyes closed instantly at my touch, and a shudder moved through his entire body.
“You hear them?” I whispered.
His forehead dropped against mine.
“I don’t know what to do with this,” he admitted roughly.
The vulnerability in those words nearly destroyed me. I brushed my thumbs across his jaw. “You don’t have to do anything.”
His eyes opened again, amber and storm-bright.
“You were never broken, Thyros.” Pain flickered across his face. Then wonder. Then something so achingly hopeful my own eyes burned.
“All this time,” he whispered, “I thought I came from darkness.”
“You did,” I confirmed softly.
His expression tightened. But I smiled through the tears gathering in my eyes. “And you carried light out of it anyway.”
I felt the others listening. Felt the truth of it settle into all of them. Thyros had not been born because the darkness won. He had been born because it hadn’t.
“I know where it is.” Dravok’s voice cut cleanly through the silence.
The Warden of Shadows stood near the viewport, one hand braced against the wall as darkness churned beyond the ship. The dim lighting carved hard lines across his face, sharpening the ancient weariness in his expression.
“The Harrowed One never truly left Earth Prime,” he said quietly. “Not completely. The fracture began there. The wound anchored itself there. It is the center of Nox Eternum.”
A chill moved through the room. I could almost see it in my mind now. The broken remains of the first Earth, suspended inside eternal darkness. The birthplace of humanity. The graveyard of the Elysians.
The throne of the Harrowed One.
Dravok pushed away from the viewport. “We’ll need to pass through the deepest instability currents of the Abyss to reach it.” His gaze flicked toward Zapharos. “The ship may not survive the approach.”
Zapharos merely nodded once. “Then we make it survive.”
No hesitation. No fear. Only purpose. For a moment none of us spoke. The enormity of what waited ahead settled heavily over the room. Not another battle.
The battle.
The end of a war that had begun millions of years ago.
Ella slowly exhaled. “Well. That’s not terrifying at all.”
Nadine reached for her hand automatically, squeezing it once. “You’re shaking.”
“So are you.”
“Yes, but scientifically.”
That earned the faintest smile from all of us.
Dravok straightened. “Alright. Let’s go.”
“Wait.” Thyros' voice stopped all movement instantly. He rose slowly from his chair beside me.
The teasing arrogance had been replaced by something softer. More vulnerable than I had ever seen him. His gaze moved across the room. “Let’s give each other a few moments.”
Understanding flickered immediately between the others. Alone. Not because anyone believed we would fail. But because for the first time since finding one another, we all understood exactly how much there was to lose.
Ella stood first and reached for Zapharos’ hand. “I like this plan much better than immediate terrifying doom.”
Zapharos’ expression softened as he pulled her close.
Nadine gave Dravok a small, almost shy look before following him quietly from the room.
Within moments, only Thyros and I remained.
Silence settled softly around us. The ship hummed gently beneath our feet as distant stars drifted past the viewport in streaks of pale light.
For a long moment, neither of us moved. Then Thyros crossed the room toward me.
Slowly. Like I was something precious. Something breakable.
His hand lifted to my face with almost unbearable tenderness. I leaned into the touch instinctively.
“You’re thinking too loudly again,” I murmured softly.
A faint smile touched his mouth. “I cannot help it around you.”
Emotion tightened painfully in my chest. The bond between us felt different now. Deeper. As though the universe itself had finally stopped resisting us. His thumb brushed beneath my eye. Only then did I realize tears had gathered there.
“Hey,” he whispered immediately, concern flooding the bond. “No.”
I laughed shakily. “That is a ridiculous response to crying.”
“I dislike anything that hurts you.” My throat closed. Stars. This man.
I slid my hands beneath his jacket and held onto him tightly, needing the solid warmth of him beneath my palms.
“What if this is it?” I whispered before I could stop myself.
The words hung painfully between us. For once, Thyros did not dismiss the fear with arrogance or bravado. His forehead lowered slowly against mine. “Then I will spend whatever time remains loving you.”
The simplicity of it shattered me. I closed my eyes. “I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
His voice was rough now. Raw. “If the universe burns tomorrow, then tonight you are still mine. And I am still yours.”
Emotion crashed through the bond so hard I could barely breathe around it. I pulled back just enough to look at him. The man born from darkness. The man who had believed himself a flaw. But all I could see was light.
“You know what’s funny?” I whispered.
“Hm?”
“I think Ashera would approve of you.”
A startled laugh escaped him softly. “Only think?”
I smiled through tears. “She’d adore you.”
Something vulnerable flickered across his face again. Then he cupped my jaw carefully. “Naeris.” The way he said my name felt sacred. “If this ends badly…”
“No.”
His grip tightened slightly. “Let me finish.”
Reluctantly, I nodded.
His eyes searched mine with terrifying intensity. "If this ends badly, I need you to know something.”
Fear twisted sharply inside me. But his expression softened. “You made my existence worth it.”
The tears finally spilled over.
“Oh, stars,” I whispered brokenly. “Thyros?—”
“All my life,” he continued quietly, “I believed I came from corruption. From failure. But then I found you.” His thumb brushed across my cheek gently. “And suddenly, every moment inside the Abyss had purpose.”
I kissed him before he could say anything else. Desperately. Tenderly. Like I could somehow pour every feeling inside me into the touch.
He kissed me back with devastating softness. No battle hunger. No urgency. Just love.
When we finally parted, he rested his forehead against mine once more.
Outside the viewport, distant stars drifted silently through the darkness. Just for one fragile moment before the end of everything, the universe felt impossibly still.