The Primordial Record novel Chapter 2202

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. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

"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 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."