For the first time in four harrowing days since the Black Queen's devastating assault, Adora found herself with a fleeting moment of respite. It wasn't much, just a sliver of time stolen in the lull between urgent meetings and battlefield reports, but it was the first time she had stopped moving long enough to acknowledge the weight pressing down on her shoulders. Exhaustion clung to her like a second skin, a leaden force in her limbs, in her very bones. She hadn't slept since the night before the gala, but even if she could, the world would not allow it.
Everything was in chaos.
She stood alone on the shore of the island that had once been the palace complex, gazing out at the city that had been spared a direct assault. New Londium had been among the sixteen major cities targeted by the Black Queen, yet somehow, it had escaped with the least amount of devastation. It was hard to call it "fortunate" when most of the palace was razed to the ground, and when the air still carried the acrid scent of burning flesh and crumbling ruins. But compared to the fate of the other cities, New Londium had gotten off easy.
The latest global death estimates hovered around six million. But even that grim tally wasn't the full picture. Those numbers hadn't yet accounted for the disaster in the People's Republic of the Zodiac, where, in a desperate last stand, their leadership bunker had been breached, and their own nuclear warheads were turned against them. The once mighty capital of Karakorum was now nothing more than radioactive ash, an entire city and its people wiped from existence in the blink of an eye. That catastrophe alone was projected to double the already staggering casualty count.
And yet, as unfathomable as those numbers were, it wasn't the sheer scale of the loss that made Adora's stomach churn with a sickness that refused to subside.
It was who had died.
The Black Queen's court had cut through the world's strongest warriors and most revered leaders like a scythe through wheat. Empress Joséphine the Fourth of the Medien Empire—gone. Imperator Ramla, the undefeated leader of the United Legions—gone. Kaiserin Wilhelmine, the iron ruler of the Teutonic Union—gone. Mother Yeshe, the revered spiritual leader of the Harmonious Ascendancy—gone. Some of them had led nations for decades, others had only just ascended to their thrones, but it didn't matter.
They were all dead.
There was no defense, no last-minute salvation. In a single night, the world's power structure had been shattered beyond recognition.
Adora clenched her fists, her nails digging into her flesh. The wind carried the distant sounds of survivors rescue teams still digging through the rubble of the palaces, mourning families wailing for loved ones who would never return.
She had fought. She had fought with every ounce of strength in her body, with every swing of Excalibur, with every spark of power that ran through her veins. And it hadn't been enough. She had failed.
She wasn't strong enough.
She wasn't fast enough.
She wasn't enough.
And because of that, millions were dead.
That knowledge would haunt her for the rest of her life. A stain on her soul, one more unpayable debt that she would carry forever.
The world didn't see her failure.
They didn't see the moments of doubt that had paralyzed her.
They didn't hear the voices in her head whispering that she wasn't strong enough.
That she wasn't worthy.
That she shouldn't be here.
No, the world saw Adora Pendragon, Chosen of Fate, the savior of humanity.
They saw the young princess who had done what no one else could, who had stood against the Black Queen and ended her reign of terror in a single night. They cheered her name in the streets, they wept at her feet, thanking her for saving them. Every newspaper, every broadcast, every world leader who had survived the carnage called her a hero. The greatest hero of this generation. The one who had accomplished the impossible.
They believed it was her who had destroyed the Black Queen's core and that through some divine intervention, she had severed the nightmare's grasp on the world. That it had been her blade that shattered the Black Queen's avatars across the globe, her will that freed the millions who had still been trapped within that monstrous influence.
She wanted to scream.
Because it was a lie.
She was not the one who had found the answer.
She was not the one who had risked everything, who had made the ultimate choice in those final moments.
It had been John.
John, the mere bartender.
John, the man no one would listen to.
John, the man the world refused to believe could have done anything so grand.
She had tried, Aspects, she had tried, to tell them. To correct the falsehood that had been built up in the wake of the battle. But no one wanted to listen. No one would believe her.
"A man did it?" They had scoffed. "Be serious, Princess."
"Perhaps he assisted, but the victory was yours."
"You did what we all knew you would. The world needed you."
It frustrated her to no end.
She had wielded Excalibur, yes. She had been there in those final moments. But she had been only a piece of the battle. The others had helped, too. Lotha, Taimi, Rheala, Kori, Medarda, and even Asah and Maeriel, of all people. They had all carried a part of the Black Queen's power together, and they all played a role in her destruction.
And John?
John had been the foundation of it all. He had been the first to make contact, the first to make the choice, the first to reach into the abyss and rip its heart out. She still didn't fully understand how he had done it, how a man had been the key to unraveling one of the Eight Who Remain.
But she did know one thing: it had changed them.
The sheer weight of power they had held together in those final moments… it had done something to them. Adora could feel it lingering within her, could sense it humming just beneath her skin. A thread of connection, not just to John but to the others as well. Their souls had been bound in some way she did not yet understand.
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That was terrifying.
And yet, no one else saw it.
No one else knew what had really happened.
To the world, Adora alone had saved them all.
And John?
John had still not awoken since the attack.
Adora barely had time to breathe before the air around her fractured. The telltale shimmer of an incursion rippled across the battered ruins of the palace courtyard, warping the space itself. A tear, in reality, a rent in the fragile veil between the mortal world and the Spirit Realm.
The sixth one this hour.
She clenched her jaw, barely suppressing the frustration bubbling in her chest. This was the consequence of too much death, too much magic, too much chaos in one place while the Spirit World loomed dangerously close to the physical plane. It had been drawn in too nearby the Black Queen's destruction, and now the barrier between realms had weakened to the point of collapse. It would heal in time, but in the meantime.
Not all Spirits were malevolent, some merely wandered, confused and searching, remnants of something greater. But the ones that came now? The ones that followed the scent of carnage and decay?
Those were the hunters.
A deep rumble shuddered through the fractured air, followed by the screech of stone grinding against stone. Then, it emerged, a towering, crab like abomination, its massive, jagged form half-submerged in molten rock. Its obsidian-black carapace gleamed with streaks of fire, pulsing like a volcano on the verge of eruption. Lava dripped from its serrated mandibles, hissing as it struck the scorched earth beneath it.
The thing reared back, its many legs skittering over broken stone as its empty, burning eyes locked onto the nearest living being, Adora.
Her grip on Excalibur tightened.
She didn't hesitate.
With a single motion, she raised her sword, its blade glowing with divine radiance, and prepared to strike it down.
She would not fail again.
It wasn't often that a dragon found herself at a loss for understanding. Medarda, was rarely perplexed, especially not in matters of magic, of essence, of soulcraft. The soul, after all, was her domain, her lineage traced back to the very breath of the world, when dragons first inhaled the raw mana of creation and molded it into form.
And yet, here she sat, golden scales gleaming in the low twilight of the world that struggled to recover, staring into the chaotic, shimmering cyclone that was John's soul.
It was maddening. At once fragile and indomitable. A threadbare tapestry woven from broken dreams, lingering trauma, and the raw iron of defiance. Every time she dared to peer deeper, to trace a pattern she could interpret, it shifted, twisting into something new. Something unprecedented. Something impossibly… alive.
Medarda growled low in her throat, the sound vibrating through the marble floor of her tower. Her tail, usually kept poised with the grace of her kin, twitched in irritation.
Her line had studied a thousand souls. Mothers upon Mother had unraveled the hearts of queens and devoured the memories of tyrants. She had mapped the fractures in broken heroines and soothed the wounds of dying spirtits. But this? This was a maelstrom. A forge. A soul still being written, half-born and yet ancient, new and primeval all at once. Worse it bore echoes of her own flame. Not traces, not impressions… echoes. Real, unmistakable resonance.
And not just her flame.
Kori's light shimmered through his mana threads, like dawn breaking through storm clouds. Rheala's chill lingered at the edge, silent and absolute. Lotha's war fury crackled in pulses, ready to detonate. Taimi's tinkering spark danced in the periphery, chaotic and sharp Asah's roaring vitality marked his core, and Adora… Adora had carved her spirit into his very breath. . Maeriel damn her was there too, tangled deep in the marrow of him.
This was no soul. This was a battleground. A convergence point. A crucible for something greater than any of them had realized in the moment they'd leapt to his side and shouldered the unbearable burden of the Black Queen's annihilating power. And now… now it was remaking him.
Medarda clenched her clawed hands, willing her voice to remain steady. "This should be impossible," she muttered, her words laced with ancient authority and modern disbelief. "No mortal should be able to contain this. Let alone bind us into it…"
But he had. And now he slept, entangled in a web of power, barely clinging to form. His body healed, yes. His mana stabilized, mostly. But his soul?
That tempest raged on.
And all her might, memories of centuries of arcane mastery, her divine lineage, could do nothing to still it.
So she stayed, hour after hour, watching over him, not as a protector, nor a researcher, but something far rarer for one such as her, a supplicant before a mystery too large for even dragonkind to comprehend.
And though she would never admit it aloud, a thread of unease crept beneath her pride.
For the first time in her life, Medarda wasn't sure what would awaken when the storm inside John finally passed.
She only knew one thing:
It would change the world.
There were moments—far too many, if he was being honest the Lord Never Named wished his darling wife were just a touch less... literal in her manifestations when it came to embodying her aspect.
Just because mortals believed Fate played games with the live's mortals didn't mean she had to take that interpretation as a recomendation. And yet, here they were again. Thier Home, an infinite, ever-shifting cottage that responded to the whims of their thoughts, was once again filled to the brim with chaos—not cosmic, not ethereal, but the utterly tangible kind.
The living room alone looked like the aftermath of an convention gone horribly wrong. The floors were buried beneath plastic model kits, trading cards enchanted with probabilities, dice of every imaginable configuration, half-painted miniatures in stasis fields, crumbling cardboard box towers, and glittering, spectral game boards labeled Campaigns of Destiny v12.7. Several sections of the wall were scorched no doubt the result of her tantrum.
And in the middle of it all, her form reduced to that of a petite, pouty girl in a too-long hoodie and knee-high socks, Fate herself lay collapsed on the divine couch. Or under it, rather. A blanket patterned with chibi-style constellations had been thrown over her entire body like a shroud of shame, muffling the dramatic sniffles and heartbroken sighs that echoed faintly across the endless hall.
He sighed long, tired, but not without love.
"She's really done it this time," he muttered to himself, side-stepping a dangerously animated dice tower that hissed as he passed. A casual flick of his fingers collapsed it back into inert plastic.
As he approached the couch—gingerly, lest he trigger one of her melodramatic rants, he conjured a delicate porcelain mug with a gesture. Steam rose from the cup in graceful curls, carrying the scent of bittersweet chocolate, cinnamon, and just a whisper of stardust. The perfect comfort brew. Extra marshmallows, of course. He was the ideal Gentleman.
"I have hot chocolate," he offered, voice as calm and warm as a hearth, holding the mug just outside the edge of the blanket fort.
"Go away," came the muffled whimper of doom. "That's not going to work. I'm too upset to be bribed."
The Lord arched a brow. He crouched beside the couch, gently placing the mug on a hovering coaster of glowing cosmic marble. "Are you sure?" he asked, amusement threading his words. "I won this particular cup off Calcifer just the other day. Temp-enchanted, spiced with a flicker of Hope and a dash of Redemption. Just the right temperature. Whipped cream. Marshmallows. The real ones, no artificial sugar."
There was silence for a beat. Then, a slow, suspicious rustle of blanket.
"...Really?" her voice wavered, thick with emotion but suddenly... intrigued.
He allowed himself a small, knowing smile. "Really."
A cascade of plush constellations was thrown aside as she emerged, eyes watery and dramatic, long hair tangled in some sort of pastel ribbon spell gone wrong. "How did you get Calcifer toagree to a bet," she pouted, snatching the mug with both hands as though it were a lifeline.
"A Man has his ways," he replied.
She sipped, eyes fluttering shut in exaggerated bliss. "Mmm... Hope tastes delicious."
"Oh, I know," he murmured, rising with a roll of his shoulders. "Now. Want to tell me what happened, or shall I consult prepare for another reenactment of 'Woe is Me: The Eternal Director's Cut'?"
Fate sighed, cradling the mug like a warm cat. "They weren't supposed to deviate that far, you know. The Old Soul wasn't meant to defeat the Black Queen. All now his soul-thread is... it's weird, okay? All the work I did to make the perfect love interest for My Chosen and now its all messed up!"
The Lord folded his arms, watching her. "And yet, it's working."
"That's not the point! My whole timeline model is ruined! I had it all planned out, my Chosen was going rally the others growing in strength and save Old Soul. Months of slowly building up team work and romantic tension with each other. A big final romantic rescue that saved the day at the last minute. I even worked in time for them to go to the beach and celebrate before the next threat. Thats all gone now. " She slumped, tailing her words with a melodramatic sigh worthy of a stage play. "I'd just gotten the variables balanced again. Now it's all... improvisation!"
He chuckled.
Fate narrowed her eyes. "Don't you start. You're the reason this happened, aren't you?"
"I nudged at the last moment," he admitted. "Gently. All I did was give him a chance."
She growled quietly into her mug. "I just wanted a nice, clean rescue arc..."
The Lord leaned in, kissed her temple, and smiled.
She blinked up at him, cheeks pink. "You're lucky your cute."
And somewhere beyond the edge of time, the game board of the cosmos slowly began to reset itself one marshmallow-sweetened moment at a time. For when one game ends another begins.
This took me a lot longer than expected, my IRL has become alot more busy during the last few months and I had near no time to write. Things are settling down, and I hope to be able to write more. This is the end of book 1 or arc 1. The next will serve as a bit of a soft reboot as the story settles into a new status quo.
