Chapter 27 ZAPHAROS
I stood beneath the star-vault of the great hall, the Council’s light falling in slow constellations across stone older than our sins. Ella was at my side, close enough that I could feel the tremor ripple through her when Thyros’ voice cut the hush.
“Where is Nythor?” he asked, low and iron-steady, but the question carried a blade.
Ella shuddered, and I curved an arm around her. “With the Cryons,” I said. No softening it. “He came for Ella. He tore her from Ilythas' watch. He wanted to use her to find Earth, and when he realized she didn't know, he bartered her to the Cryons, who sold her to the Ohrurs.”
A breath of disbelief moved through the circle.
Vaelion’s jaw locked. Ozyrael swore softly, a prayer turned knife. Thyros’ hands curled, not at me but at the fate of a brother too proud to beg and too foolish to plan.
Selkaris took a step forward. He bowed to Ella, not to me. “I am sorry,” he said, and sorrow colored every syllable. “That one of our own bound your will. That we failed to reach you first.”
Ella’s chin lifted. “You didn’t fail. He did.” Her voice was steady, but she leaned into me a fraction more, as if to anchor the last of the shaking. From the far side of the circle, Dravok’s shadow peeled from the pillar it had chosen. He didn’t waste breath on outrage. “Where is he now?”
“The Cryons have him,” I filled them in, and silence followed my words.
All of us were well aware of what that meant.
One of us was in the hands of mortals. Never had such a thing been done.
The consequences… it was unthinkable. As much as I hated our Oracle and wanted to end his too-long life, we could not let the Cryons keep him.
I met Dravok’s eyes and didn’t bother hiding what I wanted. “Bring him back to be punished.”
His mouth didn’t move, but the air cooled. “I will bring him back,” he said. Whole or not, he did not promise.
I let the next truth fall. “The Cryons are already being driven to heel by the Pandraxian Empire. Their fleets took heavy losses. They will not be our largest trouble,” I let that sink in for a moment before I dropped more bombs.
"But the Cryons have allied themselves with the Moggadesh and the Ohrur. Something is afoot."
Dravok nodded, "I will get to the bottom of it."
“There is something else. The Darlams.” Mercilessly, I told them the rest of what Ella and I discovered, and watched my brothers’ ire rise.
“The Ohrur have taken Darlam and are turning the males into so-called Space Guardians.
Glorified assassins who work for them. They're also trying to breed them. "
"If that is true, judgment will fall upon them," Thyros vowed. "And I will be the sword that comes down on them."
Ella’s fingers found mine and squeezed. It steadied me more than a thousand oaths.
“The Ohrur will answer,” Vaelion growled.
“They will,” I agreed. “But first, we need Earth.” I felt Ella’s pulse stutter at the word. “Daryus will not share what he knows. Not freely. His mekarry bonds also lead there. He sees the planet as his.”
"We will open a diplomatic route," Ozyrael promised. "You've done well, but this is the time for words and promises. I will go and handle it."
"Very well." I acknowledged, feeling surprised glances from my brothers, most of all from Dravok.
I wasn't known for ceding ground I normally saw as my responsibility.
Giving Ozyrael my blessing went against everything they knew about me.
I smirked and kissed Ella's fingers. She was bringing balance and peace to me, but something else too—the wisdom to see that in this, my brothers and I were together once again.
Too long had our own responsibilities clouded our judgment and kept us apart; it was time we got back together and finished what we had been meant to finish since the dawn of time: End the reign of the Dark Abyss.
Selkaris’ voice interrupted my thoughts; his eyes were unfocused, as if he were listening to a chorus only he could hear.
“While you were gone, I searched the old archives to find more about Earth, hoping to discover when and by whom it was seeded. I stumbled upon something… troublesome. A first mention of the swarm.”
“The Mmuhr’Rhong,” Thyros guessed.
Selkaris nodded. “In the ash of fallen songs, there is a fragment—older than our descent—speaking of a voice behind their voices. Something sentient, something that thinks. I found only one name: The Harrowed One.”
The name didn't mean anything to me. Neither did it seem to my brothers. We all looked at each other expectantly, but none of us wore an expression of recognition.
Ozyrael's scoff was thin. “An ominous name.”
Selkaris looked at Ella. "A name that needs more investigation."
Ella swallowed. “If you agree, I would love to work with you on this.”
Selkaris inclined his head. "If the great Praetor of War doesn’t mind, it would be my honor, Earthling."
Dravok’s shadow stretched, already reaching the hall’s far doors, swallowing light as it moved.
“I will be on my way to get Nythor back,” he said, his voice soft but threaded with bryx. The words were a promise and a sentence woven into one.
He paused on the threshold, where the glow from the star-vault met the dark he carried. “If he still breathes, I’ll drag him home. If not…” His gaze flicked toward me—toward Ella—amber gleaming faintly in the dim. “…then the Abyss will have to settle for ashes.”
Without waiting for a reply, he dissolved, leaving the echo of his vow hanging in the air like thunder waiting to break.