Nadine’s thoughts spiraled with the force of a storm system, racing to reorganize everything she believed she knew about biology, physics, memory, and the soul itself.
Dravok’s ancient restraint fractured beneath a quiet fury that rolled dark and deep beneath the surface, directed not at us but at the millions of years stolen from them.
Zapharos radiated stunned disbelief so profound it felt like tectonic plates shifting beneath my feet.
And Thyros?—
His emotions struck hardest of all. Rage crashed through him like black fire. Not the poisoned rage the Harrowed One whispered into him. Something older. Rawer. The fury of a male realizing that the female he had mourned without ever knowing had spent millions of years trying to find her way back to him. The force of it shook me.
Then, slowly, like dust settling after devastation, another emotion emerged beneath the chaos: Relief.
Enough to understand that perhaps the universe had not abandoned them after all. If Caelor still lived—if some part of him still burned inside the Harrowed One—then the HarrowedOne had not merely consumed him. It had imprisoned him. Was using him, feeding on him.
“Dear God,” Ella whispered.
“The Harrowed One’s greatest source of power,” Nadine announced faintly.
Dravok’s expression darkened with terrifying clarity. “Caelor.”
Silence crashed over the room. Another realization followed immediately after.
Earth Prime.
Not Terra Nova.
The original Earth. The one they had called Elysium.
The world swallowed by Nox Eternum.
“That’s where he is,” I breathed.
Zapharos' eyes sharpened. “The Harrowed One’s lair.”
The center of the wound. The place where reality had first broken. For a heartbeat, nobody spoke. The enormity of it struck like lightning. Zapharos straightened as the Praetor of War emerged fully once more.
“Then that,” he stated with absolute certainty, “is where we will strike him.”
A pulse of fierce agreement rolled through the room.
But my mind had already snagged on something else. Something that suddenly made no sense at all. “Wait.”
All eyes turned on me. I sat forward slowly, trying to untangle the spiraling thoughts in my head. “Explain this Aelyth thing to me one more time.”
Ella blinked. “Oh, good. We’re all confused again.”
“The bonded couples split,” I said carefully. “The males stayed behind to fight. The females fled to Terra Nova.” The others nodded. “And the original Aelyth became mortal there.”
Another nod.
I frowned. “Were there unbonded females?”
Dravok’s gaze sharpened instantly. He already knew where I was going.
“No,” he said slowly.
“The Aelyth bond was absolute. Every female had her counterpart.”
A strange chill slid down my spine.
