[First Era – Year 3 of the Divinity War; The Faint, region undefined]

  Answers? Elithir’s words echoed like the voice of a thousand winds.

  Moraithe glanced at Saffrael with her stardust freckles and Norgoth with his luminous veins, and then back to Elithir. He nodded. Elithir placed a hand on his shoulder. His presence seemed to stretch across the very fabric of reality, and suddenly they were elsewhere.

  He looked around, confused. He had heard stories of the Infinite—of beings with unimaginable power—but standing before Elithir, a being whose mere presence made the very air feel charged, he understood what it meant to be insignificant.

  Under the dim sunlight, the land here seemed to pulsate, mountains rising and sinking, rock and soil blending and parting as if the earth was caught in an eternal dance of transformation. The ground beneath them shifted as if the earth itself was breathing, rising and falling in slow, deliberate motions. From deep below, Moraithe heard the earth groan, an unsettling lullaby of something immense and restless.

  Moraithe turned to Elithir, eyes wide, seeking some sense of familiarity. “Where—what is this place?”

  “An inconvenient world for a conversation,” Elithir answered, his tone cool but cutting. “But a necessary one. Look at it.” He waved a hand at the swirling landscape—jagged mountain peaks pierced the sky seemingly at random. Lava flowed in streams and rivulets across the valleys. “This is a world in flux. Rising, falling, shifting, changing—just like you.”

  Moraithe staggered as the ground buckled beneath him, and a great fissure cracked open nearby, spilling molten light. The earth rumbled like a warning, but Elithir’s gaze was unyielding. “You will learn,” he said softly. “Your life is changing. If you survive, you may reshape this place, just as it will reshape you.”

  He turned to Elithir, his mind still reeling, frustration seeping through his voice. “You brought me here for answers, didn’t you?” Moraithe’s throat tightened, his voice cracked with the weight of the question, the exhaustion, the uncertainty. “To tell me how I lost everything I was before. How I became less than nothing.”

  The ground beneath them rumbled, the earth shifting in subtle waves as if the world itself were trying to swallow his anger whole.

  Elithir moved closer, the weight of his presence pressing down on Moraithe like gravity. He raised a hand, the air crackling with his infinite presence, and gestured at the shifting land beneath them. “To live is to change. Life is chaos.” He swept a hand outward, and Moraithe followed his gaze. The distant peaks shuddered, sinking like dying giants, only for new ridges to claw their way from the earth.

  Moraithe stood frozen, his mind whirling. “Why is this world … shifting like it’s on the brink of collapse?”

  Elithir paused for a moment, his voice dropping like he was reliving something he wished could stay buried. “Mithsyrium.”

  Moraithe blinked, the word landing like a stone. “What’s … mithsyrium?”

  “Elusive, volatile. A substance like a force of nature.” Elithir’s tone grew more intense, his words flowing faster now. “It was born out of the very war you … or rather we started. That and experimenting with power—untested, reckless power.”

  Moraithe’s brow furrowed, but he didn’t interrupt. His mind was spinning, trying to catch up.

  “This world was already torn apart before the fighting, but both sides desired what this place contained. So, they created weapons—advanced, dangerous. But they weren’t just weapons. They could reshape reality itself. But you can’t control forces like that. Not when you don’t even understand them. Not when you’re too eager to wield them.”

  Moraithe felt the weight of those words press on him. “So, what? They … triggered this?”

  Elithir nodded, his expression darkening. “Exactly. When the weapons—when they collided—it wasn’t just rage or fire. It was chaos itself that was unleashed. The mithsyrium was born from the collision, and with it, everything changed. The fabric of reality—what we thought we knew—began to melt. Mithsyrium was born, and the land itself became unstable.”

  Elithir continued, “Now this world is shaped by mithsyrium, a substance which melds matter together. As it drinks in matter, stacking it together, melding it into one, it grows so dense it causes the world to shift and sink. But as it sinks it grows warm, heat causes it to release what it has taken, only to rise again. Because of this cycle, nothing stays the same. It is beautiful in its chaos … and dangerous.”

  Moraithe’s chest tightened, the pieces finally starting to fall into place. “So it’s like this world’s been in a state of flux ever since then? The world itself is fighting to stabilize, but it can’t. It’s in a constant battle against itself?”

  Elithir met his gaze with an intensity that made Moraithe feel like the ground itself was watching him. “Because the source of it all—the mithsyrium—is too chaotic. Just like your memories. Just like your power. Both of them—fractured, shifting. But you’re not the only one in flux, Moraithe. The war you started… you merely triggered it. It was already waiting. Ever since those souls let the will to dominate others fill their hearts this devastation was always going to happen.”

  Moraithe stood there, staring at the ever-shifting land, the pieces of his life, and the world, still broken and shifting like a thousand untold secrets. And for the first time, he understood the magnitude of what he was up against. Not just the war. All the souls in the universe were like the mithsyrium, bound together in a constant, never-ending dance of chaos and change.

  He looked up at the stars, at the dying sun, a burnt yellow. His mouth fell open in shock, he recognized it. He knew this world. This was the ruins of Throm’tor’s world. “You said the war came here? That they desired something it contained?” Moraithe leaned forward, his brow furrowed. “Why would anyone fight over Throm'tor’s ruin?” he asked, his voice sharp, disbelief threading through his words.

  Elithir, ever calm, took his time before responding. His tone was slow, deliberate, but there was a slight edge to it, as though he’d been anticipating the question. “Because, apparently, the wreckage of his throne might still hold a certain power.”

  Moraithe offered a mystic grin, a skeptical laugh escaping him. “Power?” he repeated as if the word itself were strange. “How? The ones who powered it—the Severed who made it work—they’re the very ones we’re fighting.”

  Elithir’s gaze softened with a hint of amusement. “Not power for us,” he said, voice quick, cutting through the confusion. “Power for them. The Severed. For them, it’s not about what’s there. It’s about what used to be there. The history of an object. The memories it holds. And the greater the history, the weightier the power.” He paused letting his words settle in the air. “What could be greater than the fragments of the Throne of Souls?”

  Moraithe stood silent, trying to wrap his mind around it. The idea felt like a puzzle piece that didn’t quite fit, the edges sharp and jarring. “So the Severed take their power out of time itself?”

  “Not so much out of time, but out of an object’s history.” Elithir stepped back, brow furrowing as if unsure how to explain. “The Severed cannot perform entanglement or hold a revenescent, their powers are all knotted up inside their hatred. But we’ll talk about that more later. I came here to answer your questions. Particularly why you have so much gratitude shielding you.”

  Moraithe’s gaze fixed on him, waiting in rapt attention.

  Elithir’s voice carried the weight of eons, each word deliberate and measured, as though preparing to unravel a secret that spanned lifetimes. “Our minds have always existed. In some form or other, we have always been thinking entities, aware of our own existence. But none of us, not a single one, knew anything beyond ourselves. We were unaware of matter, of energy, even of one another. There was only us.” He paused, allowing the silence to stretch, like a deep breath taken in the dark. “And then you came.”

  Moraithe’s brow furrowed, but Elithir continued, his voice now softer, as if tracing the outline of a distant memory. “It was you who woke us all. With your presence, we began to understand—slowly at first—this new world, this world beyond ourselves. As we scrambled to make sense of it, you traveled onward, waking more and more of us. Again and again. On and on, until I believe you had woken nearly every living soul.”

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  Elithir’s gaze shifted to the horizon as if seeing something only he could perceive. “And that is why, Moraithe, you hold our gratitude. A deeper, greater well of gratitude than anyone else could ever comprehend. You gave us awareness of each other—a gift so vast that none could fathom its true worth.”

  Moraithe only responded with a mystic grin.

  Elithir turned back to Moraithe, his voice growing more introspective. “But it wasn’t until much later, long after we’d uncovered the laws of matter and space, long after we had learned to use entanglement and revenescent, and even to craft these bodies we now inhabit, that you decided to finish your work.”

  “When I reached out for another soul to foster, you were there.” There was a slight pause before Elithir spoke again, the next words falling slowly, like stones sinking into the depths of an ocean. “I didn’t recognize you at first. But it didn’t take long to realize who you were. And that’s when I became your father.”

  His eyes softened, an almost imperceptible change in the way he looked at Moraithe. “I taught you all that we had learned over those endless eons. I taught you how to craft your body. As you grew it, your mother kept its elements safe in her revenescent. And then you began to grow strong, to understand.”

  Elithir’s expression darkened. “Until Throm’tor captured you.”

  Moraithe’s heart skipped, the name like a sharp knife twisting inside him.

  “You were on a mission, a rescue mission, you know,” Elithir continued, his voice hardening. “You were going to save Saffrael, whom Throm’tor had kidnapped and hidden away, stashed in a place so secret that no one thought it possible to find. But you found it—his secret world, buried deep in a revenescent.” Elithir's eyes narrowed, and he shook his head. “You sought my advice, gathered your courage, and you plunged in. And that is when he found you.”

  Moraithe could hear the weight in Elithir's voice, the gravity of the moment when Throm’tor, hidden away in his own darkness, learned his secret was revealed. “He was stronger than anyone had imagined,” Elithir went on, his words now like stones being dropped into an abyss. “He’d crafted that throne for himself, made it from the souls of those who sought power. Power to rule, to dominate. And there, in his forge, he enslaved you. He meant to use you to finish his throne, to solidify his will until no one could deny him.”

  Elithir’s voice grew lower, darker still. “That was his goal. To make everyone bow to his will. Most particularly to see your mother and I grovel before him.”

  Moraithe reeled. Each word seemed to cut deeper, revealing things he hadn’t known or hadn’t fully understood. His mind buzzed with fragments of memories, some sharp, others distant, but none quite whole. “I sort of remember some of that…”

  Elithir nodded, though the sympathy in his eyes didn’t soften the gravity of his next words. “When you lost your memories, you lost your self-assurance. And that is what amplifies all your power. Especially entanglements.” He paused, letting the words hang in the air, a silent weight between them. “We used to call it confidence, but that’s easily confused with pride or bravado. Those don’t bring power. No, self-assurance is cultivated by knowledge and experience. And those can't be faked or inflated. That’s why, when your mind was shattered, you didn’t just lose your memory. You lost your power as well.”

  Moraithe stared at him for a long moment, considering the fierce displays of power he’d so recently seen. “During the battle, I heard them talking about lords and barons. What does that mean? How do you know how powerful someone is?”

  Elithir didn’t answer immediately, his eyes distant as though pulling the answer from the depths of forgotten time. “Just as we measure gratitude by units, so we know how much to pay, we measure self-assurance in the same way,” he said, his voice steady, almost mechanical. “And that is how you know someone's power.” The way Elithir spoke about it—so casually—left Moraithe feeling small, insignificant.

  “How powerful was this baron who killed so many of the defenders?”

  Elithir gave a small, thoughtful hum, then nodded as if to himself. “Ranks are calculated based on self-assurance,” he said. “You have to understand that these ranks were created rather organically as people began to divide out levels of power. After the first few each was slowly added over the ages. The first rank, a soldier starts at seven hundred and goes until fifteen hundred when they reach captain. They become a master at three thousand, a knight at nine thousand, a general at twenty thousand, and a lord at forty-five thousand” He paused for a moment, his eyes glinting with a knowing look. “The rank of baron is reached at a hundred thousand, and … well, you get the picture.”

  Moraithe blinked, his mind struggling to process its sheer magnitude.

  “How much self-assurance do I have?”

  “At present, you have fourteen.”

  “Oh.” Worse than he expected. “How long does it take to get that much power?” Moraithe asked, almost incredulous.

  Elithir looked at him, considering the question. “Everyone is different,” he said. “But on average, self-assurance can be cultivated at a rate of about ten units per year, as time is reckoned on the first star.”

  Moraithe ran his fingers through his hair, disbelief creeping into his voice. “So … it’ll take me sixty-nine years just to cultivate to the level of soldier?”

  Elithir’s expression softened, but his next words carried a weight that only grew heavier. “It would, yes. But you once had far more power than you do now. You were a prince, Moraithe. A prince, with a self-assurance of around twelve million.” He met Moraithe’s eyes. “And if you regain even a fraction of your memory, a sliver of that power would likely return to you.”

  Moraithe clenched his fists. “Twelve million?” His laugh was bitter. “I can barely time the entanglement on an arrow. How am I supposed to reach that again?”

  “If you are determined to do it it will be inevitable, the only question is how long it will take.”

  Moraithe felt his heart race at the thought, a glimmer of the strength he’d once had flickering in the dark corners of his mind. He looked up at Elithir, the enormity of his next question weighing on him. “So… just how powerful are you?”

  Elithir’s gaze never wavered. “I am an Infinite,” he said simply, the word carrying a finality, a weight all its own. “My self-assurance is approximately fifty-seven-billion.”

  Moraithe’s eyes widened. “What of Throm’tor?”

  Elithir’s expression shifted for just a moment, a shadow passing over his face. “Before he fell, Throm’tor had around twenty-three-billion.”

  Moraithe’s mind struggled to process everything. “So gratitude doesn’t have levels like that?” he asked, suddenly unsure of how to even frame the world around him.

  “No,” Elithir replied, shaking his head. “Gratitude is your wealth. It’s measured, but there are no ranks, no titles. Though a shield of around two thousand gratitude is recommended for a soldier going into battle.”

  “And how much do I have?” Moraithe asked, his voice low, a little wary now that the scope of his situation had fully settled over him.

  Elithir’s lips quirked slightly as he raised a hand to Moraithe’s forehead, his brow furrowing. “Let me see if I can calculate it,” he muttered, a faint smile tugging at his lips as he concentrated. “Ah, it seems you currently have over fifty-two quadrillion units of gratitude. To be exact… 52,158,443,634,576,437.”

  Moraithe’s eyes went wide. “Uh… woah,” he breathed, the weight of that number nearly knocking him off his feet. “What can I do with that?”

  Elithir gave him a pointed look. “You could buy everything that exists if you wanted. But the Severed don’t care much for ownership. They take what they want. You could, however, invest in training. And when you’re ready, when you have the strength, you could outfit your own armies. Field forces greater than even mine.”

  Moraithe’s shoulders slumped. He hadn’t even begun to understand the extent of his power, let alone how to use it. “It’ll be some time before I’m ready for that.”

  Elithir’s gaze softened. “Perhaps not as long as you think. I’ve never found your lost memories. They were likely fragmented, left behind somewhere around here where you lost them.” He paused, his hands moving gently to Moraithe’s head. “But there is a shattered memory still within you. Let me see if I can piece it together for you. Perhaps it will restore a sliver of your old cultivation.”

  Moraithe’s heart pounded in his chest, a nervous fluttering he couldn’t control. This was it. This was the moment. Would he regain some of the power he once had? Would he be able to rise again?

  The reality faded as the memory came rushing in …