The Reborn Sovereign of Ruin, Bound by His Star

Liam stared at the place where the strange wavelength had vanished.

The absence felt almost as unsettling as its presence had.

For months, the foreign ether had occupied a measurable space inside him. Even when contained, Liam had known it was there: pressure beneath the mark, an occasional wrong note in his pheromones, the awareness of something buried inside his channels that did not belong.

Now there was nothing.

His ether felt like his again.

Liam touched two fingers to the high collar of his dark green overshirt.

The containment formations remained, but they had nothing to hold.

He looked at the being wearing his face.

"You removed it."

"Yes."

"You could have done that immediately."

"I did."

Liam frowned.

The being’s golden eyes gleamed with amusement.

"From my perspective."

That answer was unacceptable on several levels, but Liam had more urgent questions.

He straightened, pushing his loose brown hair behind one shoulder. The ancient chamber continued shifting around them, runes flowing through the hazy walls in patterns that refused to settle whenever he attempted to study them directly.

"What exactly is the Trial?"

The being shrugged.

Liam stared.

"That is your explanation?"

"There isn’t one explanation."

"You are standing inside it."

"And you work with turbines. Does every turbine perform the same function?"

"No, but there are principles."

"There are principles here too."

"Which are?"

The being smiled.

Liam crossed his arms.

He had the uncomfortable impression that Ether itself, or whatever this thing represented, was deliberately enjoying him.

The figure wandered toward the center of the chamber, bare ether-feet leaving brief golden impressions across the dark floor.

"The Trial is different for everyone who enters. Some fight."

"Fight what?"

"Whatever requires fighting."

Liam’s expression flattened.

"Some are required to confront something they have spent their lives avoiding. Some choose between things they believe they cannot lose. Some are measured by what they have already done."

The being turned slightly.

"Others are measured by what they will do."

Liam’s attention sharpened.

"The future is predetermined?"

"No."

"Then how can you judge future deeds?"

"Possibility is not predestination."

"That still requires predictive modeling."

The being chuckled.

"You are attempting to reduce causality to an equation."

"Causality should appreciate being taken seriously."

"Goliath said something similar."

Liam paused.

That was interesting enough to temporarily distract him.

"What was his Trial?"

"No idea."

"You were here."

"I am always here."

"And you don’t know?"

"I didn’t say that."

Liam exhaled slowly through his nose.

Arik had been correct.

Interrogation was apparently necessary with everything connected to ancient ether.

The being seemed delighted by his irritation.

"The Trial does not exist merely to award power," it said. "Some leave with greater control over ether. Some leave changed in another way. Some gain nothing they can identify until much later."

"And some die."

"Yes."

The casual answer chilled the room more effectively than any threat could have.

Liam looked around the circular chamber again.

"So what am I supposed to gain?"

The being shrugged a second time.

Liam’s eye twitched.

"You genuinely enjoy doing that."

"Very much."

"Control over sovereign ether?"

"Perhaps."

"I don’t want it."

That finally earned him something closer to interest.

Liam unfolded his arms.

"Arik already controls sovereign ether. Extremely well."

"Indeed."

The being’s expression softened into something almost approving.

"Goliath was worthy of it."

"Arik."

"Both."

Liam accepted that correction.

The figure continued, "He entered young, angry, brilliant, and convinced he could force the world to become survivable if he simply understood enough of it. He left capable of commanding something very few souls should ever touch."

"That sounds accurate."

"He also remained remarkably irritating."

Liam smiled faintly.

"Yes. That part survived reincarnation perfectly."

The being laughed again.

Liam’s thoughts had already moved on.

"If I don’t need sovereign ether, then I want something else."

"You assume you select the reward."

"I assume asking improves the probability."

"Possibly."

Good enough.

Liam stepped closer.

"I want data."

The being went completely still.

Then its mouth curved.

"Data."

"Yes."

"Most people ask for power."

"I have access to power."

"Immortality?"

"Already apparently marrying into a complicated version of that."

"Strength?"

Liam glanced down at himself.

"I am an engineer."

The being laughed softly.

Liam ignored it.

"I want technical information about the Trial. Actual information. Not one page written by Goliath after he forgot everything, another incomplete record from his grandfather, and three centuries of people saying the mechanism cannot be documented."

The runes along the walls brightened.

Whether in reaction to him or coincidence, Liam could not tell.

"I want to know how the wavelengths work. What determines acceptance. What changes in the channels. How the Trial interacts with the Core. What happened to Felix when he ran. What happened to Goliath when he won."

The being watched him with increasingly open amusement.

"And?"

Liam’s mouth tightened.

"And I want to remember it."

That changed something in the being.

The humor did not disappear completely, but the gold in its eyes sharpened.

"Winners do not remember."

"I know."

"Yet you want an exception."

"Yes."

Liam said it without hesitation.

"If I survive something capable of rewriting ether at this level, I refuse to leave with no usable record of how it happened."

The being tilted its head.

"That sounds very much like Goliath."

"Then apparently he should have negotiated better."

For several seconds there was silence.

Then the being smiled.

"You think this is a contract. That you have control, or at least something to say." The being’s smile sharpened, not unkindly, but with the unmistakable amusement of something that had watched humans mistake preference for authority for a very long time. "But Liam, Felix ran and sent you here. What if you have to take the Trial in his stead?"

"I prefer to die."

Silence.

The runes stopped moving.

Even the haze seemed to pause.

The being stared at him.

Then it laughed.

Not the restrained chuckle Liam had become accustomed to. It folded forward slightly, one hand covering its mouth while golden ether rippled through its shoulders.

Liam folded his arms.

"I’m serious."

"I know." That apparently made it funnier.

Liam waited until the laughter subsided.

"I am not completing anything for Felix."

The being straightened up. "You are remarkably offended by the concept."

"He poisoned my mate in his previous life, killed his children, poisoned me, tried to steal Arik’s ether, spent decades engineering a way to impersonate him, and apparently arranged for part of himself to hitch a ride inside my channels." Liam began counting on his fingers before abandoning the effort. "And now you are suggesting I finish his Trial for him."

"When summarized that way—"

"There is no better way."

The being smiled again.

Liam looked around the chamber, searching for some reaction from the Trial itself. The frozen runes remained suspended along the circular walls, their shapes almost comprehensible now that they were still.

"If I take it in his stead, what happens to Felix?"

"That depends."

"On?"

"You."

Liam’s expression flattened. "We are returning to useless answers."

"You keep asking questions as though the Trial is a machine with a fixed output."

"Everything has an operating principle."

"Perhaps."

"That was deliberately irritating."

"Yes."

Liam exhaled and turned away from it.

His boots crossed the dark floor with a muted echo while he studied the nearest wall. Up close, the runes did not appear carved into anything. They floated several centimeters beneath the surface, layered in depths Liam could not properly focus on.

Felix had entered this place.

Failed.

Run.

Some fragment of him had remained attached to the Trial until Liam carried it back.

That meant Narissa had not simply thrown Liam into a random ancient mechanism.

Felix had left a route.

Possibly an obligation.

Liam disliked both possibilities.

"What does taking it in his stead mean?"

The being joined him by the wall.

"At minimum? The Trial Felix abandoned must be resolved."