Dravok's expression tightened. Just a fraction, but enough to notice. "I don't know much," he admitted. "Not yet." That surprised me more than anything else. "What I do know," he continued, "is that it is not the Abyss itself. It is something that formedwithinit. A will shaped by accumulation. Every scream swallowed. Every extinction denied closure. Every civilization erased without remembrance."
I felt sick at the thought of how many worlds had been swallowed by the Black Hole. How many lives it had snuffed out.
"It doesn't have a body," he went on while I fought a rising nausea at the realization that I was actually discussing this with him. "It doesn't need one. The Abyss is its domain. The Mmuhr'Rhong are its voice."
"Those… swarm entities," I murmured.
He nodded. "Probes. Messengers. Interfaces. They don't think independently. They translate."
"And Nythor," I whispered, understanding dawning like a bruise. "He's being used to refine the translation."
"Yes."
I dragged a hand through my hair, pacing now, needing motion to keep my thoughts from spiraling. "So the Harrowed One isn't a god."
"No," Dravok said flatly. "Gods create. Thisthingconsumes."
"Then why does it want to communicate?" I demanded. Unable not to ask, yet unable to fathom what we were saying. What I was allowing my head to wrap itself around. "Why not just keep feeding?"
His eyes met mine, dark and intent. "Because consumption without understanding is inefficient."
That was… horrifyingly logical.
I stopped pacing. Was I really considering the Dark Abyss, the Harrowed One, as an entity? "You're saying it wants tonegotiate."
"I'm saying it wants to expand."
Silence pressed in again, heavier now.
I thought of the Cryons. The Ohrur. Of Earth, small, young, improbably important. Of the star-map etched into my skin like a destination I hadn't agreed to. I looked at him once more. At the Arkhevari spymaster, with shadows in his aura and too much certainty in his eyes.
"I still don't believe in destiny," I reiterated, because it was important to me to draw a line somewhere, even as I was in the unthinkable.
"I wouldn't trust you if you did," he replied.
That earned a breath of a laugh from me, short, strained, but real.
"But," I continued, "I believe in systems. And systems fail when ignored."
His mouth curved, just slightly. Approval, maybe.
"Then help me. Before the Ohrur finish teaching the Abyss how to speak."
The pull between us tightened, not mystical, not romantic, much more dangerous: purposeful.
Despite everything—despite my fear, my anger, my disbelief—I realized something that terrified me far more than the Dark Abyss ever could: I was in.
Not because of Dravok, but because the universe was asking questions, and I was one of the few who could hear them.
"How long until we get to Cronack?" Once we had Nythor, maybe, just maybe, we would get some answers, hopefully somelogicalanswers.
He didn't look at me right away. "Depends on what you mean bylong."
I sighed. "That's not comforting."
He finally turned, one brow lifting in faint amusement. "Time is a local agreement. One world calls ten of its revolutions a year. Another calls them a cycle. Some measure by turns. Others by decay. None of it matters once you stop anchoring existence to a sun."
"That's… profoundly unhelpful," even though it was exactly the kind of logic I did understand. "And it's also giving me a headache."
