Chapter 5 - ZAPHAROS
A heartbeat later, we were gone from the ruins.
The ground solidified beneath my boots, the air stilled, and when I looked up, we stood before my stronghold.
Pale stone stretched into the void, black spires carved with runes older than empires, and the walls were humming with Arkhevari power.
No Mmuhr’Rhong would ever come here. None would dare.
She was safe.
I hated the storm she’d woken in me.
I should’ve felt triumph at cutting down those monsters. Instead, all I felt was rage—a rage so hot that my aura had flared black, that the Abyss itself had nearly swallowed me whole. That had never happened before. Never.
In battle, my fury burned red, clean, controlled. The color of war. But out there, when her scream tore through me, the black rose. Not a streak, not a crack, an ocean. It had wrapped me, consumed me, until I could taste the void on my tongue.
Worst of all? I couldn’t deny why.
It wasn’t the Mmuhr’Rhong that pushed me to that edge. It was her.
Because for the first time in eons, I hadn’t been fighting to win. I hadn’t been fighting for duty or to hold the line for Auris Prime.
I had been fighting for her.
The realization tore through me like a blade. My chest burned with it. My fists shook with it. I didn’t want this. I didn’t want her. She was fragile, reckless, her tongue sharper than her mind, and still she had gotten under my skin, threaded herself into my veins like a poison.
And yet the moment her voice cracked my name—Zaph—the black that had surged through me like a tide, ready to rip the world apart to keep her safe, retreated.
“Drekken,” I spat, slamming my fist against the cold stone wall. The impact split the air, cracks webbing through the surface. “What have you done to me?”
I turned to her, my aura was still flickering wildly, black licking at the edges of gold. Confusion, fury, something dangerously close to desperation, it all bled into my face, no matter how hard I tried to lock it away.
She stood there, staring at me with those wide human eyes, and I wanted to snarl at her, to shove her away, to drag her closer—all at once.
I was Zapharos, Praetor of War. I was an Arkhevari. A god forged in blood and eternity. A god long forgotten. A legend.
I wasn't one who was ever undone. Ever. By anything.
Yet, this fragile female had nearly succeeded where thousands of warriors hadn't.
Who in the great unknown was she? My jaw clenched as I led her deeper into the hall.
The runes on the walls pulsed faintly at my presence, the stone itself thrumming with Arkhevari power.
She moved beside me, her wide mortal eyes darting over every arch, every glowing sigil, every relic from a thousand dead worlds. Curiosity radiated from her in waves, sharp enough that I could feel it prickling against my skin.
I brought her into the solar, a chamber mortals might mistake for a living room.
The air shimmered faintly with heat from a firepit that burned blue, its flame cold to the touch but warm to the bones.
Loungers of scaled hide curved invitingly, tables of obsidian scattered with fruit and metal cups.
It was a room meant for warlords, not fragile humans.
One of the attendants approached, a tall, lean figure with skin the color of tarnished silver and eyes like molten copper. He inclined his head low. “Praetor. Do you desire anything?”
A Veythari. They were not Arkhevari, but remnants of another world swallowed long ago by Nox Eternum.
Now and then, when the Abyss consumed a planet, a few survived.
Most perished within hours, unable to withstand the pull, but some—like the Veythari—adapted.
When they were weaker species, unable to defend themselves, we allowed them to remain under our protection.
In return, they bound themselves to us. Servants, attendants, tradesmen.
They lived within the shadow of our halls, and we gave them what they needed to survive: food, shelter, and protection from the Mmuhr’Rhong and the madness of the Abyss.
It was a bargain struck countless times across the millennia—survival in exchange for service.
To them, it was salvation. To us, convenience.
The Veythari bowed lower, awaiting my command, the gleam of his copper eyes never daring to rise to mine.
Ella stiffened at the sight, and tension moved through her body. I felt it more than I saw it. Damn her to the darkness; my essence was already getting in tune with her emotions. I didn't like it.
Grudgingly, I turned to her. “Are you hungry? Thirsty?” The words tasted foreign in my mouth, as though asking them made me weak.
Her throat bobbed, her voice sounded brittle. “Water.”
I flicked my fingers at the attendant. “Water. Now.”
The Veythari bowed low and vanished as silently as he had come.
We were alone again.
She stared at me, her chin tilted up, defiant even when I could smell her unease. I met her gaze, let the weight of mine settle on her like a brand.
“Where are we?” she asked at last, her voice sounded steadier than her pulse.
I let my aura pulse once, faint gold spilling over the chamber. “In my hall,” I said. “On a fragment of one of the oldest worlds swallowed by Nox Eternum. A place carved by gods and still held by us. No Mmuhr’Rhong would dare step here.”
I paused, studying her as the echo of my words filled the chamber.
Her shoulders squared, her eyes turned bright with defiance, but I could hear the stutter in her heart.
She was unsettled, lost in a place no mortal should ever set foot.
Yet still she held my gaze as though she thought she could measure me—and find me wanting.
“Your hall,” she repeated, the words edged with disbelief. “Your palace. And what? You just… live here? While the black hole eats worlds?”
I almost laughed, but it came out closer to a growl. “This is not your black hole, little Earthling. It is Nox Eternum—the heart of what devours. A place of war, not wonder. Do not mistake survival for life.”
Her mouth pressed into a line, and for a flicker, I felt her anger rise again, hot and sharp. I leaned into it, let my aura flare brighter, daring her to test me.
The chamber thrummed with silence. The fire in the hearth cracked, sending blue light skittering over her face.
She had no idea what it meant to stand here.
No idea that this fragment, this hall, had been carved by hands older than her planet.
No idea that she was alive only because I had not yet decided otherwise.
And yet… she still hadn’t looked away. I hated that it stirred something in me, something perilously close to admiration. But also, curiosity.
I motioned for her to sit while I leaned against the side of the fireplace, studying her, purposefully keeping her on edge, "Tell me about your people."
Her brow knit. “My people?”
“Humans,” I clarified, the word tasting strange. “Your history. What you know of yourselves.”
She drew in a breath and tried to compose herself, folding her hands in her lap. “There isn’t much. We’ve been around for about forty thousand years, give or take. That’s what most of the evidence suggests.”
I let out a sharp, derisive sound that was half-snort, half-laugh. “Forty thousand years?” I repeated, allowing my disbelief to curdle into scorn. “That is the measure of your existence?”
Her jaw tightened. “Yes. That’s the measure we’ve found so far." She stretched the last two words, glaring at me, daring me to challenge her. "Not all of us live forever, you know. Some of us have to piece things together with the fragments we’re given.”
“Pathetic,” I muttered, shaking my head.
Her eyes flashed with temper. “Look, I’m an archaeologist—”
“Archeo what?” I cut in, the syllables clipped, foreign on my tongue.
Her lips pressed into a line, and color rose into her cheeks, almost like my aura spreading and changing. Interesting. And definitely alluring.
“Archaeologist." She repeated, "I study the past. I dig up ruins, bones, and artifacts, and try to understand where we came from. That’s what I do.”
I scoffed at her words. “You don’t even know where you came from?”
Her mouth opened, ready to snap back, but I let my aura spread before she could speak. Gold pulsed once, then bled to red, streaks of black flickering like cracks across the surface. Her eyes darted to it, her pulse stumbling in her throat.
“Forty thousand years,” I repeated, letting the number curl on my tongue like a joke only I understood.
“And you lost your history?” Her shoulders tightened, but she didn’t look away.
“Arkhevari have battled across Nox Eternum for eons uncounted. We have carved our story into the marrow of creation. And you—” I leaned closer, allowed my voice to drop to a hiss, “you scrape fragments from the ground and try to piece together what little you remember, as though forty thousand years were not the blink of an eye.”
Her jaw worked, her lips pressed tight, but her eyes burned hotter.
I scoffed again, pushed myself off the wall to circle where she sat, forcing her to turn her head to follow my movement until her breath hitched.
“You do not even know where you came from.
Your beginning is dust; your history scattered like bones in the dirt.
I stopped just behind her, close enough that I felt the tremor in her frame. “Pathetic.”
And yet—damn me—the fire that was sparking in her blood, the way her hands curled into fists instead of yielding, stirred something in me I could not ignore.
“Interesting,” I murmured, half to myself. “Your kind claws through dirt like vermin, searching for scraps, and still, you know nothing of your own beginning. You dig bones from the soil, chase shadows of truth, and call it wisdom.”
Her spine straightened, her chin lifted in defiance, though I caught the flicker of unease in her eyes. Fragile. Infuriating. Intriguing.
The firepit hissed behind me, the blue flames guttering as though echoing my mood. “And still,” I kept going, letting the word hang heavy, “you stand before me, my Aelyth, while a thousand greater races have burned to ash.”
My aura flared again, gold, red, black, twisting in the air between us like a storm barely leashed.
The Veythari reappeared, gliding forward with a silver tray balanced easily in his long hands. A crystal vessel of water rested upon it, droplets sliding down the sides like condensation on ice.
“Praetor,” the servant murmured, bowing low.
I gave a curt nod, and he crossed the chamber to set the glass within Ella’s reach.
She hesitated only a moment before snatching it up, her throat working as she drank deep.
Her shoulders eased, but the defiance in her gaze didn’t dim.
If anything, it sharpened. She set the glass down hard enough that it rang against the table, then turned that fire on me.
“So what makes you so great?” she demanded, her voice raw with fury.
“Who are you to lecture me? To sneer at my people like we’re dirt beneath your boots?
You’re the one living in a black hole, fighting monsters in the dark.
That doesn’t make you a god. It just makes you trapped. ”
The words lashed at me, hotter than her earlier outburst, sharper than her fear. I felt my aura pulse in answer, the colors twisting tighter around me. Rage. Amusement. Something dangerously close to admiration.
This fragile creature—this mortal with her broken world and her pitiful history—dared to look me in the eye and call me less than I was.
And damn me, a part of me wanted to laugh.
Another part wanted to crush her.
Both parts wanted her closer.