“So what does the Harrowed One want?" She asked.
That was a good question. One I'd asked myself for a very long time. As if drawn by her, my hand pushed over the armrest, closing some of the distance between hers and mine. I noticed hers had moved forward ever so slightly, too. They were still far from touching, but close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from her body.
“It wants to finish what the Collapse started,” I summarized my and my brothers' assumptions quietly. “It wants to unmake everything. Every planet, every world, every spark of light that escaped the Fracture. It feeds on imbalance and broken things. And it’s been growing stronger, reaching further. The Cryons were just one of its tools. The Ohrurs, maybe even the Sythari… even some of our own kind have been influenced over thecenturies without realizing it.” My mind wandered to Nythor without naming him.
I didn't feel any sympathy for our dead oracle, the bastard had brought it on himself, but deep down, I’ve wondered if I would be next? The Abyss knew the Harrowed One had been trying to worm his way into my mind for eons.
Naeris was completely focused on me. The sheer force of it sent a slow, heavy pulse of heat straight through my core. I could see the faint rise and fall of her chest, the way her lips parted as she processed my words.
“It laughs in the silence between stars,” I continued. “Because silence is what it leaves behind. Emptiness. It doesn’t just want to destroy. It wants toerase. To make the universe forget that anything else ever existed.”
There were also the Mmuhr’Rhong. Naeris should know about them, too.
“And then there are the Mmuhr’Rhong.”
Her eyes sharpened with recognition. “I’ve heard the name. The rebels spoke of them with fear.”
That caught my attention. "Interesting." I drew my eyebrows together and thought for a moment. So Earth seemed to be the center that divided two major universes—for lack of a better name—and neither one knew about the other, but both were plagued by the Mmuhr’Rhong. That was something I would need to bring up to the others, but first, I needed to finish filling Naeris in.
“They're the reason the Abyss is never quiet. We’ve been fighting them for our entire existence. Zapharos, as Praetor of War, leads the defense day and night. They are… relentless. Brutal in a way that’s hard to describe to someone who hasn’t seen them in the Abyss. Inside Nox Eternum, they're far stronger, far more vicious; the rules of reality bend there, and they thrive on it. The Pandraxians laughed when we first warnedthem. They thought we were exaggerating some minor shadow creatures. They don’t laugh anymore.”
I rubbed my jaw, the memory of endless battles flashing through my mind.
“Some of them have escaped the Abyss. We still don’t know how. That shouldn’t be possible. But they have. We don’t know if the Harrowed One raised them, or if they’ve always been there, lurking in the dark since the First Collapse. Either way, they are its perfect weapons. Or perhaps its children. They keep coming. No matter how many we kill, more always appear. It’s a war without end.”
The room fell quiet except for the faint hum of the ship and the soft pulse of the golden thread between us.
Naeris was watching me closely, her expression holding a mix of fascination and something softer. The way her eyes lingered on my face, then briefly on my chest and shoulders, sent another spike of heat through me. My cock stirred again, heavy and insistent. Being alone with her like this was pure torture. I wanted to reach across the space between us and pull her into my lap. I wanted to taste the questions on her lips and drown in the way she looked at me like I wasn’t a monster.
Instead, I stayed where I was, fists clenched on my thighs, fighting the bond and my own growing hunger with everything I had.
"But you say they're stronger on your side?" I circled back to her earlier remark.
She nodded. "I've never seen one before, but Kael’Varyn still bears the scars from them."
We both fell silent for a moment. I wished I had the time to investigate Naeris' claim further, but it didn't seem like our travels would take us in the direction of her universe anytime soon. In comparison to the Dark Abyss and the Harrowed One, the Mmuhr’Rhong only made for a minor nuisance.
A few heartbeats passed before Naeris spoke again. “And you think we’re supposed to stop it. The Dark Abyss. The Harrowed One?”
I gave a slow nod, my gaze never leaving hers. “I think the prophecy believes we can.”
She fell silent again, staring thoughtfully at me. The air between us felt charged, almost electric.
“And the Cryons?” she asked. “I know they attacked Earth, but I don’t know why that mattered to the Pandraxians or why the Emperor got involved.”
I explained, as best I could, the Cryons’ invasion, the discovery that humans were compatible as mekarries—the equivalent of Aelyth to the Pandraxians—and the Pandraxians stepping in to protect what they saw as their future mates. Naeris listened intently, asking sharp, intelligent follow-up questions that showed how much she had already pieced together from the others.
Naeris studied me for a long moment, and the golden thread between us hummed with quiet intensity. The room felt smaller, the air thicker. Her damp hair, the faint scent of her skin after the shower, the way her tunic shifted when she breathed, it was all becoming too much for me to resist much longer. I was trying to figure out a way to excuse myself, but then she asked the question I’d been dreading.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” she stared straight at me, her expression one of honest curiosity, “but yesterday… it was a big deal for you to show your mark on your back. Why?”
I closed my eyes.
The weight of millions of years pressed down on me. Part of me wanted to shut down, to deflect, to keep that darkness locked away where it belonged. Another part—a reckless, selfish part—wondered if telling her the truth might finally scare her away. If she started avoiding me, it would be easier to stay away fromher. Easier not to give in to the constant, aching temptation of the Aelyth bond. Because I absolutely did not deserve her.
I opened my eyes and met hers.
“Because it’s not just a mark,” I intentionally made my voice sound rough. I wanted her to be scared. I wanted her to be scared of me. “It’s proof that I’m… wrong. Different. The Abyss didn’t just birth me. Itstainedme. The Harrowed One has whispered through that darkness for as long as I can remember. Promises. Threats. Temptations. I’ve spent my entire existence trying to resist him.”
