Barachas's gaze lingered on Alatar, unblinking, as though weighing the boy's soul rather than his body. The chains lay in ruin now, their shattered glyphs smoldering faintly on the altar, their echoes vanishing into silence. The titan flexed his hands — talons the size of pillars — but made no move to rise or claim vengeance on those who had bound him. Instead, he fixed Alatar with the gaze of one who had witnessed the birth of stars and the extinction of ages.
Then, with deliberate slowness, Barachas extended a single claw. Its tip stopped just short of Alatar's chest, a breath away from piercing his heart.
Barachas: "What you have done is not a small thing, Alatar. Chains, whether born of gods or worlds, do not simply break. They yield only when a will greater than their maker declares it so. In shattering mine, you have declared yourself before the Starryverse. It has heard you."
The air trembled as the titan's claw traced a circle of flame-blue light upon Alatar's chest. The glow sank into his skin, searing yet strangely cool, a paradox of fire and frost. Alatar did not cry out.
Barachas: "This is not a gift. It is recognition. In the language of my kind, it is called the Mark of the Unshackled. Few in existence carry it, for few ever dared to earn it."
The light pulsed once, and Alatar felt something shift in him — not power, not strength, but weight. A presence. A resonance that reached beyond him. He sensed it already: any being attuned to the deeper laws of the Starryverse would feel it when they stood before him. Not allegiance, not lineage, but inevitability.
Barachas: "You will find that those who dwell high in the hierarchy of blood, flame, shadow, or void will pause when they meet your eyes. They will know you have broken chains not meant to be broken. Some will fear you. Some will despise you. A rare few will call you kin. This mark will follow you through the Starryverse — for recognition is a burden as much as a shield."
He drew back his claw and leaned heavily against the altar, his colossal form folding inwards, though his eyes burned brighter than before.
Barachas: "Remember, Alatar — recognition is not protection. The Sangui, the Malakhim, even the remnants of my own Malakors — they will not spare you. They will only know that you are not prey. You walk your path not as a chained thing, nor as a servant. You walk it as your own law. That is what the mark declares."
Alatar touched his chest where the light had entered. His palm found no scar, no wound, only the faint echo of something vast resting beneath his skin. He closed his eyes briefly, inhaling. The chamber around him seemed sharper now, the silence heavier, the very air charged with awareness.
When he opened them, his voice was calm, steady, regal in a way it had not been before:
Alatar: "Then let the Starryverse hear me. I am Alatar. I am no one's prey. I will be something beyond chains, beyond fate. If they fear me, let them fear. If they despise me, let them choke on their own hatred. And if they would call me kin — then let them prove it."
Barachas's deep laugh rumbled once more, shaking dust loose from the vaulted ceiling.
Barachas: "Spoken well. That is how sovereignty begins."
The temple, now absent of chains, seemed to shift again — not collapsing, not fading, but reshaping itself subtly, as though it too acknowledged the pact formed here: between a boy who would not wear shackles and a titan who had carried them for eternity.
The air within the temple grew still, though the countless shifting walls whispered and groaned like the hushed breaths of giants. The chains that had once bound Barachas to the altar now lay shattered, curling like brittle serpents upon the floor. He stood free, though his immense form seemed to weigh down the very foundation of the chamber. His molten eyes lingered on Alatar—not with scorn, not with superiority, but with something rarer: pride.
"Alatar," Barachas rumbled, his voice a deep current that carried the timbre of forgotten ages, "you have marked yourself in this moment. You are no longer the one who first entered these halls in fear, nor the one who trembled before the weight of my presence. You are something… else. A new existence. But do not mistake me." His gaze sharpened. "For all the grandeur that coils in your veins, for all the light and shadow that bow before your steps—you are still weak. Not in potential. Not in stature. But in command. You do not yet wield what is yours."
Alatar's eyes narrowed, the blue fire within his gaze flickering with thought. "Command…" he echoed softly, tasting the word as though it were foreign. "I have watched others—Sangui shaping blood as one bends rivers, Malakim speaking and the stars themselves listening, even mortals commanding the simplest flame or water. But I…" His voice faltered, not in uncertainty, but in dawning realization. "I have never commanded anything—not elements, not laws, not the truths that gnaw at my soul. Not because I could not… but because I did not know how."
He drew in a slow breath, his expression darkening. "I thought myself cursed by what I bore. But perhaps the curse was only ignorance."
Barachas inclined his head, heavy chains still clinking faintly from his form as he moved, though no longer binding him. "Ignorance is no small curse," he intoned. "It has slain more empires than fire and blade. But you see it now. And that is the first step."
Alatar's lips curved faintly, neither smile nor grimace. "Then the first step is taken."
The primordial studied him for a long moment, silence stretching between them, heavy yet unbroken. At last Barachas spoke, his voice lowering to something nearly human, almost conspiratorial.
"Then let me offer this: if you would shed the skin of weakness, if you would learn not merely to bear your power but to wield it, then I will teach you. I, who have walked as lord among the Malakors, who have spoken as equal to the Primarchs, who once commanded legions vast enough to darken galaxies—I will train you."
His words hung like a verdict in the stillness. The temple seemed to pause, its breathing walls falling quiet, as though waiting for the next beat in this unfolding rhythm.
But Alatar gave no answer. He stood in silence, the fire of decision smoldering in his chest, the weight of the offer pressing against the marrow of his soul.
And so the dialogue ended there—Barachas's promise lingering in the chamber like a seed cast into deep, uncertain soil.