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[Burning Shrine, Mercury — Empyrean's Chambers]
Ouros sat on her throne, heat moving around her instead of through her. Reports scrolled across the slate at her elbow. Patrol logs. Supply tallies.
A Sunbreaker stepped in, helm tucked under one arm. "Update from City channels," he said. "Liu Feng and her squad just entered the Hellmouth."
Ouros nodded once. "Good." She flicked her fingers, and the slate shifted. "Back to your post."
He saluted and left. The door seals hissed.
But then, Ouros paused. She shifted her posture, her eyes slid to the far corner and stayed there. She scoffed. "I'm surprised you actually showed up."
Something in the corner flickered. A green tetrahedral rune flared into shape and tore the air with it. Space rippled like glass under heat. A figure walked out of the rip, and the room froze.
Everything stopped.
The mid-fall curl of a banner strand hung in the air and did not finish its drop. A mote of dust gleamed and did not land, almost as if time itself heaved a breath.
The figure raised a hand, palm out, and sent the gesture across the room. Power ran through Ouros like cold air in hot metal—clean, precise. Time slid off her shoulders, and she could move again inside the stillness.
"Long time no see," Osiris said.
Ouros leaned back a fraction in the throne. "Decades later, and you lead with that?"
His smile came easily and didn't change his eyes. "You already know I am not the welcoming type. Anyhow, since my words were true, I had to come."
"Your words were a mess. Barely anything close." Ouros said. She let out a breath and set the slate aside. "Sometimes I really question if you're sane."
Osiris looked past her to the narrow window where Mercury burned white. "Were they? Like I had said, someone will eventually come to you, seeking my help. When that happens, show them the prism." He shrugged, "As I see it, that's exactly what happened."
Ouros's hand slammed down on the throne arm before she thought to make it softer. The stone rang and sent a small shiver up the wall. "Ten years. You said that ten years ago. Do you know what that feels like? I questioned every decision I made every time someone came to my door for help. Grappled with the thought that perhaps I messed everything up."
"All for what? Your words have been more a curse than a blessing, Osiris. I do not know what you're trying to do, but wrestling fate like this is no easy task." Ouros sighed.
"But you didn't mess it up." Osiris smiled, "You did it as you were meant to, and if you had failed, then that was also meant to be."
"I guess your words never change." Ouros shook her head, "So? What is it that made you come running back? I did what you asked, so what caused you to show yourself?"
Osiris turned towards her. His pupils flared the same green as the rune he'd drawn in the room. "Because I don't know what happens next."
Her brow furled. "What?"
"I said I don't know," Osiris said. "Not this time. Not like that." He watched her face for the pushback and let it roll off. "You, you've met him, haven't you? The one who's trapped right now."
"I did. Only when he was a foolhardy greenhorn." Ouros smirked, her eyes flickered with memory, "He was a Hunter who didn't even know how to stand still. But he had heart."
Osiris nodded. "That foolhardy greenhorn is the key."
She stared at him.
His expression went grim. He lifted his hand and light stitched itself between his fingers—no colour, only lines, a web of temporal threads that hummed at the edge of hearing. They flared, crossed, collapsed, and reset, as if the room couldn't decide which arrangement it believed.
"The strings of fate always determine their course, Ouros." Osiris said, "No matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, fate never changes, only transforms to fulfil itself differently." He tilted his head.
She looked at the web. "And?"
"There are no lines for him." Osiris smirked, "No lines at all."
Ouros paused, her eyes widened. "What?"
Osiris flexed his fingers. The threads tried to answer and failed. " As I said. Fate has many forms. With what I found, I can count and see limitless permutations," he said. "I can see every timeline that begins, and every timeline that ends. Timelines that begin and end on Earth. One's where everything goes to ruin, one's where the light and dark clash endlessly till the end of time. But when I point this at him—" his hand stilled over the web—"it goes blank."
"Blank," Ouros repeated.
"As if there's nothing there to grab," Osiris said. "And at the same time, too much. The math doesn't fail. It refuses."
"Convenient," Ouros said, dry as iron.
"I hate it," Osiris said, a wry smile curled on his face. "But I've tested it so many ways, I'm ashamed. Nothing I try works. It's almost as if-" He chuckled to himself.
Ouros crossed her arms, "As if what?"
"As if the universe hasn't decided what to do with him yet, and resents the question."
Silence pressed at the edges of the frozen room. The banner strand still hadn't finished its fall. The mote of dust still didn't know where to land.
"And you're telling me this because," Ouros held her forehead, her thoughts raced.
"Because whatever happens on the Moon will eventually decide how this all plays out." Osiris smiled without comfort.
"I've already sent my best people there." She pointed at the rune still burning green in the corner. "But what if you're wrong? What if all this isn't some eerie world-ending prophecy?"
"Then I come back and apologise," he said. "Publicly. Loudly."
"You won't," Ouros clicked her tongue and said.
"I won't," Osiris smiled and agreed.
"Anything else?" Ouros asked.
Osiris's gaze shifted to the middle distance, the way it did when he was listening to something no one else could hear. "One more," he said. "There's a chance that the shrine might change him. He might not be the same as he was before. Be careful."
"Fine. That'll be enough cryptic talk for today." She rolled her shoulders back into the throne. "Get out of my chamber, old fox."
Osiris shook his head and smiled. "Good hunting, Empyrean."
The green rune folded in on itself. Space stitched. Time came back in a rush—the banner strand fell, the dust landed, and heat flushed through the room.
Ouros fidgeted awake, as if the entire thing had been just a memory, or a dream. She heaved a breath and looked to the corner of the room. The air still shook from the presence that had stood here.
She paused.
A moment later, her eyes flicked back to the slate. Ouros continued reading through various reports. But ever so often, she would glance at the status of Liu Feng's team. Silently praying that the words Osiris had spoken wouldn't come true.
-
[Shrine of Oryx — Vision]
The ocean of dark rippled against his boots again, closer than before.
Void watched it lap and settle. It reached the same line twice and then a hair past it on the third try.
"You feel that?" he asked.
«I do,» Zamyr answered, close. «The dark, it's climbing.»
Void pushed up on his palms and looked out over the black. No horizon, no stars, just distance. He turned, scanning the ring around the throne for anything—sound, motion, a seam in the glass-smooth surface.
Nothing. Only the low hum living in the stone.
"It's rising," he said. He checked the dais line again. The edge under his boots had shrunk.
«Nothing is pushing it towards us,» Zamyr looked around, «But the ocean's tides are rising nevertheless. . I do not like it.»
"Me neither."
He slid a few inches back along the dais. The pale fire at the throne's base breathed once and kept its thin flame. He didn't look at the chair. He didn't like giving it that attention.
Another ripple reached him and broke, the smallest spray of darkness climbing the toe of his boot and then deciding it didn't exist. He exhaled through his teeth and let the breath go flat.
Zamyr flickered.
«This…»
"Zamyr?"
Silence hung for a beat too long. Then the Ahamkara's voice came back, thinned. «Light. This sensation is definitely Light. Not one. Many. Guardians are entering the Hellmouth.»
Void straightened. "What!"
«They jumped,» Zamyr said, focus sharpening as he listened to a world he wasn't in. «I can feel the power coursing through their veins. They're fast. They're here for you.»
"Who sent—" He cut himself off. It didn't matter. "What's happening outside?" he asked anyway.
«Nothing yet but—»
Zamyr went silent once more. This time, his presence thinned, as if stretched beyond its capacity. Then, he whispered, «Wait. The Witch, she felt it. Omnigul is on her way.»
Void felt his jaw set. He looked down at the ocean of darkness that kept rippling towards him, "How close?"
«Close enough,» Zamyr said with a tense voice, an eerie quiver in his tone that wasn't there before. «She is summoning her legions.»
"Can you slow her down?" Void frowned.
«A little, maybe,» Zamyr said. «Too much and I will not be able to hide you anymore.»
"Fine, how long?" Void asked.
«A few minutes? Her Knights will march towards the guardians. But her? I can stop for a while.» Zamyr's voice turned low, "Be ready, O brother mine. Whatever happens, everything depends on those who seek to save you."
Void's eyes widened, his hand instinctively gripped the hilt of his blade, and he nodded softly.