Page 145 of Hellbound

Time.

It flows on and on, the current so fast and dizzying, Marian isn’t sure where she ends and Vale begins as she’s transported to a dark night some place she doesn’t recognize.

“This is only half a plan, Vale,” her father says angrily. “What about your people?”

“I can end the Argent, but I cannot undo what they’ve done. My resources … are limited.”

“So until the Argent are gone, everyone who dies is doomed? For fuck’s sake Vale, I …” Her father’s voice quakes.

“You have my seal, you know where to find the shard. We are so close.”

“And what if your plan doesn’t work? We’re all damned, Vale. My daughter—”

Vale interrupted in a cutting tone. “There are billions of children on this planet. Yours is not the only one in danger.”

He knew. Her father knew what awaited them all. The Remnant to devour them.

“I don’t have all the answers, Arthur.”

Defeat hangs in the air as Marian pulls back from these moments, then further still until she hovers somewhere between twilight and dusk. In that thin, perfect line on the horizon, where night and day meet.

A tremendous sadness fills the quiet as the last stars flicker and die. Behind her, sorrow, sacrifice, and regret. Ahead, the only hope of a future for anything. For anyone.

She is less of herself than she’s ever been as she pushes on, leaving the only world she’s ever known behind in search of another, where she can be something else. Someone else.

Someone the world does not fear. Anything but a god.

Anything but Death.

But history has a way of repeating.

Marian blinked down at the ground. Wet splotches at her feet colored the stone black.

When did she start crying?

“You now carry a memory of the world that was, however small. Join us.”

She looked up at Hexceit.

“What will happen to me if I do?”

“You will become part of us. Together, we will wait for him. For his forgiveness.”

“If I join you, can I ever leave you?”

A pause.

“No.”

Marian’s brows furrowed. She sniffled, swiping at the tears she wished would just fucking stop.

“How are you any different than the Remnant?”

A deep, low growl like the hum of machinery shook the cavern.

“We give you the choice.”

“You saved me before from the ixyura. Could you do it again?”