Chapter 79: I've Got You (Her POV)
The portal hissed closed behind him, sealing the wound between realms. Malvor didn't move. He just stood there, shaking. I watched him from across the room. I didn't rush or call his name. I knew better. He was pretending again. Trying to summon my glittering king with a smile that didn't reach his eyes, rolling his shoulders back as if posture alone could hold him together. But I saw his knees tremble. I saw his fists clenched so tight his nails broke his palms. I saw the collar, golden, cruel. It flared every time he swallowed down the scream trapped in his throat.
"Hello, my sweet," he rasped, that wasn't his voice. I crossed the room. He tried to stand straighter as I approached, like he could make this easier for me. Tried to be the shield instead of the ruin. The moment my hands touched his chest, He broke. He collapsed into me with a sound that ripped the air apart, raw, gasping, nothing like the confident god who lived on swagger and chaos. His knees slammed the floor, hard enough that the ground itself shuddered. His arms crushed around my waist, dragging me down with him. His face pressed into me, my stomach, my ribs, my heart. Anywhere he could hide, anywhere he could pretend he could crawl inside me and escape the world.
The sobs came ugly and helpless, dragging sounds from him I didn't think gods could make. I didn't pull away. I didn't hush him. I just knelt there with him, stroking through his hair, down his spine, across the trembling planes of his shoulders. "I know," I whispered, again and again. "I know. I know. I know."
He clung tighter. Like if he let go, he'd die. Maybe he would. Minutes, or hours, bled away before his sobs dulled to ragged breaths. His hands still trembled against my ribs, but the frantic clawing was gone. He was just… here. I pulled back enough to cup his face. He tried to turn away, tried to hide the shame burning in his eyes. I didn't let him. Gently, I tilted his chin up. My thumb brushed his bruised cheekbone.
"You don't have to pretend with me," I told him softly. It shattered something new inside him.
His eyes squeezed shut, his jaw clenched against another sob, But the words escaped anyway. "I bowed to him." I stayed still. "I bowed," he gasped. "I bent my knee. I let him chain me." Silent tears cut down his face. "I would have fought. I would have died. Gladly." His forehead pressed to my chest, his voice breaking apart. "But if I had…" He choked. "…you would have died too."
He had chosen chains to keep me alive, and he couldn't forgive himself for surviving the choice.
"You came back," I told him, pressing my lips to his forehead. "He took your knees. He took your voice. He did not take you. You are mine. And you came home to me."
He made a low broken sound. His hands, bruised, battered, lifted to my face. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "For not being enough... For kneeling... For letting them chain me again."
I kissed the inside of his wrist. "You were enough the day you smiled at me, and you will always be enough."
My hands moved over him, searching. I found the collar first. Gold. Heavy. Wrong. It pulsed under my fingers, and he flinched. I didn't pull away. My hands traced lower, his runes. They were dead, gray and silent. Aerion hadn't just beaten him. He had silenced him. I swallowed hard, rage burning in my throat, but I didn't show it. Not yet. Instead, I kissed his collarbone right over the fused chain. "I see you," I whispered into his skin. "I see what you did for me. I am going to put you back together."
He made a sound, half disbelief, half desperate hope. I summoned my magic, warm and golden, and let it flow through my palms. I cupped his shoulders, chest, ribs, pouring healing into bruises and places where his magic slept. Deep inside him, something flickered. A spark. A remembered laugh. He sagged into me. I cradled his head against my chest and let the magic move gently through him. No demands. Nothing he had to give back. The wildest god in the realms curled in my lap like a boy who had fought too long and too hard. For the first time in what felt like centuries, Malvor slept. I kissed his hair.
I woke to a sound that didn't belong. Not the hum of Arbor. Not Malvor's usual restless shifting. A choked breath. A tremor. "No!" His body jerked. "Please. Don't—"
I bolted upright. Malvor thrashed beside me, limbs jerking like he was being ripped apart in his sleep. The golden collar around his neck glowed, dull at first, then sharp, vicious. His back arched, and I saw the scream clawing up his throat. The collar flared. Too late, I saw it. Light exploded out of the chain, cracking through his tattoos. His chaos script lit beneath his skin, not with power but pain. The runes screamed before he did. It hit him. He whimpered like a child. I didn't think. I lunged, pressing my palms to the collar. The divine metal hissed under my touch, burning me instantly, but I didn't care. I shoved my healing into him, forcing golden light against that cruel chain. The collar fought me. Bit me. Seared my nerves. Still, I held on. My skin blistered, blood filled my mouth. Malvor gasped. His eyes flew open, wild, glassy, terrified.
"Asha—?"
I was shaking, crying, my hands raw and red, but I didn't let go. "I wasn't going to let it hurt you."
He blinked at me, dazed, saw the burn marks crawling up my palms. The collar dulled beneath my touch, its hunger cut short. He reached for my hand, trembling, and pressed a kiss to the ruined skin. "I—"
I brushed his cheek with my fingers. "You're safe."
I meant it. Even if I had to bleed to keep it true. He sagged into me, his whole body hollowing with the words he forced out: "It felt the same."
"What did?"
His fingers touched the collar. "The chains. I didn't tell you."
I blinked. "Tell me what?"
His hand lifted, slow, shaking, to the collar around his neck, touching it like it was both sacred and damned. "These," he said, rough, "weren't always chains." I stared at him. "They weren't a punishment. Not at first."
His eyes closed briefly. I could feel the shift in him, the quieting of his chaos. The weight of memory. "They were me," he said. He took my hand and guided it to the base of his neck, where the first link shimmered, almost like a brand. My fingertips brushed metal, cool, dulled, heavy with something ancient. "They were chaos. Symbols written into my being. They shifted with my emotions. They laughed when I laughed."
My heart ached. I'd seen them so many times. Alive. Vibrant. Moving like they were part of him.
"They used to glow with life and magic." I watched his face shift. The grief there. "They were a gift. A reminder. A symbol of what I was made for."
I asked quietly, "What were you made for?"
He looked at me. "Balance. The Creator Itself made me."
I didn't speak, just listened. "I wasn't born. I was forged. Chaos given shape. Given laughter. Given a mouth too big and a heart too soft." He ran a hand through his hair and winced when his fingers brushed a healing burn. "But I wasn't alone. There were two of us." I knew before he said it. "Aerion. The other half." His fingers brushed one of the dull runes along his ribs, more ghost than touch. "Where I was chaos, he was order. The unmoving line to my spiral. The blade to my flame."
He exhaled again. "We weren't enemies then. Not even rivals. We were function. Balance. I unraveled. He restored. I broke the cycle to begin again. He kept it stable. I danced. He held the rhythm."
Gods, my heart hurt. "What changed?" I asked.
He met my gaze, eyes sad. "I did."
I swallowed hard.
"I changed," he said. "I watched mortals stumble and rise. I grew. Not because I had to, because I wanted to. They laughed in the fire I started. Made art from rubble. Told stories of gods they'd never seen. Me. They whispered my name in caves and cathedrals." He paused. "And I fell in love with them for it. I wasn't supposed to change. I was supposed to be the destroyer. The undoing. But instead..." He shrugged, helpless. "I became something new."
"You became better," I said.
He didn't respond right away. "But Aerion-" his voice fractured a little. "He didn't change. Couldn't. Wouldn't. He stayed what he was made to be. Pure order. Fixed law. He stayed still because he thought he was already the answer. He looked at humanity and saw rot. I saw potential." Malvor's hands clenched, then eased. "He saw emotion as instability. I saw it as growth. Love, pain, pleasure, loss, they move us forward. He wanted to freeze the divine as it was. I wanted to keep it dancing. And so... he called it corruption."
I inhaled slowly, grounding myself against the weight of his words. "He didn't see you as his opposite anymore. He saw you as his flaw."
Malvor nodded. "He decided balance was a mistake." He stared at the ceiling, as if trying to read constellations only he could see. "And domination... was the correction." His expression was distant. "He didn't think I'd changed. He thought I'd malfunctioned. Aerion didn't forge new chains. He just whispered the old commands."
I laid my hand over his. It didn't burn. "He couldn't understand you."
"He didn't try," His voice had no sorrow now. "I wanted balance. He wanted obedience. I wanted to break patterns. He wanted to preserve them. In the end... I became the chaos he feared most."
I dragged my fingers along his collarbone, down to one of the broken runes. "Because you didn't just break the world. You adapted. And he never forgave you." I leaned over him. My lips brushed the hollow of his throat. "You're not the failure, Malvor. You're the evolution."
I lit my palms again and rested them over his ribs. This time, he didn't flinch. He let me help. That mattered more than the light. Malvor sagged into my hands with a sound that broke me open. He looped his arms around me again. I cradled his head to my chest, my magic threading through him. "Rest now, my Chaos," I whispered. "I'll carry you the rest of the way." When he is whole again, I will make sure Aerion understands exactly what he failed to take.