"Hurts, doesn't it?"
The voice of Thanatos spread through her skull like thick velvet soaked in poison, smooth, intimate, disgustingly pleased. He was no longer merely a parasite. He had become part of her blood, part of her breathing, part of every beat of her heart. His laughter made Astra genuinely nauseous, as though she had swallowed a living spider and it now crawled happily through her throat.
"But this is the price you pay for the right not to be erased," he continued, savoring every word. "Every cell I restore… no longer belongs to you. It belongs to the Abyss. I take the old and give you something new. Stronger. More eternal. Can you feel your bones becoming lighter? Your blood turning into code and darkness?"
Astra collapsed onto one knee amid the ruins.
Her hands clutched at her temples so tightly that her nails carved bloody crescents into her skin. Violet smoke still seeped from her wounds, but now it was doing more than healing.
It was rewriting.
"Want to defeat that golden peacock?" Thanatos almost purred. "Then give me your sanity. Completely. Let me become you. I will fight better. I will not know fear, pity, or those… foolish human memories. Let go. I will make us invincible."
"No…" Astra breathed through clenched teeth, her voice trembling. "No!"
She grabbed her head with both hands as though trying to physically hold together whatever still remained of herself. Millions of voices roared inside her ears, the cries of all those who had once been erased. Now they sounded too close.
Too loud.
As if they wanted to pour themselves into her completely.
"If I give up everything… then who will save Kai and Lyra?" she whispered, almost pleading. "Who will remember my parents? Who will remember the smell of my mother's jacket… the way my father taught me to hold a sword… Who will still be me?"
Thanatos did not answer.
Only a soft, condescending chuckle echoed through her mind, saying more than words ever could:
No one. And that is perfectly fine.
Slowly, Astra lowered her gaze to her hands.
They were trembling.
Not from pain.
From losing shape.
The outlines of her fingers began to blur, as though she were seeing them through deep water. For a moment her skin turned transparent, revealing violet threads weaving themselves through her veins, replacing blood with something older and infinitely hungrier. For one terrible second her hands lost all definition entirely.
Smoke.
Shadow.
Pure possibility.
Then flesh returned.
But it was different now.
Foreign.
The psychological barrier she had clung to for so long shattered with deafening force.
And at last Astra understood.
She was not a hero.
She was not even a goddess.
She was a monster wearing the body of a girl like a poorly stitched costume.
And the seams were splitting wider with every passing moment.
Every time Thanatos "healed" her, he tore away another piece of her humanity. Every resurrection made her less Astra and more Abyss. The time left to her as a human being was draining away with horrifying speed, like sand in an hourglass where the sand itself was her soul.
She lifted her eyes.
Far away, amid the golden radiance, stood Valius. Patiently waiting, leaning upon his spear as though he already knew what was happening inside her. The mechanical raven upon his shoulder tilted its head, studying her with cold curiosity.
Slowly, Astra unclenched her fingers.
Black tears still streamed down her cheeks.
"I won't give you myself," she said quietly, yet firmly, speaking both to Thanatos and to herself. "Not completely. Not yet."
But even as the words left her lips, she felt something deep within her finally break beyond repair.
And for the first time in her life, Astra was no longer truly afraid of death.
She was afraid of what she would become if she survived.