NOVPUBThe vision bled across the hall like a curse let loose—broadcast from Nyxavere's projection, the Chaotic Abyss unfolded above them, alive and merciless.
And when the parents saw what their children had become, the air cracked—not with screams, but with silence so heavy it throbbed like grief made flesh.
The Kingswells stood frozen, a quiet, terrible dignity laced in their stillness. Elven grace could carry most horrors, but this? This broke them. Bella's mother's lips parted in horror as her daughter—once a gleaming jewel of their lineage—was now nothing but a crawling mass of scorched nerves and shriveled agony. Her father stepped forward once, hands twitching like they wanted to reach through dimensions, to pull her back—but couldn't.
His knees buckled. Not from weakness—but from failure. Prideful, ancient elven blood... brought low.
Bella!
She was writhing in the background, tangled in tendrils that seemed to be whispering into her mouth, pulling her tongue apart, threading it with rot. Her fingers clawed into her cheeks as her body arched, spasmed, healed, and tore again.
Lady Kingswell broke.
She clutched her husband's arm, her lip trembling, a low sob caught in her throat like a blade. "Make it stop," she whispered, but no one could. Not even him.
The Ravencrofts were another story entirely.
The matron fell to her knees so hard the stone cracked beneath her. Her fingers clawed at the hem of her cloak, nails snapping. She whispered his name—Maya's brother's name—over and over, like a mantra that refused to save him. Her husband trembled beside her, not crying, not screaming, but breathing like the world had ended and refused to let him follow it into death.
They were witches, yes.
But no spell could fix what they saw.
Their son was no longer someone they recognized. His body had gone past damage—it had become the Abyss, and the Abyss had become him. Worms pulsed beneath his skin like veins, his eyes scratched raw by invisible claws. His mouth opened in a scream that hadn't stopped since he arrived.
And near the edge, the parents of the cousins—noblebloods who once looked down on others like they were born to rule—were now just parents watching their sons and daughters suffer. One man vomited. A woman screamed out a name that didn't even sound like hers anymore.
A mother fainted before she could finish praying.
The cruelty was complete.
Not only did they lose their children… they were forced to witness it.
Others in the hall couldn't look away.
And Maya… Maya stood like stone, watching Bella's suffering unfold in unspeakable loops. She sighed quietly, the weight of understanding crashing down like a wave she hadn't asked to drown in.
"If only she'd listened… like Evelyn," she whispered, voice heavy. "She'd still be—"
Like Evelyn did.
Others nodded quietly. Even those who had once mocked Parker, laughed with the bullies, carried rumors and pride—now sat frozen in fear and relief.
It could've been them.
It should've been some of them.
But it wasn't.
And that guilt would follow them forever.
Because now they understood something far worse than punishment. They understood mercy... and what it meant when someone was denied it.
And pain, eternal and wild, had a new name:
Prince Nyxlith!
Scarlett was shivering. Violently. Her hands clasped in her lap like prayer wasn't going to save her. Noctavine Vaelith Draven, Matriarch of one of the deadliest vampire clans to ever exist, didn't ask why. She didn't have to. The truth was already laid out in the silence. Her daughter—her own flesh and blood—had stood among the ones who mocked the Prince, broke him, treated him like the ash beneath their boots.
Why?
Why had she done it?
And why… why hadn't the Prince punished her?
Parker didn't even glance Scarlett's way. Not once. He didn't need to. Indifference was louder than rage, and silence had its own blade. Instead, his eyes drifted to the last vampire from the other family—the one who had remained after his kin had already been sentenced to the Chaotic Abyss.
"Nyxavere," Parker said, his voice so cold it made the flames in the braziers stutter.
Nyxavere didn't speak. She only raised her hand.
The vampire let out a gasp, fell to his knees—but Parker wasn't done.
"Not five years," he said. "Not ten. Eternity."
The vampire's eyes widened in full horror. His scream was swallowed by the air as he vanished into the black maw of the abyss, sentenced to a suffering that had no exit, no end, and no mercy.
The projection died.
The portal snapped shut like a mouth done talking.
And the throne hall dimmed.
Only two remained.
Helena Nyxlith!
Scarlett Draven!
But Helena… Helena was blood. Not guiltless. Not spared. But hers was a reckoning that deserved its own stage.
Parker leaned forward, chin resting lightly on his knuckles.
"You wanted to speak," he said. "So speak."
Helena stepped forward slowly, then knelt, head low in the ancient gesture of apology—no longer the cold dominator of a bloodline but a woman returning to face her sins.
She raised her hand and conjured a screen of glimmering Ether-light.
It flickered, then steadied, like a memory returning from deep time.
A dark room. Regal. Timeless. The walls glowed faintly with divine inscriptions. And at the center, a woman stood—face veiled by radiance, features cloaked in something the gods themselves could not decipher.
Parker's mother.
She stood before all the Origin Families. Not as a mortal. Not even as a Queen. But as something older.
Her voice was soft but thundered all the same.
"This child," she said, gesturing toward a tiny silhouette seated on a throne too big for him, "is the Ninth reircanation of your creator..."
Murmurs had erupted among the ancient bloodlines.
"Nine reincarnations. Nine cycles. But this one… this one will not remember. Not easily. His design has changed."
Parker stared.
His fingers were trembling.
The vision continued.
"His power will return only through pain. Through betrayal. Through loss. He must be forced to recall—not told. He must awaken himself. It is the only way can he become what's meant of him."
The younger Parker in the vision—just a boy—sat unmoving, unaware of the weight placed upon his existence. And in that moment, standing in the throne hall now, the grown Parker finally understood.
All of it.
Every wound. Every scar. Every scream they made him swallow.
It hadn't just been misfortune.
It had been planned.
It had been ordained.
And his mother… she had pulled the strings.
His hands slowly curled into fists.
Not in grief.
But in comprehension.
The kind that made stars hold their breath.
