The doors parted not with sound, but with reverence.
Beyond them, the Hall of Constellation Thrones stretched like a frozen eternity—an impossible chamber carved into the living bones of Rygartha itself. The ceiling curved into a dome of celestial crystal, refracting the breath of galaxies and flickering futures. No torches burned, yet light spilled from every wall—drawn from thought, time, and remembrance.
At the heart of the chamber rose twenty-eight thrones, each unlike the others, yet bound by harmony in design. Some were radiant, others dormant. A few shimmered with constant flux, as if still uncertain of the shape they should take. Some stood cold and empty—echoes waiting for echoes.
Nine were filled.
Their occupants sat in composed silence, watching as Qaritas crossed the threshold—watched not like judges, but as stars might gaze down at a new sun born into their sky.
Then—motion.
Cree broke from the group and strode with sudden urgency across the chamber.
They approached a hulking figure, towering even among Ascendants—a man of titanic build, standing easily at nine feet, his musculature carved like grief remembered in stone. His skin bore the tone of ghoulish gray, like ashes once belonging to light. His hair—what little there was—hung in rough braids, and his eyes were entirely white, devoid of sclera, iris, or pupil. They stared not with blindness, but with soul-deep clarity—as if seeing through the illusions most gods still believed.
Cree's expression shifted from serenity to alarm.
"Hydeius," they said, voice quick and low. "You should be in bed."
Hydeius turned his head slowly, regarding them with the stillness of monuments. Then—smiling faintly with a mouth shaped more for kindness than intimidation—he reached out and took Cree's face between his calloused hands.
"I will be fine," he said. His voice was deep and breathless, like the rumble of a god mourning through mist. "I could not miss welcoming another Ascendant to the fold."
Before Cree could protest further, Hydeius leaned down and pressed a kiss to their brow. It was not public affection—it was a prayer.
Then he turned, still holding Cree's hand.
He approached Qaritas with a step that shook the breath of the hall itself.
"You," Hydeius rumbled, "are colder than a newborn god ought to be."
He stopped before Qaritas, white eyes narrowing as if peering beyond flesh, beyond essence, into something unformed.
"I look forward to seeing what your soul becomes."
Qaritas inclined his head. "You see my soul?"
"I tend them," Hydeius said. "All of them. Even yours."
A voice rose from one of the thrones—rich and thoughtful.
"It is rare to see him leave his chambers. Cree must've threatened to burn the Veil of Peace again."
Another voice chimed in, this one brighter, laced with mischief:
"Cree didn't have to. Those two have been entangled since the first breath of the first universe."
Murmurs rose from the seated Ascendants—gentle, knowing, like old friends recounting myth.
"They were one of the first."
"The anchors of the fold."
"When the stars had no names, they walked the winds between atoms."
"And they have never been apart. Not even once."
As if to prove the words, Hydeius turned again and walked toward his throne—a great construct carved from fractured halos and skeletal starlight. And instead of taking it alone, he sat, then pulled Cree gently onto his lap.
The motion was not playful.
It was ancient.
A declaration that required no audience.
Cree leaned into him without hesitation, their form melting into the quiet of his arms like twilight into seafoam.
Qaritas watched—not with envy, but wonder. There was something sacred about the way their souls touched. Something eternal.
Ayla stepped beside him.
"They have outlived most gods," she said. "Watched the rise and fall of realms we no longer remember. Some say they were the first Ascendants. That they were chosen before the word 'Ascendant' had even formed."
Qaritas did not speak. But something inside him shifted—a weight he had carried without understanding.
There was no envy.
Only yearning.
To be known as Cree was known.
To be held as Hydeius held them.
To belong.
The chamber quieted again as the voices dimmed. The thrones—filled and empty alike—seemed to watch him with growing attention.
Qaritas stood at the edge of this pantheon, at the place where history bowed its head and said:
Now.
And so he took one step forward.The beginning of another echo.
Qaritas entered under the slow spin of distant constellations etched into the domed ceiling above, their light bending to avoid his silhouette.
Ayla remained at his side, her fingers ghosting his still-flickering shadow-hand. She had refused to take her throne. Komus and Niraí had already ascended to theirs, flanking the circle like twin anchors of war and passage.
Before them, a crescent of power watched.
Eight thrones were filled. And those who sat in them were not merely beings—they were truths, shaped by cosmos and crown.
Their faces were mostly unfamiliar. Their auras, unmistakable.
One sat cloaked in threads of firelight and silence, her veil trailing behind her like forgotten time—the strange woman from the dream halls. Xriana, though her name had not yet been spoken aloud. Her presence pressed against fate like a blade yet unsheathed.
Another's throne seemed to resist definition, flickering between material states—obsidian to crystal to shadow-wood and back again. He watched Qaritas with a smile too subtle to trust. His eyes shimmered like questions no one wanted answered.
The others sat as mountains might. One pulsed with gravitational mass—his body like an orbiting truth. Another radiated quiet warmth, her throne braided with living vines of copper and jade, a melody humming beneath her breath. Another wore armor that bled soft steam from a dozen alchemical vents—an anchor of density and form.
And there was the one with his arms folded tight across his chest, posture rigid, jaw clenched—an enforcer. His presence was a decree. His gaze, a courtroom.
Qaritas stood at the center.
Ayla's voice rang clear.
"We begin without Hrolyn. We cannot afford to wait."
No one objected.
"You've all felt it. The break in the Weave. The ripple through the Veil of Dream. The reemergence of a presence that does not belong—yet cannot be ignored."
She turned to the god at her side.
"This is Qaritas. Awakened in silence. Born of unbeing. A shadow that chose form."
Silence followed. Not reverent. Tense.
Then the enforcer spoke. His voice was shaped like a sentence handed down.
"We've done this before. Let something in without questioning it. Let it charm, confuse, or beg. And we bled for it."
Another voice chimed in—languid, precise. The man in the glitching throne.
"This one's not charming anyone. That part's refreshing, at least."
A quiet ripple of chuckles moved through half the thrones. Not all friendly.
The woman in the musical throne tilted her head, her voice barely above breath.
"He doesn't feel like danger. He feels like a held breath."
"Held breath becomes suffocation," the armored one muttered. "Or explosion."
The veiled woman—Xriana—finally stirred. She didn't rise. She didn't need to.
"I felt his awakening before the void even whispered it. He unraveled a thread I had kept hidden for ten thousand starcycles. A thread meant to remain unspoken."
A pause.
"So now we ask—what does it mean, to exist outside the pattern?"
The question rang like a bell through the chamber.
Qaritas remained silent.
"Perhaps," murmured the flickering-eyed one, "we should ask him."
Ayla stiffened slightly beside him.
But the one in the law-throne—firm, commanding—spoke again, this time directly to Qaritas.
"We don't need poetry. We need proof."
He rose. Light curved slightly around his presence.
"We propose the ancient Trials known as The path of Becoming. You take it. You survive it. You pass—or fail. And we decide."
Ayla's grip on his hand tightened—barely. A signal, not of fear, but of fury. She had seen this before: the trial as a leash disguised as law
"You demand it," Ayla snapped. "There's a difference."
"I require it," he answered. "Because law cannot bend to comfort. Especially not when it broke before."
Komus, from his place on the far side, leaned forward now, voice cutting through the tension.
"You all fear him because you can't place him. He isn't from the Weave, the Prophecy, or the Writ."
"No," said the veiled woman again, rising now—taller than expected, ethereal.
"He is from silence. And silence... chooses."
Qaritas's hands trembled slightly. Not with fear.
With conflict.
Every eye turned to him. Every voice had named a fear. Or a hope.
But none had asked how it felt to stand in the middle of it.
Until the quiet one—the woman seated beside living vines—rose slowly and looked at him with genuine curiosity.
"How does it feel," she asked softly, "to be asked to prove you're not someone you've never even met?"
Qaritas turned to her.
His voice was low. Controlled.
"It feels like waking into a trial I didn't request. Like being asked to answer for echoes I didn't create."
He looked to the circle—every throne, every god.
"It feels like none of you have decided who I am. Only who you're afraid I'll become."
A pause.
Then:
"But if proving I'm not him means being seen... then yes."
His voice hardened.
"Challenge me."
Xriana bowed her head slightly, as if to the weight of prophecy itself
"Then history will hold its breath."