Chapter 117 117

Chapter 117 117
IVER’S POV

There’s no impact, no blood shed, no pain, no shifting. It’s biting like I imagined. Just, nothing.

For a moment, I think I’m still standing where I left her. That if I turn, Selene will be there, furious and shaking, the children crying behind her. But the air is wrong, it always feels empty when she’s not around.

I try to breathe and the motion feels delayed, like my body remembers what to do but something essential is missing from it.

My chest tightens. “Selene?”

My voice doesn’t travel. It just… drops. Swallowed whole. That’s when it hits. I’m not there anymore. The space around me shifts not visibly, not fully, but enough to make the absence feel deliberate. Endless gray stretches in every direction, thick and unmoving, like I’ve been buried inside a silence that has weight.

It’s no ground nor sky, just… suspension. My pulse spikes. I move, at least I try to, but the motion lags, wrong, like I’m forcing myself through something unseen.

“Hello?” Nothing answers.

Then the sound is faint. So faint I almost missed it. Everything in me locks onto it instantly. “Hey…” My voice comes sharper now, urgent. “I’m here.”

But the cries continue, stronger proof of my sacrifice, proof that they’re alive. Relief crashes into me so hard it nearly buckles whatever is holding me upright. My head drops for a second, a rough breath dragging out of me. “Good,” I mutter. “That’s it… keep crying.”

But the sound fades too quickly.The silence rushes back in, thicker than before pressing, watching, waiting.

“You adapt faster than most.” The voice comes from everywhere at once. It doesn’t echo, it just settles. I go still.

Then I turn slowly and this time, the gray bends. Not fully nor naturally. It parts, like it’s being forced aside by something that doesn’t belong to it. Her. The goddess stands where nothing existed a second ago, untouched by the emptiness, untouched by anything. She doesn’t step forward. She doesn’t need to.

My jaw tightens. “This is it?”

My voice is steady, it shouldn’t be. “This is where you keep people when you’re done with them?”

Her gaze rests on me, calm, unreadable, almost indifferent. “You were not taken.”

A sharp breath leaves me. “Right. I handed myself over. Big difference.”

“It is,” she says.

Something in me almost snaps at how easily she says it. I look around again, forcing my attention away from her. The gray doesn’t move. Doesn’t react. It just is.

“How long?” I ask.

“For a time.”

My jaw ticks. “That’s not an answer.”

“It is the only one you are owed.”

Silence slams down between us. The bond hits hard that it tears through me without warning, raw, violent, alive. Emotion floods in too fast to separate, rage, fear, something dangerously close to breaking. Selene.

I stagger a half-step, breath catching. “What is she doing?”

The goddess watches me carefully now, not concerned but interested.

“She resists.”

Of course she does. A bitter, strained laugh slips out before I can stop it. “That’s one way to put it.”

The bond spikes again, sharper this time, unstable. It feels like she’s pushing against something massive, something that shouldn’t move.

My chest tightens. “She’s going to hurt herself.”

“She already is.”

The words land like a blow. “Then send me back,” I snapped.

“That is not how this works.”

“Then change it.”

Her head tilts slightly. “You assume this is negotiable.”

“I gave you what you wanted.”

“You gave what was required.”

“Same thing.”

“No.”

The finality in that one word cuts deeper than it should. The bond pulls again, harder. This time, the gray around me flickers that I freeze. It happens again, brief, unstable, but enough. Enough to feel her. Not see, not clearly, but I know.

The power tearing through everything around her, barely contained. Wild. Reckless. Furious enough to burn the world down if it means reaching me. Something in my chest twists, sharp and sudden.

“She’s not going to stop,” I say, quieter now.

“No.”

The goddess doesn’t look away from me, not even for a second. Like she’s watching me, not her.
The realization settles slow and cold, this isn’t over, not for me.

“What are you waiting for?” I ask, my voice dropping.

Her expression doesn’t change. “For you to understand what you’ve given.”

“I understand it just fine.”

“Do you?”

The gray tightens. Not physically, but I feel it. Pressure building in the space itself, like something is closing in without moving.

My pulse kicks harder. “I gave you my life,” I say flatly. “What else is there?”

Her gaze sharpens, just slightly. “Everything attached to it.”

The bond pulses again and suddenly it hurts not physically but worse. A sharp, tearing pull rips through my chest as Selene’s emotions surge again, stronger, more desperate, more dangerous. It’s too much, too fast, like the connection itself is being strained past its limit.

I suck in a breath. “Stop..,” I mutter under it, like she can hear me. “Selene, don’t…”

The gray fractures just for a second that I get a glimpse of her. Clearer this time. Eyes burning. Power rising. Completely out of control. Fighting for me. The connection snaps back violently, leaving nothing but emptiness in its wake. I go, still .

Slowly, I lift my head and look at the goddess. “You feel that?” I ask.

She says nothing but she doesn’t deny it. A tight, humorless smile pulls at my mouth. “Yeah,” I murmured. “You’ve got a problem.”

For the first time, she doesn’t answer immediately.