DEADALUS author of AETHERBORN - CHAPTER 533 

Thorne stared at Marian. 

For several seconds he could only hear the sea below them, waves breaking against the cliffs beneath the ancient city while the words settled somewhere deeper than he wanted them to. 

“Our existence is a threat to the world,” he repeated. 

Marian did not look away. Whatever hesitation had been in her face moments earlier remained, but there was conviction beneath it now, the kind Thorne remembered from years of lessons when she had finally gathered enough evidence to stop calling something a theory. 

“What does that mean?” 

Marian drew in a slow breath. “It means I found something beneath the city. Something I have spent the last two months trying to understand.” Her gaze briefly shifted toward the white buildings below before returning to him. “It changes what I thought I knew about the Elderborn. It changes what I thought I knew about the gods.” 

Thorne felt the pressure of the ancient domain around him again, faint but impossible to ignore now that he understood what sustained it. The divine fragment somewhere above them remained silent, yet the intelligence buried within it seemed closer after Marian’s words. 

“What did you find?” 

She hesitated only a moment. 

“I should show you.” 

Marian turned back toward the promenade. 

Thorne followed without another question. 

They retraced part of the path they had taken earlier, though Marian turned away before they reached the wider terraces overlooking the city. She chose a narrow trail cut along the outer face of the cliffs instead, barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side. The white material of the city quickly gave way to natural stone as the path descended in long curves toward the sea. 

The wind strengthened as they went lower. 

Salt filled the air. Waves struck the base of the cliffs with increasing violence, throwing spray high enough to reach them even while they remained dozens of feet above the water. Marian kept walking as if she had made the journey too many times to care. 

Thorne said nothing. 

The path narrowed further before ending entirely on a shelf of dark rock barely above the waterline. 

Marian continued. 

She climbed down first, using narrow cracks in the cliff where the stone jutted outward. Thorne followed, his hands sinking into wet rock as another wave struck below them and sent cold water across his back. Within minutes both of them were drenched. 

Still Marian did not speak. 

That silence began to bother him. 

She had always talked while they traveled. During their old expeditions she had filled hours with theories, complaints about Aetherhold faculty, arguments about Elderborn history, or corrections whenever Thorne misunderstood some obscure magical principle. Even when they were sneaking somewhere they had no business being, Marian rarely remained quiet for long. 

Now she climbed. 

That told Thorne more than anything she had said above. 

The rocks became sharper near the base of the cliffs. Several times they had to wait for waves to recede before crossing exposed sections, and once Thorne caught Marian by the forearm when her footing slipped on a patch of slick stone. 

Eventually she stopped before the cliff face. 

Thorne frowned. 

There was nothing there at first glance. 

Then he noticed the gap. 

A narrow opening split the rock several feet above the water, hidden behind a jagged formation that almost completely concealed it from the sea. The space looked too small to lead anywhere important. 

His aether senses disagreed. 

Something vast waited beyond the stone. 

Thorne stepped closer. 

The opening itself barely allowed a person through. Marian turned sideways and squeezed between the rocks, disappearing into darkness. Thorne followed, shoulders scraping against wet stone until the passage widened enough for him to breathe comfortably again. 

The instant he crossed fully inside, pressure settled over him. 

Thorne stopped. 

Another domain. 

It felt similar to the one protecting the city above, though weaker and narrower. The authority was old enough that its edges had blurred into the surrounding aether, yet the command remained intact. 

Something divine sustained this place too. 

Marian glanced back. 

“You feel it.” 

“Yes.” 

“What is it?” 

Thorne studied the pressure for several seconds. “A second divine fragment. I think.” 

Marian’s expression tightened. 

“You think?” 

“I’ll explain that too.” 

She nodded slowly and raised one hand. 

A sphere of pale light formed above her palm. She sent it ahead of them, and the glow revealed a narrow tunnel descending deeper into the cliff. 

Water ran continuously along the walls. 

The passage looked natural for the first several hundred feet, though Thorne noticed sections where the stone had been cut away with impossible precision. Whoever had built what waited below had hidden the entrance carefully. 

Marian walked ahead. 

Thorne followed. 

The only sounds came from their footsteps, the movement of water, and the distant impact of waves somewhere behind them. 

The deeper they went, the heavier Thorne’s unease became. 

He could feel the domain around him more clearly now. Its authority did not press against Elderborn the way it would have pressed against another race, yet the intelligence behind it remained there. 

Watching. 

Waiting. 

Familiar. 

That last part bothered him most. 

They walked for several minutes before the passage ended without warning. 

Marian’s light drifted forward into darkness. 

Then she strengthened the spell. 

The small sphere became a brilliant white sun and rose. 

Thorne watched the light climb. 

Walls appeared. 

Then towers. 

Then streets. 

His eyes widened. 

The chamber beneath the cliffs was enormous. 

It stretched so far into the darkness that Marian’s spell could not illuminate all of it. Buildings filled the space beneath them, constructed from the same seamless white material as the city above. Wide roads divided districts. Columns rose around open plazas. Arches connected structures across different levels. 

Yet these buildings were different. 

Thorne understood that before Marian said anything. 

The structures had been built for the dead. 

Mausoleums lined the nearest street, each one shaped differently and covered in carvings. Some were small enough to hold a single sarcophagus. Others rose several floors, their entrances framed by reliefs depicting families, bloodlines, and scenes Thorne could not yet interpret. 

Farther away, long buildings contained row after row of white stone coffins. 

Statues stood between them. 

Some showed Elderborn Thorne recognized from bloodlines still alive above. Others belonged to forms he had never seen. 

The scale left him struggling to understand what he was looking at. 

Marian finally turned toward him. 

“I found a second city beneath the first.” 

Thorne stared past her. 

“A necropolis.” 

Her voice carried strangely through the cavern. 

Thorne focused on the nearest mausoleum. 

Its doors stood open. He could see three sarcophagi resting inside. 

The lids had been carved into the likeness of those buried beneath them. A man, a woman, and someone younger. All three possessed thin ridges along their cheeks and foreheads, their hands folded carefully across their chests. 

The walls around the mausuleum told a story. 

A family standing before a white tower. 

The same family working beside others. 

A gathering beneath stars. 

Then the three lying together exactly as they were now. 

He looked toward Marian. 

“How long have you known?” 

“Two months.” 

Thorne turned slowly, taking in the necropolis again. 

“You’ve been down here all that time?” 

“Every day I could manage.” 

Marian stepped beside him. Her face looked exhausted in the light from her spell. 

“I started with the inscriptions nearest the entrance. Then the reliefs. There are archives farther inside, though most of what survived was written in forms of Elderborn script I had never encountered before.” She looked toward the distant buildings. “I kept finding fragments that contradicted what I thought I understood, so I went back and translated them again. Then again.” 

Thorne swallowed. 

“What did you learn?” 

Marian looked at the sarcophagi. 

“The city above was never destroyed.” 

Thorne frowned. 

“I know. There was no damage.” 

“I thought that meant they had abandoned it. Perhaps they had fled during whatever happened to the Elderborn after the gods disappeared.” Marian shook her head. “They didn’t.” 

Something cold moved through him. 

“What happened?” 

Her eyes closed briefly. 

“They killed themselves.” 

Thorne turned sharply. 

Marian opened her eyes. 

“All of them.” 

He stared at her. 

“What?” 

“They built this place first.” Marian gestured toward the necropolis. “Carefully. Deliberately. Families commissioned tombs. Bloodlines prepared sections for their dead. There are records of construction schedules, lists of names, ceremonial preparations, food stores for workers. They spent years building this city beneath the one above.” 

Thorne looked toward the nearest mausoleum again. 

The carvings suddenly felt different. 

“They knew they were going to die.” 

“Yes.” 

“And they stayed?” 

“Yes.” 

“Why?” 

Marian took several seconds to answer. 

“Because of the gods.” 

Thorne felt the pressure of the secondary domain around them. 

“The gods?” 

“I have read every inscription I could translate. I compared the same events across different tombs because I thought I was misunderstanding something.” Marian’s voice had grown quieter. “The conclusion never changed.” 

Thorne waited. 

Marian looked directly at him. 

“They believed we were the gods’ connection to this world.” 

Thorne frowned. 

“That can’t be right.” 

“I thought the same.” 

“It obviously isn’t.” He spread one hand toward the necropolis. “They died thousands of years ago. Elderborn survived. We’re still here. The gods aren’t.” 

“You’re looking at this through the modern world.” 

Thorne’s expression tightened. 

“We are remnants, Thorne. A few hundred here. Scattered families elsewhere. Bloodlines so weakened that some Elderborn barely carry enough of their original traits to recognize what they are.” 

She looked at him with a bleak expression, pleading for him to understand. 

“Back then there were cities like the one above all over the world.” 

Thorne looked at her. 

“Cities?” 

“Dozens at least. Perhaps hundreds. I don’t know. The records speak of populations so large that I kept assuming I had translated the numbers incorrectly.” Marian’s fingers moved over several symbols. “Elderborn blood was richer then. Their abilities stronger. Their connection to divinity appears to have been far more pronounced.” 

Thorne thought of his own bloodline. 

Then Damned. 

Then the Hearts changing entire populations toward something older. 

Marian continued. 

“I think there was a relationship between Elderborn and the gods. Something reciprocal.” 

“What kind of relationship?” 

“I don’t know.” 

Thorne’s frustration sharpened. 

“You just said we connect them to the world.” 

“I said they believed that.” 

“That’s different.” 

“Yes.” Marian faced him fully. “I have evidence, Thorne. I have records of what these people believed. I have reliefs showing the gods weakening as Elderborn populations declined. I have inscriptions describing divine blood as a bridge, an anchor, a root into the physical world. What I don’t have is a complete explanation of how it worked.” 

She looked around the tomb. 

“My best guess is that our presence strengthened them somehow. Their presence strengthened Elderborn in return.” 

Thorne’s skin went cold. 

Marian saw the reaction but continued. 

“The more Elderborn there were, especially those with strong divine blood, the greater the gods could manifest their power here. And the more powerful those gods became, the more their bloodlines prospered.” 

Thorne glanced toward the sarcophagi. 

“So they broke the connection.” 

“I think so.” 

“By killing themselves.” 

Marian nodded. 

Thorne’s stomach twisted. 

“That’s insane.” 

“I know.” 

“An entire city?” 

“I know.” 

“Families. Children.” 

Marian’s expression broke slightly. 

“I know.” 

Thorne turned away. 

The necropolis seemed larger now. 

He imagined the streets above filled the way they were today. 

Children running. 

People arguing over food. 

Families eating together. 

Then those same people spending years constructing tombs below their homes. 

Knowing what they intended. 

Preparing for it. 

“What could possibly make them agree to that?” 

Marian’s silence lasted long enough that Thorne looked back. 

Her face had changed. 

The weariness he noticed earlier had become something worse. 

“Isn’t it obvious?” 

Thorne said nothing. 

Marian’s voice lowered. 

“The gods were tyrants.” 

The word echoed softly through the chamber. 

Thorne’s pulse quickened. 

“Marian.” 

“I don’t mean harsh rulers. I don’t mean demanding worship or tribute.” She shook her head. “The things depicted here are beyond anything I expected.” 

Marian looked past him into the immense darkness of the necropolis. 

“I spent the first few weeks trying to understand why they had done it,” she said. “Once I accepted that the deaths were deliberate, I thought there had to be something else. A plague they couldn't cure. Some corruption in their blood. An enemy they knew would eventually find them. Anything that could explain why an entire city would decide that death was preferable to continuing.” 

Thorne remained near the mouth of the tunnel. The light floating above them revealed only the closest mausoleums before the necropolis disappeared into darkness again.  

“And?” 

Marian folded her arms tightly across herself. 

“I found the answer everywhere.” 

Her gaze remained fixed on the city below. 

“The walls inside the burial halls are covered in reliefs. There are written accounts as well, though translating them has been difficult. They use terms for divinity and authority that don't exist anymore, and some of the script predates every Elderborn dialect I know.” 

She drew in a slow breath. 

“But the same events appear again and again.” 

Thorne waited. 

Marian’s expression tightened as she recalled what she had translated. “One relief records a kingdom that refused to surrender its children for divine service. The god did not destroy the capital. He cursed every road leading out of the kingdom instead. Anyone who crossed the border began aging within minutes, so the population remained trapped while their crops failed and disease spread. The curse lasted twelve years. By the end, the inscriptions stop counting the dead because there were too many villages left without anyone alive to bury them.” 

Thorne felt his stomach tighten, but Marian continued. 

“Another god wanted a population to abandon the deity they already worshipped. When they refused, he took away their ability to sleep. The records describe people remaining awake for weeks while their minds slowly broke. Parents killed their children because they believed strangers were wearing their faces. Entire towns tore themselves apart. The god ended the curse only after the survivors crawled to his temples and begged to belong to him.” 

Thorne stared at her. 

Marian’s voice grew quieter. “There was a city whose ruler insulted a goddess during negotiations. She spared the ruler. Instead, she altered everyone born within his territory so they could feel hunger but could never be satisfied by food. The curse continued through their children. The reliefs show families eating until their stomachs ruptured while still begging for more. The ruler lived another forty years and was forced to watch what his words had done.” 

Thorne’s mouth had gone dry. 

“And one of the worst records describes a war between two gods over a region neither was willing to surrender. They did not fight each other directly. They fought through the people living there.” Marian swallowed. “Each god repeatedly changed the population to make them better weapons. Stronger bodies. Harder skin. Greater resistance to pain. Then the other god altered them again to counter whatever had been done. By the end, generations had been born, reshaped, and sent against their own relatives while the gods continued arguing over who owned the land.” 

Thorne could hear the water running along the tunnel behind them. 

Marian looked toward the necropolis. “There are records of cities being drowned because their prayers were judged insufficient, entire bloodlines condemned to die in childbirth, populations struck blind so they would need priests to guide them, and thousands kept alive through wounds that should have killed them because a god wanted their punishment to last longer.” Her face twisted with disgust. “The people who carved these accounts did not describe powerful protectors who sometimes became cruel. They described beings who had lived so long above everyone else that they stopped seeing mortals as people.” 

Thorne felt cold. 

Thorne stared at her. 

“Why would they do such things?” 

“I don't know.” 

“There has to be a reason.” 

“There probably was.” 

Something in the way she said it made him look away. 

Marian's expression had become tired rather than angry. 

“That is part of what frightened me, Thorne. Most of these acts had reasons attached to them. Rebellion. Insult. Betrayal. Disobedience. Refusal to worship. Support for another god. Sometimes the records describe an actual threat. Sometimes one city really had attacked another population under divine protection.” 

Her eyes met his. 

“The reasons stopped mattering once the response could erase thousands of lives.” 

Thorne's pulse began to quicken. 

Marian looked back toward the necropolis. She continued speaking, and the images formed without any help from the necropolis. 

A city refusing to kneel. 

Something ancient standing above it. 

Power descending. 

People running through streets while authority greater than anything they could oppose decided what remained afterward. 

Thorne's mouth went dry. 

White fire spreading beneath him. 

People trying to escape. 

Thorne's breathing changed. 

Marian was still talking. 

“The scale is difficult to understand from carvings alone. Some depictions show tens of thousands of people. Others show regions large enough that I initially thought the artists were exaggerating for symbolic effect.” She swallowed. “After everything else I translated, I'm no longer certain they were exaggerating anything.” 

Another memory forced its way forward. 

Walls disappearing beneath white flame. 

Buildings ceasing to exist. 

The silence left afterward. 

Thorne barely heard Marian when she spoke again. 

“I understand now why the people who built this place were afraid of them.” 

Thorne stared into the necropolis. 

Far below, Marian's light reflected from smooth white roofs built for people who had chosen death rather than continue strengthening those beings. 

His heartbeat sounded too loud in his ears. 

The gods had used divine power to punish cities. 

So had he. 

They had killed people because resistance threatened what they wanted to protect. 

So had he. 

They had possessed reasons. 

So had he. 

Thorne blinked. 

Marian was still speaking. 

“The power these beings possessed was terrifying. If these depictions are even partly accurate, then whole populations existed entirely at their mercy.” 

Thorne heard only pieces. 

His mind had moved somewhere else. 

He remembered cities kneeling. 

He remembered banners lowered before he arrived because people had heard what happened to those who resisted. 

He remembered telling himself that was good. 

Fewer people would die if fear opened gates. 

He remembered approving executions. 

He remembered Sitra burning. 

He remembered looking at enemy walls and calculating how much divine fire it would take to remove them. 

He remembered deciding that conquest was necessary because the world was breaking. 

The Empire needed Sahrel. 

The nexuses needed repair. 

Spyro needed the network restored. 

Millions could die if the aether system failed. 

Every decision had contained a reason. 

A justification. 

A purpose. 

Thorne pressed one hand against the wall. 

His fingers trembled. 

“Thorne?” 

He saw a woman running through a street. 

He could not remember where. 

Her face was barely a memory. 

She had looked back at him. 

Terrified. 

Then the fire reached her. 

Thorne’s knees weakened. 

“I need to sit down.” 

Marian stepped toward him. 

Thorne barely noticed. 

He leaned against the rough natural stone of the tunnel and slid down until he reached the floor. 

His breathing had become shallow. 

“Thorne?” 

More faces came. 

People he had never known. 

Some he might have invented. 

He had killed enough people that his mind could fill the spaces with strangers and still know they represented someone real. 

A man holding a child. 

A soldier throwing down his weapon. 

A woman pressed against a wall as white fire moved down the street. 

People frozen beneath his authority because he had decided they would remain still. 

People who could not run because Thorne did not allow them to move. 

His chest tightened. 

Marian crouched in front of him. 

She pushed wet white hair away from his face. 

“Thorne. Look at me.” 

He tried. 

Marian’s face swam in front of him, her features blurring every time he blinked. For a moment he could almost focus on her, and then another face replaced hers.  

“Thorne, what’s happening?” 

His mouth opened, but nothing came out. His chest had tightened so badly that each breath felt too shallow, and the pressure building behind his ribs refused to ease. Marian caught his face between both hands and forced his gaze back toward her, repeating his name until he finally managed to hear her through the memories crashing over him. 

“Talk to me.” 

“I...” His voice failed. Thorne swallowed, but the word still would not come easily. Deep inside him, the darkness stirred in response to his distress, and its presence only made everything worse. It remembered those same events without guilt. Where Thorne saw terrified people and burning streets, the darkness remembered threats eliminated, enemies broken, territory secured, people protected because everything that endangered them had been destroyed. 

Thorne shuddered violently. 

“I’m becoming them.” 

Marian’s brow furrowed. “Becoming who?” 

Thorne looked past her toward the darkness of the necropolis. His eyes could barely make out the nearest mausoleums through Marian’s light, yet his mind filled the shadows with the stories she had just told him. 

“The gods.” 

Marian stared at him. 

“I’m becoming like them.” 

“Thorne, what are you talking about?” 

“I’ve done this, Marian.” 

Her hands tightened around his face. “Done what?” 

Thorne tried to point toward the necropolis and found that his arm was trembling. “The things you described. The cities. The people who resisted. The punishments.” His throat tightened again, and he had to force the next words out. “I erased cities.” 

Marian’s expression changed. 

“What?” 

“Whole cities.” 

The admission seemed to open something inside him. 

Thorne had spoken about the destruction before. He had discussed troop numbers, strategic consequences, political reactions, how much resistance remained afterward. He had explained why each decision had been necessary and what he had prevented by making it. He had never allowed himself to sit with the simple fact of what he had actually done. 

Now he could think of nothing else. 

“I always had a reason,” he said, and heard the desperation entering his voice. “They threatened my people. They killed my followers. They resisted when I needed the region stable. The network was collapsing, Marian. Nexuses were failing. Ley lines were becoming unstable. If I let Sahrel fall apart, millions could have died.” 

Marian stayed silent. 

“So I kept going.” 

His breathing hitched. 

“I burned armies. I erased walls with people standing on them. I held soldiers in place with my authority and killed them while they couldn’t move. I destroyed cities because I wanted the next one to surrender before I reached it.” 

“Thorne...” 

“I used fear.” 

His voice cracked. 

“I knew exactly what I was doing. I wanted people terrified enough that they would open their gates rather than make me fight for them. And it worked.” 

Marian’s face had gone pale. 

“You were fighting a war.” 

Thorne stared at her. 

The words struck something raw inside him. 

“How many of them said that?” 

Marian froze. 

Thorne leaned forward, his voice growing rougher as months of buried doubt forced its way out. 

“How many of those gods told themselves they were at war? How many decided a city had become dangerous enough to destroy? How many had people depending on them? How many believed killing thousands now would save more later?” 

“That isn’t the same.” 

“Why?” 

“Because I know you.” 

Thorne’s eyes burned. 

“Did nobody know them?” 

Marian’s mouth opened, but she had no answer. 

Thorne looked away. 

He wanted desperately for her to tell him he was wrong. He wanted Marian to explain the difference with the same certainty she once used when correcting his aether manipulation, to take the mess inside his head and reduce it to something he could understand. Instead she remained silent, and that silence allowed every fear he had been refusing to examine to grow. 

“I told Zayd I liked it.” 

Marian frowned. “Liked what?” 

“The worship.” 

His hands rose to his face. He pressed his palms against his eyes until sparks moved through the darkness, trying to hold back the tears already gathering there. 

“I spent most of my life hiding what I was. Every time someone saw too much, I had to lie. I had to pretend. People hunted Elderborn. They killed us for existing, and I learned very early that being noticed was dangerous.” 

His hands dropped. 

“Then people started kneeling.” 

Marian watched him quietly. 

“They looked at me like I was something beyond them. Something powerful enough to protect them. Something they should fear.” Thorne swallowed. “And I liked it.” 

The words scraped their way out of him. 

“I liked walking into a room and knowing everyone was afraid of me. I liked knowing an entire city would open its gates because they had heard what happened to the last one. I liked hearing people pray to me.” 

A tear ran down his cheek. 

“I still do.” 

Marian’s eyes closed briefly. 

Thorne turned his head toward the necropolis. 

“I thought admitting it meant I understood the danger. I thought if I knew that part of me existed, I could keep it under control.” 

The darkness shifted inside him, almost offended by the idea. 

Ours. 

Thorne’s stomach tightened. 

“That thing inside me doesn’t feel guilty.” 

Marian looked sharply at him. 

“What thing?” 

Thorne wet his lips and whispered, "the darkness..." 

“It remembers everything differently. When I think about people screaming, it remembers threats being removed. When I think about cities burning, it remembers territory becoming safe.” His hands curled into fists against his knees. “It thinks possession is protection. If something belongs to me, it wants to keep it. If something threatens what belongs to me, it wants that threat gone.” 

Marian’s expression became increasingly tense. 

“How strong has it become?” 

Thorne met her eyes. 

“Strong enough to take control.” 

She stared. 

“When?” 

“More than once.” 

Marian sat back slightly, the movement small but enough for Thorne to notice. 

He hated that. 

He hated the fear starting to appear in her expression. 

Still, he could not stop. If he stopped now, he knew he would bury all of it again. 

“It has changed recently.” 

Marian’s attention sharpened. “How?” 

“It reacts to faith.” 

For several seconds she simply stared at him. 

“Faith?” 

“People worship me.” 

“Yes, I understood that much.” 

“No.” Thorne shook his head and wiped angrily at the tears on his face. “You don’t.” 

He reached inward. 

Even here, beneath a hidden Elderborn city, surrounded by an ancient divine domain and cut off from the world by protections Aetherhold had failed to penetrate, the pale streams continued arriving. 

Thorne opened his senses. 

Marian went completely still. 

Thin currents of faith moved toward his core from impossible distances, each one carrying the faintest trace of the people who had sent it. Fear. Hope. Gratitude. Pain. Requests for protection. Pleas for vengeance. The impressions blurred together almost immediately, far too numerous for Thorne to separate individually, yet the energy itself remained unmistakable. 

Marian stared at his chest. 

“What am I feeling?” 

“Belief.” 

Her eyes lifted to his. 

“That is what faith feels like when it reaches me.” 

Marian looked back toward his core. 

“It’s entering you.” 

“Yes.” 

“And then...” 

“My core processes it.” 

Her attention snapped back to him. 

“What?” 

“It refines the energy the same way other cores refine ambient aether.” 

Marian shook her head slowly. 

“Thorne, cores do not process faith.” 

“Mine does.” 

“You may be interpreting some secondary effect...” 

“I watched it happen.” 

The force in his voice silenced her. 

Thorne pressed one hand against his chest. His heart hammered beneath his palm, and beneath that he could feel the Ascended Core continuing its work with the same relentless certainty it had shown for months. 

“My core changed.” 

Marian’s expression tightened. 

“It changed how?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“What else changed?” 

“My divinity.” 

Marian went quiet again. 

Thorne’s voice dropped. 

“It keeps growing. My authority has become stronger. Faith feeds into it. The darkness has started mixing with that faith, and when it does, the power changes again.” 

He thought about Sahr-Veyra. 

Black veins moving through white fire. 

Primordial wood cracking. 

An Archmage screaming inside a sphere of divine flame while Thorne held him close and refused to let go. 

His stomach twisted. 

“I think I’m becoming a god.” 

Marian stared at him as if he had just said something incomprehensible. 

Then she shook her head. 

“No.” 

Thorne closed his eyes. 

“No, Thorne. You have to be wrong.” 

“It has already started.” 

“That is impossible.” 

“My core is evolving.” 

“You’ve always carried divinity. You’re Elderborn.” 

“Not like this.” 

Marian’s breathing quickened. 

Thorne could see her trying to find another explanation, some obscure Elderborn trait or magical process she could force the evidence into. 

He almost wanted her to succeed. 

Instead he kept talking. 

“People pray to me and I feel them. Their faith reaches my core from hundreds of miles away. My core takes that energy and turns it into something I can use. My authority becomes heavier. My fire becomes stronger.” 

Marian shook her head again. 

He pressed both hands against his chest now, fingers digging into his skin as if he could reach the core beneath it and tear out an answer. 

“I don’t know what I’m becoming.” 

Marian’s face crumpled. 

Thorne saw fear there now. 

Real fear. 

The sight hurt worse than anything else. 

For years, Marian had been the person who understood him when nobody else could. She had taught him how to control the aether inside his body, helped him search for answers about the Elderborn, and dragged him through portals to forgotten ruins because neither of them could leave a mystery alone. Whenever Thorne brought her something impossible, she eventually found a way to make sense of it. 

Now she was looking at him as though she had finally encountered something she could not explain. 

Thorne’s voice dropped until it barely carried through the cavern. 

“I’m afraid.”