Chapter 585: Back to the Past

The two men stared. Octavius’s remaining patience frayed, thread by thread, until only anger remained.

"You seem to know a lot, boy," he said, voice rising, the words sharp enough to cut. "So can you tell us what will become of us now?"

"Why are you speaking to me like that?" The boy’s terrifying eyes locked onto Octavius.

Each dark iris held two pupils arranged in the clean mark of infinity, and the weight of that gaze made the newly dead man flinch hard enough that his translucent form flickered.

"Am I the stupid person who bit off more than they can chew?"

Octavius found that he had no answer for it.

Beside him, Janin’s arms tightened around Eve, pulling her closer still, as though physical proximity might somehow shield her from whatever this creature was.

He watched the two men grow more wary. Their hands trembled with a fear that had nothing to do with ordinary danger, but the fear of standing before something that existed outside every rule they had ever learned.

After a moment the boy sighed, a soft, quite adult sound that seemed too heavy for such a small chest, and settled back against the rock with both arms folded behind his head.

The gesture was casual and bored, as though the entire exchange had already cost him more patience than it was worth.

"You shall know me as Chröma," he said. "And I will have you three go back in time to help ’her.’ She did splendidly well, as expected of the crazy lover... but Tëhznarā left some threads out. I want you to assist her behind the scenes until everything is perfect."

The words landed like stones dropped into still water, each one sending out ripples that neither man could follow.

The syllables made sense individually, but strung together they formed a picture that refused to resolve.

"What are you..." Janin began, the question trailing off before he could find its ending.

"I will explain the details to you some other time." Chröma lifted one small finger.

The gesture was lazy and playful, and yet the effect was immediate.

Instantly, the three souls compressed into pure blue spheres of light and drifted toward him as though drawn by an invisible current.

There was no sensation of movement, no moment of transition—only the sudden understanding that they were no longer shaped like themselves, no longer anchored to the ground, no longer able to speak or resist.

"Elyndor should not catch me here... Be thankful I happened to be spying on Namadris and took interest in you all. Do not fail me."

The three blue lights were pulled into a small black aperture that opened in the empty air between them.

The aperture closed without a sound, sealing shut as neatly as an eye blinking. Chröma hopped down from the rock.

His bare feet touched the stone, and then he was simply gone—without any residual presence, as if he had never occupied the mountain at all.

***

Hours later, Benjamin finally had a place to sleep.

It was the same night the poisoned arrow had been aimed at his spine.

The cumulative strain of the evening had left him hollowed out, scraped clean of everything except the bone-deep need for rest.

Heka and the others had seen the depth of that exhaustion, and had chosen to leave him alone in a quiet upper room so he could rest without interruption.

The room was moderate and clean, with a single window that looked out over the rooftops of Thaad.

He laid on his back, covers drawn to his chest, body heavy against the mattress as though gravity had doubled in the hours since sunset.

The windows stood wide open. Cool night air and pale moonlight drifted in, stirring the thin curtains in slow, lazy curves that seemed to breathe with the rhythm of the sleeping city.

Outside, Thaad had settled into its late quiet—the kind of quiet that belongs only to the hours after midnight, when even the taverns have closed and the streets belong to cats and shadows.

Benjamin slept deeply, the overtaxed body finally allowed to recover from the brief, intense surge of power he had spent earlier, just for a few minutes of sex.

Yet the windows should not have been open.

Eric and the others had left them closed, a small, practical decision made because the mountain air would turn cold before morning.

They had checked the latches themselves, had tested each one with a quick tug before pulling the door shut behind them.

Somehow the latches had been released. The curtains moved with a steady night breeze that carried the scent of pine and distant snow, and a figure now sat balanced on the wide stone sill.

She watched the sleeping man with an intensity that bordered on hunger.

Her eyes were pure gold, luminous and unblinking in the dim room, catching the moonlight and throwing it back in ways that seemed to have nothing to do with physics.

She was young and ethereal in her beauty—fair skin that seemed to hold its own soft light, long violet hair that spilled past her shoulders and down her back like a waterfall of ink and amethyst, and a thin silver crown resting lightly on her brow.

A loose pale garment covered only her lower half.

Above the waist she wore nothing; the long fall of her hair draped across her chest, half-concealing the moderate curves of her breasts as she leaned forward slightly to study him.

After a long moment she slipped down from the sill.

She crossed the short distance toward the bed, expression empty of any readable emotion—not curiosity, hostility, or desire. Just attention.

Then she jolted.

The movement was sudden and sharp—she leapt a full step backward, golden eyes still fixed on Benjamin but now narrowed and wary.

Her hands rose slightly at her sides, fingers curling as though preparing to grasp something that was not there.

"You are not him..." she said, voice quiet and precise. "You are not the god-touched."

On the bed Benjamin’s body continued its slow, even rhythm of sleep. His chest rose and fell without disturbance.

Yet his eyes had opened. They glowed a faint, steady gold, and they stared directly back at the woman with complete absence of feeling.

The rest of his face remained slack with true unconsciousness, as though the part of him that was awake had nothing to do with the part of him that was resting.

"Master is indisposed now..." a voice said from Benjamin’s mouth. The tone carried almost no inflection, flat and absolute, a statement of fact rather than a warning. "He must rest his body as it is trying to integrate a massive influx of power. Go away."