Chapter 275
We come back gasping.
One second we’re in the Ether, suspended in a divine stillness that feels like it could stretch forever, and the next we’re crashing into reality—into wet, chilled air and cold stone beneath our bodies. The stream still flows around us, gentle and undisturbed by the divine revelation we just survived. But everything inside me feels overturned. Drenched. Raw.
Miore sits on the edge of the stream, knees pulled up, arms around them. He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move.
He looks shattered.
“Miore,” I say softly.
He doesn’t answer.
His eyes are fixed ahead, but they’re not focused on anything. He’s seeing something I can’t—something that lives behind his eyes now, something branded onto his spirit. I know the look. I’ve worn it before.
“I thought…” His voice is hoarse, cracking like a shell. “I thought I was fighting for something righteous.”
I sit beside him, not close enough to crowd, just enough to let him know he isn’t alone. “You still can be.”
He turns to me, slow and hollow-eyed. “No. You don’t understand. He told me—Shoal told me—we were saving our people. That the gods were selfish. That Leviathan’s resurrection would restore what was stolen from us.”
I nod, slowly. “And maybe… maybe Shoal believes that. Maybe he’s not lying. Maybe he’s just wrong.”
Miore’s hands curl into fists. “That’s no excuse. Not for this. Not when his plan involves unsealing something that could consume the world. You heard them. Electra. Nu. They weren’t scheming tyrants. They were desperate. Trying to stop him. Trying to save us from him. And we’re waking him.”
Wake shifts behind us, arms crossed, expression taut and unreadable. “Then don’t wake him,” he says simply. “But be smart about it. Don’t show your hand too soon.”
Miore blinks. “You think I should just play along?”
Wake shakes his head. “I think you should live long enough to make a difference. If Shoal’s still convinced he’s doing the right thing, he’ll see any dissent as betrayal. Especially from you.”
There’s a pause. Miore’s jaw tightens.
“I have to try,” he says. “Lile and Elanora—they’re not bad people. They believe in this, in Shoal’s mission. But they don’t know the truth. If I can make them understand…”
I glance at Wake, but I already know what he’s thinking.
Miore’s determined. He has that same wide-eyed tenacity I remember seeing in the mirror not too long ago—before I learned how brutal the world could be.
“Be careful,” I say gently. “Tell them only what you must. And if anything feels off, get out. Come back to us.”
Miore nods. He stands and brushes water from his pants. He hesitates for half a breath, then turns and starts back down the mountain, disappearing between the trees, his resolve like a beacon trailing behind him.
The quiet settles in his absence. The stream murmurs beside us. A breeze moves through the grass, scattering droplets of water into the air like tiny, cold stars.
Wake doesn’t sit. He stands watchful and still, gaze tilted skyward as if he’s trying to glimpse the Ether again. As if he hasn’t already made up his mind.
I rise slowly and face him. “You’re thinking about what they said.”
“I’m always thinking about what they said.”
There’s a tension in him I haven’t seen in weeks—something hard and focused, like steel being pulled taut.
“They said if he wakes now, we all die,” I murmur. “They said we weren’t ready. That the Heirs were created to end him—not follow him.”
Wake looks at me finally, and there’s no softness in his expression.
“Then it’s time to stop playing diplomat,” he says. “We can’t stay here, hoping Shoal changes his mind. He won’t. And if we wait too long, he’ll succeed.”
I exhale. “So what do we do?”
He doesn’t hesitate. “We go back. To the Abyss.”
I blink. “What?”
“That’s where it all started. Where Shoal became who he is. Where the war machines were buried. Where the truth about Leviathan is most deeply hidden. That’s where we’ll find what we need to stop him.”
The Abyss. The place of legends. The realm Wake was taken from. The kingdom Shoal was driven to conquer, and maybe the last place any of us could hope to walk without drawing the attention of the old powers that still linger below.
“Wake…” I start, unsure if it’s fear or awe tugging at my voice.
He reaches for my hand.
“I know it’s dangerous,” he says. “But everything we need to fight this is there. Knowledge. Allies. Maybe even the last traces of the gods’ old magic. Shoal’s been running from what happened there for years. Sooner or later, we have to run toward it.”
I look at our joined hands. At the faint glow still pulsing from the orb in my palm. At the damp sky above.
It feels like fate has been guiding us here from the start.
I nod. “Then we go.”
Wake’s lips curve, just slightly. A smile that’s not quite hope, not quite dread.
“Let’s find the others,” he says.
And together, we begin the descent. Not just from the mountain.
But into something deeper. Into the Abyss.
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