Chapter 45
He found Leo hunched over a cluttered table in the alchemy tent, bathed in the flickering glow of three mismatched lanterns and at least seven active wards. The mage had his sleeves rolled to the elbows, goggles perched askew on his forehead, and a blackened smudge across one cheek that looked suspiciously like singed ink.
There was something floating above the table.
Ren slowed. “Did you blow something up again?”
Leo didn’t look up. “Technically, no. It exploded outward. Entirely different category.”
Ren moved closer, frowning at the object pulsing gently in the air. A cube—roughly the size of a fist, made of interlocking plates of dark stone, etched in old runes that shimmered faintly when looked at too long. There was something unnatural about the way it hung there, just above the binding circle Leo had hastily scratched into the workbench.
“Where’d you get that?” Ren asked.
Leo finally glanced at him, expression bright in that slightly-manic way he got when he was either extremely excited or had gone three nights without sleep. Probably both.
“Raven’s vault,” he said. “Backroom. Buried under a box labeled unsorted trash, not cursed. Which, let me be clear, is the most suspicious label I’ve ever seen.”
“You brought it back?”
“Of course I brought it back. Look at it. It practically screams ‘ancient memory-sealed artifact.’”
Ren raised a brow. “That’s… very specific screaming.”
Leo grinned. “It’s keyed to Threads. I’m ninety percent sure. Maybe eighty. I’ve been trying to activate it, but it just hums and twitches at me. Thought you might have better luck.”
Ren hesitated, eyeing the cube again. There was a pressure coming off it—subtle, but insistent. Like it knew it was being watched.
“Fine,” he muttered, stepping forward. “But if this turns me into a newt—”
“I’ll keep you in a jar,” Leo said, far too quickly.
Ren exhaled, focusing.
He extended his Threads. Not with force. With focus. With the same careful motion he used to stir delicate emulsions or fold cream into batter. He nudged the cube gently.
It reacted immediately.
The runes flared white-hot. The cube spun once, then burst open with a quiet click, its sides unfolding like petals in reverse. A shard of crystal floated upward from its center—clear, but alive with impossible color. It pulsed once, and Ren felt something pull.
Then—
Everything vanished.
_________
He was somewhere else.
The sky above was scorched black. Not nighttime—burnt. Beneath him, the land was torn asunder: valleys broken open like wounds, oceans boiling away into mist. Mountains floated in the sky, shattered at their peaks.
In the center of it all, two figures clashed.
One was the Divine.
She radiated fury and inevitability. Her form was shifting, ever-changing—wreathed in flame, light, shadow. Her scream was not sound, but meaning: Submit. Cease. Break.
The other was a man.
Not a soldier. Not a king. A chef.
Atreus stood on a broken plateau, cloak torn, chest heaving, one hand splayed against the sky where Threads coiled in mad, elegant patterns. Each Thread was bound to something. A ring. A shield. A page. A taste.
He wasn’t fighting with power.
He was fighting with purpose.
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The vision jumped.
Now, Atreus knelt. Older. Tired. Surrounded by six others—each stranger than the last. One was a woman with skin like starlight. One a beast made of glass and breath. They stood in a circle, hands extended, and in the center: the same cube Ren had touched.
A council.
Not of rulers. Of guardians. Created in the wake of the Divine’s sealing. Bound together by what Atreus called—peace.
The vision fractured again.
Now the Divine screamed, not in defeat, but in rage. Her bonds—seven radiant chains—snapped into place one by one. And Atreus, one arm missing, Threads frayed and burning, pressed his hand to the final seal.
He didn’t speak.
He only closed his eyes, and vanished into light.
_____________
Ren hit the ground hard.
Air rushed out of his lungs in a broken gasp. His vision blurred, ears ringing. It took several seconds before he realized he was no longer standing, that he was kneeling on the alchemy tent floor, hands braced against cold stone. Sweat dripped from his jaw. His throat was raw, like he’d been screaming.
The world spun around him.
“Ren?” Leo’s voice. Uncertain. Closer now. “Ren, hey—”
A hand hovered over his shoulder, hesitating. Then it touched down, gripping firmly. Ren flinched like he’d been burned.
Leo dropped to one knee beside him. “Ren, what the hell just happened?”
Ren didn’t respond. His thoughts were still spinning, his vision haunted by the echoes of what he’d just seen—like sunspots burned into his retinas.
He saw them clearly: six figures standing with Atreus, encircled by fractured stone and flickering sigils. They weren’t warriors. They were remnants—fragments of something immense. A council. Not gods, but close enough to have shaped the world like they were.
And that wasn’t even the whole of it.
The Divine.
The ruin.
Atreus, sacrificing himself.
The cube.
The seal.
He looked up slowly. The shard was still hovering above the opened cube, its glow now dimmer, calmer, as though it had exhaled something it had been holding in for millennia.
“You’re bleeding,” Leo muttered.
Ren blinked. His nose. Right—he hadn’t noticed. He wiped it with his sleeve, shakily, and sat back against the leg of the table. The crystal pulsed once more and went still.
Leo was staring at him. “Ren. Say something.”
Ren looked at him—and then something cracked.
“It was real,” he whispered. “That wasn’t a memory. It wasn’t just a vision. I felt it. I was there. I could smell the ash, feel the heat in my lungs. I watched the world fall apart like it was paper. And Atreus—he fought her. Not to win. Not to kill. Just to buy enough time to seal her away.”
Leo frowned. “Her… you mean the Divine?”
Ren nodded. “But not the Divine. Not the one the Church worships—not exactly. She wasn’t whole. That… thing that Sinclair saw, the one that tore those ruins apart, she was only a piece. A fragment. One piece of something older. Vaster.”
He looked down at his hands. They were still shaking.
“There were six chains, six seals.” His voice came out low, barely more than breath. “Six different wards to hold her… the Divine. That vision—” He swallowed hard. “It wasn’t the sealing. It was the making of it. A system. A whole system to keep her caged.”
Leo crouched beside him, silent. Not pushing, not prodding. Just watching.
Ren forced himself to keep speaking, to anchor himself to the words.
“She destroyed… everything. Cities, forests, people—it wasn’t war, it was correction. Like the world itself offended her.” He let out a bitter laugh. “And Atreus… Atreus wasn’t trying to win. He just needed to buy time. To make sure they could forge the chains.”
He clenched his hands.
“The one the Church shattered… that was just one link. One minor link. She’s still sealed, Leo. The real her. What’s loose now… it’s just a fragment. A sliver.”
Leo’s brow furrowed. “A sliver did that much damage?”
“Just a fraction of her being unsealed was enough to tear through the ruins and nearly kill a seasoned team of five—let alone one led by Sinclair—without even lifting an arm. And she was not even whole. She was barely awake.”
He was trembling again. Not from fear this time—but from understanding. From the sheer scale of it.
“There are five more cubes. Five more seals, hidden.”
Leo sat down beside him, slow. “You saw all this in the vision?”
Ren shook his head. “Not everything. But enough.”
He looked at the cube again. One side dark, the others still faintly glowing.
“Each one might show more. What she really is. What she wants. Maybe even how to stop her, if that’s even possible.”
Leo went quiet for a long time. The room buzzed softly, the aftertaste of aether still hanging in the air like static.
“You think we’re too late?”
Ren didn’t answer. He didn’t know.
But deep inside, he felt something shift. A quiet resolve growing like a crack through old stone.
Not just a chef anymore.
Not just a survivor.
“We better not be.”
