“That’s debatable,” Noctis grumbled, rubbing his scratched forearm. When he tried to stand, he swayed on his feet.
Blessedlyr, he was still unwell and should be in bed, not out in the rain fighting dark acolytes to save me. I rose to my feet and slipped under his arm, steadying him while suppressing the wave of nausea that hit me with the abrupt motion. “We have to get you back inside.”
Noctis just nodded, his face paler than ever. He was worse off than I had thought.
“Leave it,” he said as I moved to pick up the Chaosdagger on the ground, now black and lifeless. “We’ll fetch it later, when we can ensure we won’t inadvertently activate it.” His eyes fell on the burnt spot on the ground that was all that remained of Vultaron. “I told him not to touch you,” he commented, a vindictive smile playing on his lips.
As we made our way back to the house, his arm tightened around me, a thrilling heat spreading through my body at his fierce protectiveness. I glanced up at him. His jaw was set with grim determination.The way he had dispatched his former servant without hesitation to save me, the satisfaction in his voice as he spoke of Vultaron’s demise—it all awakened a part of me I had thought long buried. His ruthlessness was dangerously alluring, a magnetic pull I had always found hard to resist.
At the door, I hesitated, my hand lingering on the handle. “Noctis,” I said softly, “thank you for coming to my aid.”
Noctis looked down at me, his obsidian eyes burning with an intensity that made my breath catch. “He hurt you. I would kill him a thousand times over for that insolence.” Pale fingers reached out to catch a strand of my hair in an achingly familiar gesture. “No one will ever be permitted to hurt you while I still live.”
CHAPTER
10
THE DAYS OF BECOMING
before the counting of years
Noctis
Icould not remember my beginning. All I could recall was a whirlwind of light, color, and sound, merging and sundering again and again in an eternal dance that never ceased. Over time, a beautiful pattern emerged, bringing Order to the Chaos, like a masterful tapestry woven from the very threads of existence.
Then, I did not know what loneliness meant. I basked in the presence of the Allfather alongside my kin. One of them was especially close to my heart, dwelling at my side through the first days of creation. One similar in power and still so different in nature to me, his soft glow of dawn a contrast to the frigid burn of my darkness. He lacked my insatiable curiosity, never venturing as far in the pursuit of knowledge. Yet upon my return, he was always there, steadfast and waiting.
My brother, unwavering and strong, a reassuring constant.
(There was another—a mischievous little light that would occasionally brush against my mind with a melodic chime, only to dart away when I snarled in irritation.)
Soon I explored the farthest reaches of the Allfather’s realm,driven by an ravenous hunger for more. There, the pattern of existence was unraveling at the seams, threads of reality fraying and dissolving into nothingness. Despite the danger I felt, I could not deny my fascination with this unfettered Chaos, with the power it promised, the endless possibilities—only to be harshly reprimanded by our Maker for daring too much.
Until then, the Allfather’s love had been a constant warmth, always surrounding us like a gentle embrace. But now, I learned that he could also rage at us, his disapproval a cruel, biting storm that engulfed our entire world.
“This is the Other,”he warned us, his words a thunderous decree.“A place of Chaos. Stay away from it, for its evil nature will only destroy everything we are striving to build.”
I knew the threat of our Maker’s wrath should have made me relent, yet a small, defiant spark within me refused to be extinguished as I constantly tested the boundaries put upon me. When the Allfather decided to send us to Aron-Lyr, the new world he had lifted from the maelstrom of Chaos for us to shape, I refused to obey. I was burning. Burning with the desire to push my abilities to the limit, to attempt the impossible, to create things beyond the imagination. And he expected me to cage myself. To confine myself to a fragile mortal body, scarcely more than a glorified slave, existing only to fulfill his orders.
I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.
“I cannot unmake your existence. Darkness is a part of this world, as much as I wish it were otherwise,”the Allfather raged when I hurled my defiance back at him, my will close to shattering under the ferocious power battering against it.“But your madness will corrupt no one else. You are alone, and alone you shall stay, ruling the dark.”
Then he cast me down into this cursed realm he called his creation.
I awakened alone.
A gasp. Air rushed into my lungs with the thousand small needle pricks of frost. My eyes opened wide, tearing up from the relentless wind blowing around me and the endless gray light overhead. It took me a long time to realize I couldn’t move with a mere thought. This strange new form I found myself in required me to bend and stretch long, ungainly limbs to get up. It took even longer to find the resolve to try.
Curled in on myself, the ground beneath my cheek hard and freezing, I called my shadows to me. Their faint whisper over my skin was a small comfort. At least my powers hadn’t abandoned me. He had not taken them from me. Not out of compassion, I suspected. No, because he could not.
The thought that surely our Maker gazed upon me now, rejoicing in my suffering, finally brought me up on my knees. As I struggled to my feet, the weight of my new form pressed down on me. My limbs felt heavy and awkward, as if they didn’t quite belong to me. But I couldn’t afford to be weak. Not now.
Around me was only white—an infinite barren wasteland of ice and rock, stretching endlessly in every direction. The cruel wind blew small icy flecks into my face. They bit into my skin.
I truly was alone.
None of the others had bothered to search for me, nor would they, obeying the Allfather’s orders. I had half expected my brethren to join me in my rebellion. But it was clear they had not. Not even Aramaz,whom I had believed would stand by me through anything. No, he had been named the king of this new world, our leader, perhaps as a reward for his abandonment.
