The others were already there. Five figures stood spaced evenly around the hall, each one a gravity well unto itself. I felt them before I could properly look at them; the weight of their presence pressed against my senses, and their power vibrated just beneath the surface of reality. None was monstrous, nor corrupted in any obvious way. But their auras were layered, turbulent, threaded through with darker hues that pulsed and shifted as if barely restrained. Power held too tightly. Control sharpened into something brittle. I understood, suddenly and viscerally, what Dravok had meant when he spoke of discipline as survival.
They were gods. And they were tired. The darkness in them was managed, not hidden, in all of them except one.
Zapharos stood apart without standing away; his presence was unmistakable the moment my gaze found him. His aura glowed gold, pure, even, unwavering. Not blinding, not soft, butbalanced. The light around him didn't surge or flicker; it simply existed, steady and immense, like a star that had never learned to burn unevenly.
It was beautiful and terrifying all at once. Because, unlike the others, his power didn't feel compressed. It feltwhole.
I inhaled sharply, my human instincts finally caught up with what my body already knew. Standing among them felt like standing inside a storm frozen in time; each Arkhevari was a different expression of the same elemental force.
Six gods.
The seventh space remained empty. Nythor's absence was a wound in the symmetry of the hall, a silence that carried moreweight than presence ever could. I felt it like a missing note in a chord, wrong, unresolved, impossible to ignore.
Dravok stepped forward, and his posture straightened as the Hall responded to him; the light beneath our feet shifted subtly, acknowledging his authority. I stayed beside him, acutely aware of how small I was and how deliberate my presence here was. I had never felt awe like this. Not the kind that inspires worship. The kind that makes you understand, all at once, how much damage beings like this could do… how desperately the universe needed them to be better than their worst instincts.
As the Hall of Seven closed around us, living stone sealing the moment into place, I knew with sudden certainty: whatever answers we were about to uncover here would not be comforting. But they would be true. And truth, I was learning, was the most dangerous power of all.
Zapharos' gaze found Dravok; something passed between them: relief. Relief, sharpened by concern, and beneath it all, the weight of shared history that had never fully been spoken. Beside Zapharos stood Ella.
I recognized her instantly, though we had never met. She was human, unmistakably so, standing amid gods without shrinking or posturing; her presence was calm and grounded in a way that made the air around her feel… breathable. Her eyes met mine with curiosity and warmth. With certain clarity, I knew she had been waiting for me as much as I had been for her.
Unfortunately, there was no time to get to know her right now. Questions came immediately, layered and insistent.
"What happened to Nythor?"
"Where is he?"
"What did the Cryons do to him?"
Dravok waited patiently until the questions died down, until the others realized he wasn't going to say anything until they were done. Only then did he step forward and announce,"Nythor is dead." The chamber stilled. "I didn't execute him. The Cryons sold him to the Ohrurs, who were under the influence of Nox Eternum. He was used. Whatever exists within the Dark Abyss used him as a conduit. As bait."
A ripple passed through the gathered Arkhevari. Not shock—shock was too small for beings who had witnessed the death of worlds—but something colder. A tightening. An awareness that a boundary had been crossed. One of them was dead. Gone.
An Arkhevari stepped forward, his aura darkening at the edges. I didn't know his name. "Used him how?"
Dravok didn't answer immediately. I felt him chose his words with care, wanting to ensure whatever he was going to say next would land cleanly. "He wasn't interrogated. He wasn't tortured for information. He was positioned." His jaw tightened. "Whatever exists within the Dark Abyss required a voice. A presence familiar enough to draw me in."
A low murmur spread through the chamber.
"Nythor was unstable," another Arkhevari said. "His mind fractured long before?—"
"That fracture was exploited," I stepped forward, the words escaping before I even realized I was going to speak.
The Hall shifted, subtly but unmistakably, as attention turned to me. I felt the weight of six godlike intelligences settle on me, not hostile, but assessing. "He wasn't chosen at random," I continued, my voice steadier than I felt. "Nythor was chosen because he could hear it. And becauseitknew Dravok would come after him."
Silence followed, heavy and charged.
One of the others turned toward Dravok. "You were lured."
"Yes," Dravok agreed. "And I was vulnerable there in a way I didn't understand until it was too late."
Zapharos, who had remained silent until then, moved. Not forward. Not away. Simply enough to make his presenceundeniable. His golden aura did not flare or sharpen; itsettled, radiating outward in even, measured waves that seemed to steady the Hall itself.
"We have long believed," he stated quietly, "that the darkness we fought was the Abyss." His gaze swept the chamber, lingering briefly on each of the others. "That it was an external force pressing inward."
"You believe otherwise now?" One of his brothers asked.
"I do," Zapharos replied.
