The docks were quiet enough to hear the tide breathe.
Boards stretched out like ribs, dark with salt, damp with night. Qaritas lowered himself onto the edge, knees drawn up, boots dangling above the water that licked the pilings below. Mist coiled off the surface, catching the first suggestion of dawn, though the horizon hadn't yet decided what color it wanted to bleed.
He sat still. He did not shiver.
But every part of him ached with the echo of the dream.
The glass field. The boy. The knife. The taste of black blood pressed against his lips.
Five days.
He pressed his hands flat against the planks until his fingertips stung. He tried to breathe steady, as though stillness might stitch him back into one piece. But the silence only made the memory louder.
Eon. His older brother. His shadow with a smile.
Qaritas had no words to hold it. How could he? He was as old as the first dimension itself and yet—he had been nothing. A whisper left in the dark because his father had decided he was too dangerous to breathe. Hrolyn had banished him at birth, and the void had obeyed.
Two thousand universes later, he was still the hollow vein threading through them all.
Only now, the hollow had a body. And a name.
Qaritas.
He almost laughed—except the sound stuck sharp in his throat.
The truth coiled in his chest like barbed wire: he wasn't just a son. He wasn't just the Shadowborn. He was the new bearer of Aun'darion—Eon's heart, or what was left of it. And his brother had promised him a future written in command: ascend in five days or watch everything burn.
He closed his eyes. For a moment, he imagined telling them—Ayla, Zcain, Rnarah, Cree, the rest. Just opening his mouth and letting the nightmare fall into their hands.
He saw the way they would look at him.
Not like brother. Not like comrade.
Like contagion.
The planks groaned beneath him as the tide shifted. Qaritas dragged a breath into his lungs, but it felt like swallowing glass.
I can't tell them. Not this. Not yet.
The mist thickened, curling close around his shoulders, as if the water itself leaned in to listen.
That was when the thought came—not his own.
A voice, warm as velvet and cruel as a knife, threading through the marrow of his ribs.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
The voice threaded through his skull like silk dipped in poison—soft, low, inevitable. Not behind him. Not above. Inside.
"The color of the mist," Eon murmured, amused. "Pale green at the edges, like bruised glass. The way the planks sweat salt where your hands rest. The taste of rust in the air."
Qaritas's breath snagged. His fists tightened against the dock.
"You're not here," he whispered.
Eon chuckled, quiet and sure. "I see what you see, little brother. I feel the damp in your boots, the ache in your fingers. Even the echo of Ayla's bracelet—glinting last night when she leaned against the rail, remember? Silver catching lantern-light like it knew you were watching."
Qaritas's throat closed. His chest tightened until the word forced itself out—sharp, desperate:
"Anchor."
It cracked against the water, thin as glass.
But nothing shifted. The air didn't loosen. The pressure didn't break. The word rang hollow in his ribs, swallowed before it could take root.
Eon laughed again, softer now, as though humoring a child. "Anchor doesn't save you from me. That was her word, not yours. Her rules, not mine."
Qaritas's nails bit into the wood until splinters dug under his skin. "Get out of me."
"You can't separate water from the tide," Eon said. "We are closer than ever now. Closer than your own breath."
The mist blurred, but Qaritas knew it wasn't dawn fog. It was the weight of being seen from the inside, every thought held under violet eyes he couldn't escape.
Qaritas forced his jaw shut until his teeth ached. "You're not me," he said finally, low. "You're not in me. You're just—" His hand went instinctively to his chest, to the throb he didn't want to name. "—a weight I didn't choose."
Eon's voice warmed, pleased. "Oh, but you did choose, little brother. You chose the moment you took Aun'darion into you. My heart. My inheritance. Every beat you feel now is mine."
Qaritas spat over the edge of the dock, as if the gesture could purge it. "I'm not your vessel."
"You're worse." The boy's tone sharpened, but not in anger—delight. "A vessel carries. You possess. My heart belongs to you now. You don't hold me—I hold you, every breath a reminder."
Qaritas's throat tightened. "I'll never become you."
Eon chuckled, the sound low and full of teeth. "It's not about becoming me. It's about proving you were never anything else. The void they named you at birth. The punishment. The fracture. Tell me, brother—when Hrolyn banished you, when the void swallowed you, did you fight? Did you resist? Or did you just… slip into nothing, like it was the shape you were always meant to take?"
Qaritas's breath came ragged. His fingers curled tight against the splinters in the dock, refusing to give an inch. "If Father failed me, he failed you first."
That earned a laugh—sharp, delighted, cruel. "At last, you sound like blood of mine. Blame him, curse him, spit his name into the sea—it doesn't matter. Father's failure is our birthright."
The words coiled, and Qaritas felt them settle in his chest like hooks. He shook his head hard, as if force alone could scrape them loose.
"You're a shadow clinging to me," Qaritas muttered. "That's all. A heart that doesn't know when to stop beating."
"And you're a boy pretending you aren't already me," Eon said softly. "We share a pulse now. When it falters, so do you. When it rises, so will I. You can deny it to them. You can deny it to yourself. But not to me. Never to me."
Qaritas's breath stuttered. For a moment, he thought he felt it—the second pulse under his own, slow and sure, like laughter turned into rhythm.
"Get. Out." His voice was hoarse, stripped raw.
"I can't." Eon's tone gentled, like a brother comforting instead of tormenting. "Because you carry me. And until I am reborn, we are the same heartbeat."
The horizon wavered, a pale bruise of gold pressing against the black. Qaritas stared at it, as if light itself might hold him steady.
Eon sighed in his bones, lazy and patient. "You really think you can hold me off with silence? With willpower? Little brother, I've waited through two-thousand universes. I can wait inside you for five days more."
Qaritas closed his fists until the splinters in his palms drew blood. "Then wait in silence."
But Eon only laughed, soft and delighted, the way an older brother laughs when the game is already won.
"Silence doesn't suit us. Besides, I don't need words to remind you of what you carry. Every time Aun'darion beats in your chest, it whispers my name. You feel it, don't you? My heart learning your rhythm. Your rhythm learning mine."
Qaritas pressed a hand hard to his sternum, as if he could smother it. "I'm not you."
"Not yet," Eon allowed. "But in five days you'll stand at the edge. Ascend… or watch them burn." His voice curved, velvet and cruel. "Do nothing, and Ayla will scream first. Her bracelet will snap on her wrist as I twist it from her arm. Do nothing, and Zcain's blade-smile will break. Do nothing, and Rnarah's veil will fall—not to reveal beauty, but to show the corpse beneath."
Qaritas's breath broke in jagged bursts. "Stop it."
"You want me to stop? Then ascend. Drink what I offer. Take my strength into you fully." Eon's tone shifted—no longer taunting, but coaxing. "Save them, Qaritas. Become what Father was too afraid to let you be."
Qaritas's voice cracked against the water. "No. I'll never carry you forward."
Eon's chuckle was low, fond, terrible. "Oh, but you will. Because choice is just the mask we wear to pretend we're not already written. Ascend, and you become an Ascendant—the savior they beg for. Resist, and you become me. The first evil, born again. Either way, you rise."
The dock creaked beneath Qaritas, his body trembling with rage he couldn't contain. He wanted to shout, to spit, to strike—but there was no throat to close, no body to wound. Only the boy's voice, coiled in his marrow.
"You think they trust you now?" Eon whispered. "Tell them what you are. Tell them what you carry. Watch their eyes change. They already suspect it. They already feel it. Why do you think they stare at you too long, hesitate too often, keep their blades a breath too close?"
Qaritas's hands shook. He dragged them down his face, as though he could claw Eon out. "You're lying."
"Am I?" The boy's voice softened, almost tender. "Or do you already know the truth? They don't see you as brother. They see you as fracture. And in the end, you'll have no one left but me."
The horizon burned brighter. Dawn was coming.
But inside him, it was still midnight.
Qaritas bent forward, forehead pressed to his knees, whispering words he didn't know were prayers or curses.
"I will not break."
Eon's laughter followed, warm and patient. "You already are. All that's left is to decide which way you'll shatter."
Qaritas lifted his head, breath coming raw, salt-stung. "No," he rasped. "You don't get to write me like that. I'm not your story."
For the first time, Eon's silence stretched. A pause, thin as thread.
Then a soft laugh. "Not my story? Little brother, you were born in mine. Every fracture you carry is a line I already inked."
Qaritas dug his nails into the wet wood until the pain grounded him. "Then I'll rip the page out."
Eon hummed, curious, almost indulgent. "Brave words, for someone who can't even tell his friends the truth."
"I'm not afraid of them."
"Yes, you are." The boy's voice gentled, the way older brothers do when they know exactly where to press. "You're afraid of their eyes. Afraid of Ayla's silence. Afraid of Rnarah's pity. Afraid Zcain will stop smiling when he looks at you. You'd rather bleed alone than see them flinch. That's not bravery. That's shame."
Qaritas's chest heaved, but he forced himself upright, shoulders squared against the mist. His voice came sharp, steadier now.
"Shame isn't the same as surrender."
For a heartbeat, the tide hushed.
Eon's laugh came slower this time, almost thoughtful. "You sound so sure. Like Father, the first time he thought he could cage me. He believed defiance made him free. All it made him was weak."
"I'm not Father."
"No," Eon agreed, and his voice darkened, velvet over steel. "You're mine."
Qaritas shut his eyes, teeth bared. "You're not in control. Not here. Not in me. If you're inside my chest, then you're my prisoner. And I don't take orders from what I cage."
The mist thickened, the air pressing closer—as if the dock itself braced under the weight of that defiance.
Eon was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke again, it was softer, colder.
"You think you've won something, little brother. You haven't. All you've bought yourself is time."
Qaritas forced his breath steady, riding the silence like a blade's edge. For a moment, he believed he'd pushed the voice back.
But then the laughter returned—low, patient, inevitable.
"Let me show you how little time you have."
The world shivered. The dock bled away.
The dock dissolved beneath him. The salt mist turned iron. The air stank of charred flesh.
Qaritas staggered forward, but the boards were gone. He stood ankle-deep in blood that wasn't water, thick and warm, seeping between shattered stone. The horizon had cracked open, bleeding daylight in jagged streaks like torn muscle.
At the center: Ayla.
Her wrists chained in glass that burned hotter than fire, skin blistering where metal met bone. Her mouth opened to scream—but only blood came, dark and frothing, pouring down her chin. The bracelet she wore had snapped, shards embedded in her skin like cruel stars.
Around her, bodies piled high. Komus's jaw shattered, eyes wide but unseeing. Daviyi with her chest split open, ribs curled like fingers clawing upward. Cree's flame guttered out in the hollow of a burned skull. Hydeius's spine jutted from his back like broken columns. Zcain's hand still clutched Rnarah's veil, the cloth soaked through crimson, her face half-torn, half-beautiful, her rose-quartz eyes plucked from their sockets and strung along a chain at her throat.
And higher still—thousands of other corpses, some Qaritas knew, some he didn't, twisted together into a grotesque mountain. Their mouths gaped. From them, eyes blinked open, one by one, all fixed on him. A galaxy of pupils staring from rotting flesh.
At the peak, Eon sat cross-legged, a boy's body drenched in gore, swinging his feet like it was a game. His violet eyes glowed, reflected in every staring corpse below.
"See?" he cooed, voice soft as silk, sweet as rot. "This is what your defiance buys you. This is what happens when you don't drink. When you don't ascend."
Ayla jerked against her chains, bones cracking audibly in her arms. Her head tilted toward him, and through the blood, she rasped—not his name, not a plea. Just one word:
"Why?"
Qaritas dropped to his knees, bile burning his throat. The blood lapped higher, soaking his hands, warm, sticky. He wanted to shut his eyes, but the corpses stared back even when he blinked—eyes inside lids, blinking from veins, unblinking from torn sockets.
"Drink," Eon whispered, stepping down from his throne of ruin, bare feet splashing through blood. "Or drown with them."
He knelt beside Qaritas, boyish, gentle, dripping red. His hand pressed against Qaritas's sternum, right over Aun'darion.
"Five days," he murmured, patient as death. "Five days to decide. Ascend—and save them. Refuse—and watch me build this mountain higher with your own bones on top."
Qaritas gagged, choking, but his voice tore out raw, defiant:
"I won't."
Eon's smile widened, soft and terrible. "Oh, little brother… you already have."
And the mountain screamed. Thousands of throats opening at once, pouring blood and sound into the air until the world shattered.
The scream faded.
He was back on the dock, palms slick, lungs burning. The sea lay calm again, innocent, reflecting the first pale bruise of dawn. His pulse still pounded, too many beats inside his chest—his and Eon's, indistinguishable.
Bootsteps on wet boards.
"Qaritas?"
Ayla's voice—low, rough from sleep, threaded with concern. Komus followed a step behind, coat half-buttoned, hair tied with impatient fingers.
"You vanished," Komus said, scanning the horizon. "Gemma thought you'd gone to drown yourself for sport."
"I couldn't sleep." Qaritas tried for a smile. It cracked halfway there. "Didn't mean to wake anyone."
Ayla crouched beside him, the lantern she carried painting her face gold. The wind caught strands of her hair, scattering light across her cheek. "You look pale," she said softly. "Nightmares?"
He almost said yes, almost let it spill—the blood, the mountain, the voice still humming beneath his ribs—but the words froze behind his teeth.
"Just… dreams," he managed.
Komus leaned on a piling, squinting toward the mist. "Dreams or not, the ferry's nearly here." He pointed.
Through the vapor, shapes emerged—massive, slow, impossible. A ship unlike any Qaritas had seen: hull ribbed with living coral, decks layered like terraces of a floating city. Luminous sails fanned wide as wings, catching the geothermal winds that rose from the canyon below. Beneath the waterline, faint lights shimmered in long, coiling rows, like the eyes of leviathans bound to its keel.
"The Deepcrest Ferry," Ayla murmured. "Zcain said it runs on vent-heat and prayer."
Komus gave a low whistle. "It's not a ferry. It's a continent with a rudder."
The vessel's approach sent ripples through the dock, each wave brushing Qaritas's boots. He stared at it, trying to anchor himself in the sheer scale of it, the ordinary wonder of machinery and faith made real. But beneath the awe, something shifted—an echo inside him that wasn't his own.
Eon stirred.
Taeterra, the voice whispered, almost fond. So that's where they'll send you. I've been thinking about it. The Ascendant of the Apocalypse—Zcain's lost child, yes? I wonder if they're strong enough to kill a Fragment… or even me.
Qaritas flinched. Ayla's hand brushed his arm, steadying him.
"You okay?" she asked.
He forced a nod. "Wind's just… colder than it looks."
They said this child decides if a world is worth saving, Eon went on, tone amused. I almost hope they try to kill me. Imagine the poetry—creation's own executioner failing at mercy.
Qaritas kept his gaze on the water, jaw locked. Ayla followed his stare but said nothing. The lanternlight trembled between them, reflected in the dark like a single, stubborn heartbeat.
Komus clapped him lightly on the shoulder. "Whatever's waiting in Taeterra, at least we won't be bored."
Qaritas tried to match his grin. "No. We won't."
The ferry loomed larger now, its shadow falling across the dock, engines humming like distant thunder. Crewmen—Deepcrest mortals with coral-bright eyes—cast glowing ropes to the pier, their chants echoing in rhythm with the tide.
Ayla straightened, watching the ship's immense form settle. "Time to go," she said.
Qaritas rose beside her. The mist coiled around their ankles like hesitant ghosts. Behind his ribs, Aun'darion pulsed—one beat, two, then a soft echo that wasn't his.
Five days, Eon murmured. Let's see who becomes what before the end.
Qaritas looked once more toward the horizon, where the sea swallowed the last trace of night.
"Anchor," Ayla said quietly, as if sensing the tremor in him.
He breathed the word back, barely a whisper.
"Anchor."
The ferry's horns called them forward, deep and resonant, shaking the water into light. Together they stepped toward it—Ayla, Komus, and the god who carried another's heart—while beneath his skin, Eon smiled and waited.