The corridors of Sethis's world were unlike anything Mae had ever seen. The walls shimmered faintly, alive with threads of starlight that pulsed like veins, carrying whispers of energy through the stone. When they returned to the others, Mae lingered close to Lucien but her thoughts kept pulling elsewhere. There was something in the way Sethis had looked at her earlier, an unspoken weight behind his easy smirk.
When she finally approached him, he was waiting as though he had known she would come. Without a word, he motioned for her to follow. The path curved upward into a long arching hall lined with luminous glyphs. Mae felt the air grow heavier the deeper they walked, as if the very atmosphere bore the memory of what this world had endured.
"This place was not always like this," Sethis said quietly. His usual teasing edge was gone, replaced by something measured and solemn. "Before the war, before the void, we thrived. My people believed we were untouchable. But power always comes with a cost."
They stepped out onto a high terrace overlooking the expanse of his planet. Below, seas of obsidian glass reflected the stars above, and ancient ruins jutted like bones from the land. Mae could almost feel the grief that clung to this place, not loud and violent, but patient and eternal.
Sethis's voice softened further. "Every stone here remembers. Every shadow carries the weight of our choices. This is what happens when gods think themselves invincible." He glanced at her then, his gaze holding hers. "You feel it too, don't you? The pull of it. The burden of what you are becoming."
Mae swallowed, the wind brushing cold across her skin. She understood now. The chains they shared were not just about power. They were responsibility, and responsibility always came with loss.
Sethis led her deeper into the ruins, telling her pieces of the world's history, fragments of battles won and horrors unleashed, of what was sacrificed to keep their enemies at bay. The more he spoke, the more Mae felt the unspoken truth settle in her chest. Whatever war awaited them, the weight of this world and all the others would one day rest on her shoulders.
Sethis stopped before a cracked monument, its surface scorched and carved with runes that pulsed faintly in time with the stars above. Mae reached out, tracing one glowing groove with her fingers. It hummed under her touch, alive, and for a moment she felt a rush of images that were not her own, battlefields drowned in violet fire, cities torn from the ground, the sound of screams swallowed by silence. She pulled her hand back, heart pounding.
"That was the day the void came for us," Sethis said, his voice tight. "We thought we understood darkness. We thought we could bend it to our will. Instead, it hollowed us from the inside out." His amber eyes flicked toward her. "Do you see now why I watch you so closely? Why I envy Lucien? It is not just jealousy. It is fear. Your power feels like theirs. But it also feels like salvation."
Mae's chest tightened. She wanted to reassure him, to promise she would not become what his people once were, but the memory of the void stealing her babies, taking Kaine, made her doubt her own words before she spoke them. "What happened to them?" she asked instead.
Sethis led her along the terrace edge, the night air cool against her flushed skin. "Most of my people are gone. Those who remain hide in the deep, beyond the eyes of the void and the Forgotten. But the enemy remembers. It is patient." He looked to the horizon where the sky bled into darkness, faint ripples of strange light flickering like distant storms. "And it is moving again."
Mae followed his gaze and felt her stomach drop. The horizon trembled faintly, as if the stars themselves were vibrating. The same hum she felt in the monument now pulsed faintly beneath her feet, through the stone, through her skin. The same sensation she had felt when Lucien said they had started to move.
"War is coming," Sethis whispered, as though saying it louder might summon it faster. "The Unseen were only the beginning. The Forgotten have been waiting, biding their time beneath the fractured layers of every world. When you unbound the fracture, you woke them. You woke everything."
Mae's breath caught. Her chains tingled faintly, as though whispering to her. She realized now why Lucien, Ashar, even Sethis looked at her the way they did. She was not just a girl caught in the tide of war. She was the tide itself.
Before she could speak, a sharp crack split the air behind them. Mae spun, her heart slamming against her ribs. Across the terrace, lights blazed to life in the ruins below. Faint, flickering at first, then growing brighter, spreading outward like veins of fire in the earth. A low rumble followed, shaking the ground.
Sethis grabbed her arm, his expression grim. "It seems the waiting is over."
Far off, in the distance where the horizon trembled, silhouettes began to rise, tall and jagged against the starlight. Shapes that did not belong to any world she knew. The air grew cold enough to sting, and the hum beneath her feet became a roar in her blood. She could almost hear voices within it, not words, but something older and hungrier.
Sethis pulled her back toward the ship, his eyes locked on the horizon. "Tell the others to prepare. There will be no peace now. The gods are waking."
Mae stumbled after him, her thoughts spinning. Lucien's face burned in her mind, the memory of his touch a fragile anchor against the storm she felt coming. The war was no longer a distant threat. It was here, creeping from the cracks of forgotten worlds, reaching for her, for them all.
As they neared the ship, the ground split far behind them, a burst of violet light erupting skyward. Mae turned one last time to see the jagged silhouettes multiplying, spreading like a plague, and in the blinding glow she thought she heard it again.
A cry. Not just one, but two. The babies.
Mae's knees buckled. Sethis caught her arm, pulling her onward. "Do not stop," he said, his voice low, urgent. "If they have your children, it is a message. And if it is a message, it means war."
The ship's ramp lowered as they ran, Lucien already there, his eyes finding Mae's instantly, burning with a thousand questions. She could not answer them, not yet. She only knew the universe was shifting again, and this time there would be no running.