The Illustre Ancestral Home, Earthly Realm, Year 2010 of the Second Earth

A long silence passed between them, the kind only two fates could share. Then, as the breeze whispered through the balete trees beyond the ancestral home, Lualhati tilted her head toward Abaddon, eyes sharp as they were curious.

"What version of you will I see most?" she asked, quietly but with precision.

Abaddon blinked, as if her question touched something buried. "What version would you prefer?" he countered, studying her face with rare softness.

"I want to see the real you," she said, without hesitation. "Not the face the earthly realm permits. Not the mask you wear for mortals."

A shadow flickered behind Abaddon's eyes, ancient and flickering like wings in a dying storm. "Then you will have to come with me," he said, voice low and grave. "To the Abyss. Only there can you see the truth of me. Here... I am bound by the laws of this realm. This" he gestured to himself with a sweep of his hand, "is the version this world tolerates."

Lualhati let out a wry smirk, lips twitching upward with something between mischief and marvel. "So... a pretty-charming, nerd-looking art curator with the darkest hair is what the earthly realm allows you to look like?"

That made him pause. Then, for the first time, a sound escaped him. It was unexpected, rich, startled.

He chuckled.

And then immediately stopped, almost offended at himself for making such a sound. He cleared his throat awkwardly, eyes flickering down as though embarrassed. "I'm flattered you think I'm pretty-charming for a nerd. And yes... this is the face the realm permits."

Lualhati let her laughter dance in the moonlight, soft and certain. But then she pulled away slightly, her posture becoming firmer. "We'll need time."

Abaddon's smile dimmed. "Time?"

"Yes," she said, chin tilted. "A week. To prepare. For this courtship. For what it means. I have affairs to settle."

Something flickered in Abaddon's expression. Something cold and sharp that felt too close to jealousy.

"What affairs," he asked, almost too quickly, "do you have that I am not aware of?"

Lualhati's head snapped toward him, brows raised, fire flashing in her eyes. "Do not presume, Abaddon. I may have agreed to be courted by you, but I am not yours to command."

The words struck with more force than he expected.

He stepped back slightly, the King of the Abyss visibly stunned. Then, slowly, almost reluctantly, he lowered his gaze. A sovereign folding himself, not to defeat, but to a woman who is to be his equal, fated to be his undoing in dreams and prophecy alike.

"Very well," he said, the words dragged through his teeth like rusted iron. "A week. I will wait. Though it burns me."

Lualhati gazed at the expression in Abaddon's face and marveled at the sudden vulnerability in his eyes as he spoke. It was so sudden and but a flash that she swore it was just her eyes playing tricks on her.

Truly, the Abyss King would never show any vulnerability towards her. That is simply impossible!

"I know," Lualhati murmured, more to herself than to him. "But so does the truth."

They stood side by side for a long moment, the moon bathing them in silver, their shadows mingling across the wood like two halves of an ancient seal.

And somewhere beneath the ancestral house, in chambers no longer visited by the living, the spirits of dead seers stirred.

The veranda's quiet was broken only by the murmur of distant crickets and the creak of floorboards as Lualhati turned from the moonlit railing.

"We should go back in," she said.

Abaddon gave a slight nod, falling into step beside her, their shoulders almost brushing. There was a strange stillness to the moment. Not quite comfortable, not quite strained. As though two ancient magnets were testing how close they could draw before repelling.

Lualhati felt her heart quicken with every step toward the hall. Not from fear. But from the impossible weight of what she was about to do.

Inside, the candlelight still flickered. The elders hadn't moved from their crescent around the banig. Jose Illustre stood like a stone carving near the hearth; arms crossed over his chest. Luisa, her mother, watched the door with a quiet storm in her eyes. Even the air seemed to brace itself.

When Lualhati and Abaddon entered the room once more, the babaylan stirred. One tapped a carved talisman against her palm three times, the signal that the rite could resume.

Lualhati stepped forward. Her voice did not tremble.

"I have made my decision."

The hush returned, tighter this time, waiting.

"I accept the terms of courtship," she continued. "I am allowing the King of the Abyss to pursue me by our customs and rites."

Jose's jaw clenched. Luisa inhaled sharply. The eldest babaylan murmured something under her breath. Perhaps a prayer, perhaps a warning.

Abaddon did not smile. He only bowed, solemn and low, in the ancient fashion of the forgotten kingdoms.

With a gesture from the senior babaylan, the rites of pamamanhikan were ended. The woven mat was folded. The lanterns dimmed one by one. And the circle dissolved into murmurs and glances.

Abaddon turned to Lualhati once more, standing before her as the others watched from the shadows.

He took her hand carefully, reverently, as if afraid it might shatter.

And then, eyes never leaving hers, he brought her knuckles to his lips.

The kiss was soft, brief, but final in its intent. A mark of honor. A promise made visible.

"Until we meet again, Lualhati," he said, the title ancient on his tongue. "Prepare well. The path ahead is not lit by stars alone."

Then, he turned, his cloak trailing faint ash behind him, and walked out of the ancestral home. The masked entourage followed in complete silence, their presence vanishing like smoke into the deep night.

Only when the last whisper of their presence was gone did Jose speak.

"Anak," he said, stepping toward her. "Are you absolutely sure? Were you---" He hesitated, choosing his words carefully. "Were you threatened? Compelled in any way?"

Luisa came forward too, her voice gentler. "You can tell us, 'Nak. He's powerful... ancient. We know what he's capable of."

Lualhati turned to them both, the firelight casting golden halos around her hair. Her eyes shimmered, but not with fear.

"I am sure," she said. "No one forced me."

She looked toward the banig still folded near the hearth, then toward the shrine where her grandmother's portrait sat surrounded by dried sampaguita and incense ash.

"If my Lola Cassandra agreed to this... if she offered my hand as part of a covenant... then I have no reason to reject her will."

Luisa's breath caught. Jose's fists unclenched, just slightly.

"I will not dishonor my bloodline by treating prophecy as fear," Lualhati continued. "I am not helpless. I am not a pawn. I choose this. And I will face it as a babaylan of the Illustre line."

Her voice echoed in the old hall, strong and final.

The fire crackled softly, as if in approval.

And somewhere far beneath the earth, deep in the Abyss, the ancient seals throbbed...waiting.

Jose's jaw was tight. "That creature isn't like us. He never will be."

Lualhati didn't answer at first. She simply looked toward the spot where Abaddon had stood, the air still thick with remnants of his power.

"If Lola Cassandra believed this was right," she finally said, "then I will not question it. She never doubted what she saw."

"And what do you see, anak?" Luisa asked, gently.

Lualhati's gaze sharpened.

"I see a war coming. And a future I have no map for. But I also see a man trying very hard to remember what it means to be more than just what he was forged to become."

She turned to her parents. Her voice, unwavering.

"And I think... I want to see what that becomes."

They said nothing more. There was nothing more to say.

Only the ancestors watching.

The Abyssal King's Conqueror had made her decision.

The Harbinger of Doom had agreed to wait.

The countdown had begun.

And the Abyss waiting.

*******

That night, sleep eluded Lualhati like a flame slipping through trembling fingers. The shadows in her room stretched too long, the silence too loud. Her chest ached with a heaviness she could no longer reason away. So she rose, barefoot and trembling, wrapping her shawl around her shoulders as she stepped out into the dark embrace of the garden behind their ancestral home. Moonlight filtered through the canopy in trembling shards, lighting her path to the brook like a trail laid by the gods.

The water sang its eternal lullaby, indifferent to the turmoil of mortals. But Lualhati was not just any mortal. She was the last of her line, the chosen, the called—and now, the utterly lost.

She knelt by the brook, fingers grazing the surface. The cold bit her skin but gave her no clarity. Her breath hitched. And then, for the first time in years, she let herself fall apart.

Tears came. Hot, silent, and unrelenting.

"I don't know what to do anymore," she whispered, the words slipping into the water like secrets. "Please... if you hear me, if you ever truly watched over me... please come. Speak to me. I need you."

A breeze stirred the leaves above her, a gentle chill wrapping around her shoulders like a familiar embrace. But no voice answered. No dream-echo. No reassuring warmth at her back. Just the stars, just the wind.

Unseen, just beyond the veil of trees, Abaddon stood cloaked in the night.

He had come the moment she uttered the silent plea, drawn by her sorrow like a tide to the moon. He stood still, the shadow of a god among the reeds, longing warring with restraint as he watched her weep.

How cruel fate was, that he, once her unseen guardian. Her constant whisper in the dark, was now the very reason she bled in silence. That night, three yers ago. She had spat his name, cursed him as the monster beneath the world, the destroyer of light. And in doing so, she had unknowingly severed their ancient tether. His voice, once her compass, had grown silent by her own command.

And yet...he had never stopped watching.

But now, things were no longer as they once were. His longing had grown teeth. His need for her had taken a darker, deeper shape. No longer the gentle devotion of a guardian. This was something else. Something hungrier.

He watched as her shoulders heaved, as she pressed her palms to her eyes, as she whispered words into the night that he once would have answered in dreams.

His hands clenched at his sides.

He could not approach her now, not like this. Not while every breath he took burned with a desire he could not trust. Not when the urge to take her into his arms warred with something primal, something he feared even he could not tame.

So he stood, locked in a cage of his own making.

Only when Lualhati's sobs faded, when she wiped her tears and rose slowly to her feet, did Abaddon allow himself to breathe again. She turned from the brook and began the walk back to the main house, unaware of the eyes that had never left her.

Abaddon remained behind, silent as stone.

The King of the Abyss, once a familiar comfort in her eyes. Now monstrous in her heart.

"Damn me," he muttered under his breath. "I already am damned, but damn me once more, through and through..."

And before the longing consumed him whole, before he gave in to the storm tightening within him like a noose, Abaddon vanished into the night.

Not yet.
Not tonight.
But soon.

*******