Ethan's body flooded with adrenaline, but it did not help. It paralyzed him. His limbs locked. His chest tightened. He doesn't need a weapon, he muttered silently. He doesn't even need to raise a hand. He could erase me with a thought.
Elan Morin tilted his head slightly, studying him. Then he stepped forward. A slow, measured, and precise tread. His gaze hovered over Ethan like a raised scalpel. It was probably his clothes that did it. Normal for him, but odd for somebody who only existed inside a fantasy novel: a dark hooded sweatshirt, black cargo pants with oversize pockets, and worn laceless shoes; cheap, synthetic, and utterly out of place. His clothing displayed no sigils, no house colors, no braid or badge or rank. Nothing that declared allegiance. Nothing that belonged. He was not armored, not robed and not even uniformed. Just strange and foreign.
Ethan stood still under the weight of that gaze. Each second felt like judgment being passed. He was not overweight, but the years toward his fortieth birthday had left their trace; a slow drift from the sharpness of youth to something softer. He had once been shaped by discipline, by the rigors of a life that almost cost him his marriage, and while it had not entirely left him, neither had it remained whole. Office life took its own particular toll.
His hair was cropped short in the military style he had kept since his Army years. A habit. A tether. His face was clean-shaven, still holding the last shadows of youth. Strangers often thought him younger than he was. But the eyes; those always gave him away. Green. Slightly canted from his mother's side. Hard for most civilians to stand looking at for long and eyes that had seen their own share of horrors. But they were also eyes that had read the books. That had followed the stories through countless pages and failed screen adaptations alike. They had read the lore. And they had returned time and again to know a story and remember wonder.
Elan Morin's gaze dropped to the bandage on Ethan's right hand, white cloth, slightly yellowed at the edge, wound tight over the burn from that morning. A burn healed into the mark of a key. He said nothing about it. But he saw it. And something in that silence made Ethan's blood run colder than the air.
"You are dressed... oddly," the man in black said to him at last. His voice was calmer now. "Not entirely like a servant, but close enough."
Ethan could not answer. His mouth was dry. His tongue felt glued in place. Elan studied him a moment longer, then made a sound between curiosity and amusement.
"A servant, then. Or perhaps an apprentice of some forgotten school. A minor functionary, clinging to a world already dead."
He turned slightly, calling over his shoulder to Lews Therin. "Tell me, Kinslayer...did you leave one of your attendants alive by design, or did the taint simply miss?"
Lews Therin did not respond. He was still lost in his unraveling thoughts, fingers plucking at air. "Ilyena would know," he murmured. "She keeps track of the guests. She always knows where everyone is…"
Elan Morin's expression darkened.
"Then let us ask your guest." He stepped forward. Ethan backed away. One step. Two. Until his foot struck a fallen beam and he could go no farther.
"You can speak," the black-clad man said softly. "You are not a construct. Not a projection. There is thought behind your eyes, however dim. You have heard us. You understand. Do not insult me by pretending otherwise."
Ethan forced a breath into his lungs. His hands trembled. He almost laughed-a small, absurd sound rising at the edge of panic. Only now did he realize something impossible. He could understand them. Every word. Every tone. Every nuance. It all sounded like English, clean and exact. But they should be speaking the Old Tongue.
In the books, that had always been the mystery; the ancient language spoken by those of that Age. Words no longer used, filled with strange rhythm and power. Yet he understood them without effort. Somewhere in the back of his mind, part of him thanked whatever twisted hallucination had added that particular convenience. Universal translator logic. How very neat.
His voice came out cracked and low. "I...I'm not with him," he said. "I'm not with either of you."
Elan Morin raised an eyebrow. "Not with either of us," he repeated. "How rare. Most have chosen a side by now...Light or Shadow. You, it seems, have slipped between."
He reached out, not to strike, not to grasp, just to feel. Ethan flinched. But the man in black did not touch him. His hand hovered, palm down, just inches from Ethan's chest, as if sensing the space between them.
"There is something… other about you," he said, with some small wonder. The air around them seemed to shift. It suddenly felt colder. The stillness thickened.
"You carry no Saidin," Elan Morin murmured. "No ability. No resonance. And yet... your presence offends the Pattern."
Behind them, Lews Therin burst into laughter. His arms flung wide, his voice full of madness and glee. "Elan Morin!" he sang. "I remember! I remember everything now! You're my friend!"
But Elan Morin did not turn. His eyes remained locked on Ethan. Sharp. Calculating.
"You should not be here," he said. This time, the man's voice held no wonder. No amusement. Only intent. The words echoed something already screaming in Ethan's mind. Maybe it was Ethan's panic, but the air in his lungs wanted to collapse inward. The world pressed in.
Terror wrapped around Ethan like a vice, tightening. His ears rang. His vision blurred. And in that moment, his right hand began to itch. The mark pulsed, just once, beneath the bandage. And Elan Morin stopped. He lowered his hand lowered. His brow furrowed. There was no way he could have seen it, but the involuntary spasm that wiggled Ethan's hand had caught his eye. His gaze flicked to Ethan's hand, then back to his eyes.
He spoke, more to himself than to anyone else. "What are you?"
Ethan had no answer. There was no plan. No strategy left. Only fear, crawling like bugs through his lungs, and the instinct to act before the world folded in on itself. In that moment, he knew with dreadful certainty that Elan Morin intended to find out. Elan Morin stood too still, too silent. Like the eye of a storm that had not yet chosen to move.
Ethan's gaze dropped to the golden-haired woman sprawled lifeless near Lews Therin's feet. She had been beautiful, once. Even in death, her face still held that beauty, but with a look of surprise of disbelief. Lews Therin did not see her. He drifted in madness, lost in a spiral of memory and ruin. There was no time. No better idea.
Ethan opened his mouth and let the words and the lie rip from his gut. "Lews Therin, look! The Betrayer's killed Ilyena!"
The Betrayer let out a bark of laughter, "You speak as though you know them, outsider. You speak of Ilyena, as if you could possibly understand the shape she once held in his heart—or what her death truly meant." The black-clad man took another step closer. Not rushed. Not threatening. Certain. "Do you think to break his madness with grief? To stir memory in a broken man's soul? Or are you simply reaching for whatever weapon you can grasp before I decide you have no more use?"
The Betrayer had not lashed out. Not yet. But Ethan felt the pit of his stomach drop out. That was exactly what he was trying to do.
There was no safety in the other man's stillness, only the terrible sense of being observed too closely. He suspected this creature would want to know what he knew, and more importantly, how he knew it. There was a predatory curiosity in the man's gaze, as if he were peeling back the skin of reality just to study what lay beneath.
Ethan's thoughts stumbled for a breath. What would a being like this do if he learned he was only a character in a story? Would he rage against the reader? Seek the author out? Or worse—would he embrace the lie, and set out to break free from the story altogether? The thought squeezed down on him more than the menace pressing against the air.
Ethan hoped his words were the first anchor thrown into the churning sea of Lews Therin's madness. The name Ilyena was not unknown to the man; it was the center of the labyrinth he was lost in. But hearing it spoken aloud, by an outsider, and in direct accusation against the Betrayer; he prayed it would tug at a thread that still existed beneath the rot in his mind. That thread was frayed, but it was not severed.
In the few breathless heartbeats after the Betrayer had spoken, Ethan saw that Lews Therin seemed to freeze. His mouth opened slightly, as if he were about to speak—or weep. Or both. He looked as if he were resisting the urge to look down. His eyes searched the air, confused, grasping for something just out of reach.
Come on, you crazy fuck. Look at her!
A flicker of clarity entered Lews Therin's gaze. Or it was just Ethan's desperate imagination begging for it.
"Ilyena...?"
His voice was suddenly hoarse and dry, like a man long buried beneath stone. He staggered, not from a blow, but from the sudden shift in weight, of truth, of memory. His madness was not gentle. It had no seams, no pattern. But even in that chaos, her name had power.
Ethan saw it. Elan Morin did not. The black-clad man was raising his hand, as if to reach out and grip Ethan by the throat. Then, Lews Therin saw her.
Ethan tensed. Every muscle in his body burned with the effort to remain still. He did not know how long the silence would last, or how long the Betrayer of Hope would tolerate it. But he knew this much: if there was ever a chance to escape, it was now. He measured the distance between them with a former soldier's eye. Not far. Three paces, maybe four. Elan Morin stood with that infuriating stillness, as though no man had ever dared raise a hand against him. Maybe none had and lived to tell the tale.
But Ethan had no illusions. He would not survive a second attempt. He would get one shot, maybe two. A direct strike. Clean, disabling. The temple was ideal. The solar plexus, maybe, if he was fast enough to follow with something worse. Even then, it might not be enough. But if Lews Therin truly recognized what he had done—if he shattered, even for an instant—that distraction might give Ethan the fraction of a second he needed.
He watched the Dragon. The man was swaying now, eyes wide, lips trembling. Not mad laughter. Not mumbling. He was staring at the body at his feet.
"Ilyena," Lews Therin whispered. His voice was full shattered sanity.
Power trembled around him—thin threads escaping his skin like steam from a broken valve. Ethan could not see them, but he could feel it even from across the room, a slow-building pressure that made the hairs on his arms lift and his teeth ache.
He knew he had to act soon.
Elan Morin's head turned, just slightly, as if to glance at the body himself, perhaps sensing that Lews Therin had seized hold of power. Or maybe it was just to savor the moment. Lews Therin's eyes had locked on the golden-haired figure sprawled at his feet. His breath hitched—shallow, broken. A whisper rose from his lips again, softer now, as if the name were ashes in his mouth.
"Ilyena...?" His knees buckled. He staggered onto the floor. His eyes, wide and full of blooming horror, moved from her face to his own hands, as though they might still bear the heat of her death. His fingers splayed, trembling. A sound began to rise in his throat—low and strange, barely human.
Ethan flinched inwardly but readied himself. Then the scream came. It tore the air. Beat at the walls that still stood. It was the cry of a man whose soul had just come apart in his chest. It was a brief moment where madness gave way to clarity, and clarity delivered only agony. The chamber shook. Dust and fractured light poured from the high stonework, as if the scream itself had weight. It pressed into Ethan's skull-a raw howl of grief that turned the blood in his veins to ice.
Elan Morin had looked fully toward the sound. Not swiftly. Not with fear. Maybe with some surprise. But it was enough. His attention, if only for the barest moment, left Ethan. And so he rolled the dice.