It was hours after dinner.

V, Ten, Cordelia, and Fractal had long since retired to their rooms. Knowing the state those rooms. This estate wasn't a home, not yet. Just a shell we were slowly forcing into shape.

I was walking the halls alone, sighing under my breath.

The estate looked… marginally less like a war crime. Less like something bombed to spite a bloodline and more like something abandoned because the family ran out of coin. It was a strange comfort, knowing the decay felt more domestic now. My family's traces were fading, but not yet gone. I kept expecting to hear one of them call my name — Marybelle's sharp tongue, Morgan's commanding bark, even William's obnoxious flirting.

Instead, I got silence.

Until I didn't.

Three presences along with Ria rounded the corner — all distinct, all heavy with implication.

Ria appeared first, cool as ever, flanking the one person I didn't expect to see walking with Temptation and Ranah.

Barbra.

Her. Barbatos. The Queen of Beasts. The fucking Lady of the Hunt.

She wasn't snarling. She wasn't radiating that usual feral fury like a blood moon about to go off. No, this was different. She was hunched slightly. Her expression unreadable, but her energy was taut — like a predator resisting the urge to lunge.

"We need to talk," Barbra said. Her voice was grave. Not low — grave. There was a difference. It sounded like someone who knew something that shouldn't be said, but had to be. Her gaze lingered on the floor, which unsettled me more than if she'd stared me down.

"We do," Temptation echoed, for once lacking that usual venom-laced smugness. She looked, if not respectful, then wary.

Ranah nodded once. "About several things."

I blinked. "Where's Morres?"

The absence of the sleepy, dream-muddled wanderer felt wrong. The three of them were usually a storm system — chaotic but together.

Ranah answered, precise as ever. "He's engaged with another member of Pandora's Box. Locked into temporal discussion. He won't be reachable for at least a year, by our measure."

A year. That meant something. But this wasn't about Morres. Not tonight.

Ranah stepped forward and raised her hand.

A door formed behind her.

Not opened. Not summoned.

Manifested.

Etched with glowing sigils and interlocking gears, the frame seemed to hum with restrained force, like it had been waiting for this moment for centuries.

Ranah turned to Barbra, and then spoke — not to her, but to something older listening in.

"I — Ranah, the Lioness of the Great Mechanica, declare a vow. Provided Barbatos, the Queen of Beasts, the Lady of the Hunt, and Speaker of Cats, does not harm me in my domain for the duration of this visit, I shall not harm her, for as long as she stays."

Barbra didn't flinch. But her jaw flexed once — the way it did before she tore a throat out in training.

"I — Barbatos, the Queen of the Primal Fury, declare a vow. Provided Ranah, the Lioness, the Great Mechanician, and Proprietor of the Dancing Dollhouse, does not harm me in their domain during this visit, I shall not harm her, for as long as I stay."

The air rippled.

You don't have to see a divine witness to know one has heard you. The weight of the vow settled over us like iron fog. A promise with teeth.

Barbra turned to me, then. Her gaze finally rose. Not warm. Not gentle.

Just… intent.

"Get in, you two," she said.

Not a request. Not a threat.

A statement.

Ria stepped forward first, unblinking. I followed — because if I didn't, I got the sense Barbra would drag me through that door herself, and I had enough bruises for one lifetime.

As we crossed the threshold, I couldn't help but wonder:

What could make Barbra parley with her enemies?

And why the hell was I the one being brought into the middle of it?

***

I was in a vast, living workshop — a cathedral forged in steel and steam.

Tools floated as though pulled by unseen strings, each one moving with mechanical precision. Hammers struck anvils in perfect rhythm. Tongs twisted red-hot metal midair. Welding sparks burst like tiny suns as frames were joined. Even the dust moved with purpose, funneled away by vents that hissed like serpents in the floor.

The workshop didn't rest. It worked. Everything was being built at once — swords, axes, hammers the size of wolves. Gauntlets of bronze and silver. Crossbows with limbs folded like sleeping insects. Pistols and rifles with barrels that stretched too long, coiling like serpents waiting to strike. Full suits of armor lined the walls — some towering, hulking things designed for beasts or titans; others sleek, built for rapid movement. And above it all, blueprints hovered in the air like grim banners — dozens, maybe hundreds — each etched with alien notations that pulsed softly with aether.

And the smell — gods, the smell. Burnt oil. Ash. Scorched metal. Smoke woven through coal dust. Every breath I took tasted like fire and rusted iron.

The sounds were worse. Or better. It was hard to tell.

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Clanking, hissing, the soft screech of pressure valves, the roar of forges, the quiet hum of automatons marching to an unseen rhythm. If a machine could sing, this was its hymn — a brutal, brilliant symphony played with steel teeth.

The entire place was a shrine to order. No motion was wasted. No effort without purpose.

"You still have your blessing from Industria, I see…" Temptation muttered with a tone like chewing glass.

Ranah scoffed, throwing a wrench over her shoulder without looking. It floated midair, spun twice, then returned to a socket on the wall. "What? I may act like a brat sometimes, but don't forget — I build things. This place is my proof."

Barbra let out a breath, dry and low. She looked ready to pounce, even if she hadn't bared her fangs. "Children," she muttered, brushing soot off her sleeve. "We are not here to squabble over ancient sparks. We are here because — and pardon the pun — we've cracked open Pandora's Box for Alexander and Alexandria."

"Ria," Ria and I said at the same time.

We glanced at each other. Just a beat of silence — then we both looked away.

Temptation gave a thin smile but didn't comment. Ranah, however, clapped her hands, causing several hovering blueprints to realign.

"Right. Let's skip the metaphors. We're on a timer."

She waved a hand, and a cluster of gears clicked open to reveal a central platform. It lit up with sigils pulsing in a slow circle. Not a throne. Not an altar. A design table — meant for building something fundamental.

"We've got three issues," Ranah began. "First: Alexander's system hasn't activated yet. That's... not normal, not at his level."

"I'm still Soul Realm One Level one though?"

Temptation nodded, continuing and ignoring me. "And when it does, it won't be the default. It's going to be shaped. Not by instinct, but by choice. That kind of thing doesn't just happen without intervention."

Barbra's tail flicked. "And you think one of us is the cause?"

Ranah didn't answer. Which said enough.

"There's more," Temptation added, stepping beside me. His eyes — silver and unblinking — met mine. "His domain is changing. Not the physical estate. The resonance. His fate-signature is behaving like a gravity well."

"Something is pulling on him," Ranah said. "Or... someone."

"And not just from here." Barbra's voice dropped. "There are systems watching him. Watching them both. And not all of them are bound to this world."

That hung in the air like a blade.

"Someone cracked the door," Temptation said softly. "Just enough for fate to smell what he's becoming."

Barbra stepped forward, close enough that her shadow cut across the platform. Her claws were retracted, but her posture was still a hunter's. "Then we guide him. Or we stop him. But we don't get to stand by."

Ranah met her gaze. "Then we're agreed, for now. Alliance of circumstance."

Barbra's lip curled. "Temporary."

Ria muttered under her breath, "So... babysitting duty from gods who can't stand each other."

I sighed. "Sounds like my life."

We said it at the same time. Again.

Then we both laughed — just once. Just for a moment.

And in the background — just behind the forge — something old clicked into place. It was deep, heavy. Like stone locking into stone. Like a key, rusted from centuries of disuse, finally turned in an ancient lock.

Then a door opened.

Not one shaped by Ranah's forgework, nor any conjured portal. This was a thing of weight. A threshold that shouldn't have been there — and yet always had been.

And through it stepped a man.

When I say man, I mean a creature shaped like one. He was gargantuan — no less than nine feet tall, broad enough to fill the space between two anvils without turning sideways. Every inch of him was coiled in black fur and layered, corded muscle, as though he had been carved out of the wilderness and tempered by time itself. His eyes were a dull gold, flickering with slow, buried fire.

"Thank you, Ranah," the man rumbled. He took three steps — each one making the metal floor whine beneath him — and crossed half the workshop in an instant.

His voice didn't echo. It sank. It filled the air like wet stone, dragging the heat of the forge down with it. There was something ancient in his tone. Not in the dramatic sense — but the quiet, bone-deep weariness of someone who remembered what it meant to be forgotten.

"My name is Yore."

Barbatos reacted first.

"Yore?!" Her voice cracked as she rushed toward him. For once, her bearing shattered — not a predator, not a queen. Just raw surprise and something close to grief. She grabbed at his arm, his face, running her claws along the edge of his silhouette, as if she were trying to convince herself he was real.

Yore did not push her away — but his voice was firm. "Please. Not now, Barbatos. Later. We'll talk about... what I've become. But not now."

She stilled. Only slightly.

Yore's eyes met mine.

"It's taking all I have to suppress whatever's jamming the path forward for your system. I need you to understand what that means, boy."

He took another step, and it felt like the air buckled around him.

"He's on the edge," Yore said to the room. "Your boy — your Alexander — he's about to power through his cores. Compression. Condensation. Surge. He's not unlocking. He's breaking through."

His gaze settled on me, solid and unrelenting.

"You are long overdue for condensation, boy. You're overflowing — not just with miasma, but foreign mana. So vibrant, so volatile. You're bleeding with it. It's leaking off your aura like steam from an overfilled engine."

Then he turned, looking slightly past me.

"And tell your contracted spirit to stop hiding. We all feel him. He's not subtle."

There was a pause — then the air near my shoulder shimmered.

Lumivis revealed himself, emerging from my aura like a shadow peeling away from the wall. He hovered just a few feet behind me, tall and lean, his presence composed but tense.

"Forgive me, Resilient One," Lumivis said, bowing with ghostlike grace. "I did not wish to impose on such a council. But, as you have summoned me by implication, I must ask... are you saying this interference is spiritual in origin? From a Spirit King?"

Yore shook his head, slow and grim.

"No. I'm not confirming anything. I'm proposing the possibility. The only thing we know is this — in this forge, within the limits of the Celestials' blessings, all foreign blessings are shunted. And yet... something remains. Something is pressing. That means…"

Barbatos's snarl cut through the room like a blade.

"It means it's from the Infernal Courts." She spat the words like they were poison. Her claws flexed at her side, and her fangs were bared. "And if that's true, it's not some lesser imp. It's a named rival. Or worse…"

Her gaze snapped to me.

"...Something that wants him. Badly."

Ranah's voice was tight. "We should've seen this sooner."

"No," Temptation said softly. "We did. We just didn't believe it would move this early."

Yore closed his eyes. The fire in him dimmed.

"None of you understand. This isn't a matter of belief. This is inevitability. A being like him — soaked in contradiction, born of two bloodlines forged in refusal — he was always going to draw the attention of both Heaven and Hell."

He opened his eyes again.

"And if someone from the Courts has placed their mark on him before his foundation is set, then we've already made our first mistake."

Barbatos's tail lashed behind her.

"I will rip out the tongue of whatever fuck did it. If it's who I think it is—"

"No names," Yore snapped. The room fell quiet.

"Not here. Not now. This forge is watched."

Temptation folded her arms. "Then what's our move?"

Yore turned to me again.

"My move... is to hold the gate just a little longer. Long enough for you to choose who you are before someone else brands you with their truth."

He stepped closer — now only feet away — and his presence pressed into me like a tide of ash and thunder.

"You'll either burn it all away, or let it hollow you out."

Then he looked to the forge, and behind it, the flickering sigils marking the platform.

"No more stalling. Ranah. Begin."

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