The Primordial Record - Chapter 2202 We Have To Get Him Back

Chapter 2202  We Have To Get Him Back

Victorious Genesis, who had been standing behind them with the particular stillness of a man holding an explosion for later, said, “Who?”

Vraegar did not turn to answer. He kept his eyes on the window, on the realm beyond it, and on the specific and terrible geography of the place he had been trying to enter for the last three million Cosmic Eras, but he had been too weak to complete.

His friend had given his life to tear a path through nothingness, in the hope that Vraegar would be able to finish the task, but he could only stare at his target without the power to pierce through this damn void.

Finally, he replied to Victorious Silence’s question,

“The first,” he said. “The original Incarnation before the Origin Realms were created. The one Eos made to discover the power of End, before he understood the cost of that decision.”

Circe made a small sound, realization, and horror in her eyes as she understood the source of her dreams and visions. The countless bones falling from the sky, and the vow of silence that Eos had made her take.

This Incarnation was the voice in her dreams that she could not understand.

“I didn’t know there was a first,” Fury said.

“He doesn’t speak of him,” Vraegar replied. “He has never spoken of him. Not to any of us, to protect us from the corruption of End. I only know because I felt him, due to the power of my Origin that aligns me rather closely to the power of End.”

Circe swallowed the tears in her heart, “Are we here to get him out?” The thing they all needed to understand, Vraegar explained as they stood at the threshold of the wound, was that the first Incarnation had not been like the others.

The Incarnations Eos made now were meant to carry all of the Ancient Origins so their roots could be planted inside Eos.

They were essentially shards of Eos’s consciousness given autonomous form, carrying forward specific aspects of his nature, his memory, his will.

They were made with intention. They were made with the full understanding of what they were and what they were for.

The first had not been any of those things. He had primarily been made to be a sacrifice to understand the power of End.

“He made it before he knew what he was doing,” Vraegar said quietly, his eyes fixed on the wound. “When he was still learning what the Primordial Record was and the mysteries behind Existence. Eos did not know his true power or what was behind the shadows, and like he always does, he did not wait, he walked into the darkness to find the answers, even if the cost of doing that was greater than he could bear. The only way he could have any bit of control was to tear a part of himself and send it out.”

“Where?” Fury asked.

“Into the dark,” Vraegar said. “Into the parts of Existence that were outside Existence. Into a place that had not been mapped and should not have existed, and somehow did. He sent Rowan to find answers. He was a child burdened with a dying Reality full of secrets, and he sent the best part of himself to find the answers in places that were designed to destroy hope.”

Prime felt something cold settle under his ribs.

“He did not come back.”

“No,” Vraegar said. “He did not come back… he could not.”

“And he—”

“He thought this Incarnation of himself was lost forever, but I volunteered to find him.” Vraegar was quiet for a moment. “You know, he never made another Incarnation like this again. Every Incarnation he made after that one was made with full intention, full acceptance of the cost. I exist because he learned from losing him… We all do.”

Fury made a sound that was not a word.

“And he was here this whole time? Inside… End?” Circe asked.

“Not quite,” Vraegar said. “It was with Enoch. Enoch found him, wandering in the dark between where Eos had sent him and where he was trying to reach, and Enoch kept him here. He did not harm him but was studying him.”

“Why would a being like Enoch not kill the Incarnation of his enemy?” Vraegar shrugged, “I do not think he meant to keep him captive. I think, by that point, he did not remember what else to do with him. He had held him for so long that he had become the only thing in End that was not End, and he needed that. Even corrupted. Even broken. He needed something that was not End to remember that End was not all there was.”

Prime understood, suddenly, a great many things.” “That is why he did not destroy Rowan in this prison,” he said quietly.

Vraegar’s head turned slightly, the first acknowledgment he had given to anything Prime had said.

“Yes,” the dragon said. “When he saw Rowan, when he saw the Incarnation of Eos arrive in his prison, something in him recognized this. Not consciously. The part of him that had been keeping the first Incarnation alive for sixty-five million Cosmic Eras recognized the shape. He did not know why he spared Rowan’s life. He did not understand why he chose to corrupt rather than consume. But I think, underneath everything, Enoch had been keeping the first Incarnation because he was the last thing in End that reminded him of what light felt like.”

What Vraegar would not know was that Enoch was dead, Prime was connected to Eos, and he shared part of the memories, and right now, he thought of Enoch at the end, reaching toward the Tower and calling for his father.

He thought of this creature that had kept one tiny fragment of light inside End for sixty-five million Cosmic Eras, not because it was useful, not because it was a weapon, but because without this, he would have forgotten that light had ever existed.

“We have to go get him,” Prime said.

Vraegar finally turned to look at him.

“Yes,” he said. “We do.”