Without waiting, or caring to give him the answers he needed, Nyxara lowered herself into the chair and relaxed. Her movements were deliberate, regal, and terrifying in their ease.
Leo watched her carefully, but beneath his steady gaze, questions churned like boiling water. Who is she, really? Why is any of this happening?
Nyxara smiled the moment his eyes met hers again.
Then Oliver screamed.
A searing pain erupted in his right arm—sharp, molten, like liquid gold poured straight onto his skin. It didn't just burn his flesh. It lit up his bones. He doubled over, clutching the spot with his left hand.
The ring flickered.
The same ring that had glowed before the first man was slammed into the wall by an invisible force.
Leo saw it—recognized the rhythm of the light. His chest tightened with dread.
He rushed forward, gripped Oliver's arm, and turned to Nyxara with trembling urgency.
"Please—what's happening now? Am I going to die too, before everything… before everything becomes normal again?"
His voice was low, brittle, cracking under the weight of fear. Even his knees buckled.
Nyxara just smiled.
And tapped her fingers.
Click.
The soft snap echoed like thunder in the still room.
And something came out of Oliver.
Not blood.
Not water.
But something else—whitish, cloudy, pulsing like it had been locked away for centuries. It drifted outward like a soul torn from forgotten time.
It moved fast. Straight toward Leo.
He staggered back, fell to the ground as the thing loomed over him. Its face—if it could be called a face—was twisted, ancient, almost grieving. Fear clutched his chest even before he fully understood what he was looking at.
Nyxara didn't move.
She sat in the chair, utterly calm. As if Leo's life meant nothing to her.
Just as the thing was about to touch him, Nyxara reached out and opened something metallic.
Click—clang.
The sound of it opening was strange, piercing—like a holy bell struck in a demon's cathedral.
The thing recoiled.
It shrieked, not with sound but with presence, a fury that rattled the air around it. Then, like water drawn into a drain, it was pulled into the lamp-like object she held.
Once it was sealed, the lamp glowed.
Its surface shifted colors—dull gray to deep amber—and writing began to emerge. First, three glowing words. Then, as the color deepened, the words expanded to seven, each inscribed with strange, alien symbols that pulsed like living scars.
Leo's voice cracked in horror.
"What the hell was that!?"
Sweat poured down his face. His hands trembled violently.
But Nyxara still said nothing. She simply held the glowing lamp as if it were nothing more than a trinket, and then smiled.
A slow, knowing smile.
"It's strange," she finally said, her voice low, almost amused, "how frightened people become when they see even a piece of themselves."
Leo's breathing grew shallow.
"That thing wasn't me," he snapped. "It came out of him!"
Nyxara turned her gaze to Oliver, who was still hunched, still shaking from the pain in his arm.
"It came through him," she corrected gently, "but it wasn't his. Not this time."
She set the lamp down beside her chair. The symbols on it still glowed—shifting, rearranging themselves as if listening.
"That was a remnant. An echo of something you both saw, but only one of you remembers."
Oliver slowly raised his head. His skin had gone pale, his eyes unfocused.
"What do you mean 'remnant'? Whose was it?"
Nyxara tilted her head, the green leaf-like cloak rustling softly around her.
"Let me ask you a better question," she said. "Do you remember the voice that called your name in the dream?"
Oliver stiffened.
He had heard a voice. Whispering. Gentle, but wrong. Familiar, but impossible.
He nodded slowly. "The mutilated man whose head grew the moment my blood touched the bed."
Nyxara's smile widened.
"There are many versions of you, Oliver. And not all of them stay buried."
She leaned forward now, elbows resting on her knees, the air around her turning just slightly colder.
"Some claw their way back."
Leo's voice trembled. "And if they do… what happens?"
Nyxara looked at him. Her smile faded. For the first time, her expression shifted—darker, quieter, as if remembering something painful.
"Then you have to decide," she said with a low chilling voice.
For a moment, she remained perfectly still.
Then, with slow precision, she picked up the lamp.
The instant her fingers closed around it, the surface warmed in her grasp. The seven symbols began to pulse, like a heartbeat trapped beneath glass. As her index finger slid gently across them, one by one, the markings ignited—each glowing, then shifting from side to side, alive with strange motion.
Except one.
One stayed completely still.
"WHAT!?" Leo shouted, stumbling back a step. "Why are the symbols… moving? And—wait! Why is that one not moving?!"
His voice cracked. He couldn't tear his eyes from the lamp. There was something wrong with that frozen symbol. Something ancient. Defiant. Unwilling to yield.
But Oliver didn't move. He didn't speak. His body lay slack on the bed, as if the air had been stolen from his lungs. His chest barely rose. His eyes fluttered open—then wide.
All he could see…
was the earth spinning.
A whirl of color and sky, as if gravity had been broken and the world was tilting into madness.
He wasn't in the room anymore.
He was somewhere else—floating—like memory had become a planet, and he was orbiting every version of himself at once.
Every form he had ever worn. Every face. Every name. Human and not.
Some were broken. Some were beasts. Some were crowned in gold. One crawled. One burned. One sang in a language the stars could understand.
They moved in circles around him—six… then seven… and on the seventh pass, something changed.
Amidst the swirl, one thing remained still.
It sat cross-legged, spine straight, hands resting on its lap like a meditating god carved in obsidian. It did not speak. It did not move. It only was.
And it came again.
And again.
Every seventh form. Unchanging.
Until the seventh cycle stopped—and the still one remained.
It did not vanish like the others.
Its eyes began to open.
Slowly. Heavy lids lifting with ancient weight, as if unused for centuries. The gaze that poured from them wasn't of recognition.
It was of judgment.