The Oldest Lie
Some lies become so old they stop sounding like lies. The things we survive become the things we expect.
Year 43, Fifth Moon
Voidstorm
Two weeks. It was remarkable how quickly routine could colonize hell.
The body learned first. Wake before the ambient pressure shifted. Check the perimeter wards. Eat before hunger became weakness. Check inventory. Count reagents. Count people. Count them again. Record who had not returned. The mind followed eventually. Or pretended to.
Elethyl crouched at the lip of a fractured ridge, one hand resting against the black-violet stone beneath him. It pulsed faintly under his fingertips — the planet’s heartbeat, too slow for ordinary senses. His opalescent gaze settled on the valley below, where crystalline growths climbed through the bones of forgotten architecture. Predacea wore its dead civilization like a corpse dressed in its own ruins.
“...three.” He whispered before realizing he had spoken aloud. Three patrols. One Domanaar escort. Two Singularity survey teams. Umbric had ordered the western basin mapped before the next atmospheric inversion. Something beneath the crystal forests had begun reacting to void fluctuations, and whatever slept there was older than the war consuming this world.
Not his concern. Nothing was. Not anymore.
...Liar.
The voice arrived softly. Not through the ears. Through recognition. You keep saying that, yet here you are.
He could no longer tell which thoughts belonged to him.
He ignored it. Or refused to answer. The distinction had become difficult.
He descended the ridge. The others waited where the terrain flattened into terraces of fractured obsidian. Several Singularity members had already erected another temporary observation post — dark pylons humming quietly around the perimeter, an abjuration lattice adapted from Domanaar designs. Two months ago such technology would have terrified the ren’dorei. Now they adjusted resonance frequencies over breakfast. Adaptation. The Void respected little else.
A pair of Domanaar conversed nearby, their elongated silhouettes impossible to mistake now that Elethyl had seen their true forms. Gone was the lumbering shape of voidwalker his instincts had catalogued for half a century. The disguise seemed almost laughable in retrospect. Phanmon had worn one. This was the truth beneath it. He wondered how many lies a shape alone could tell.
...More than yours.
Elethyl’s jaw tightened. He kept walking.
Ilthar noticed immediately. He always did. The demon hunter fell into step beside him without comment, broad enough that his shadow briefly swallowed the crimson light beneath their feet.
“You did not sleep.”
“I did.”
“You closed your eyes.”
“I fail to see the distinction.”
Silence. Ordinarily Ilthar would have let it rest there. Ordinarily Elethyl would have appreciated that. Today the silence lingered too long.
“What?” His patience had become measurable only by its absence.
“I am observing.”
“No.” Elethyl stopped walking. “You are assessing.”
Ilthar regarded him evenly. “I always assess.”
“I know.”
Silence.
“For how long have you been studying me?”
Nothing. Elethyl laughed once. Quietly. Without amusement. “I should have realized sooner.”
“Realized what?”
“How patient hunters are.”
Something flickered across Ilthar’s face. Anger? Offense? No. Confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t.”
They resumed walking. The others had begun dismantling the eastern relay while the Domanaar pair discussed terrain anomalies with his peers several dozen meters away. Neither spared them more than a passing glance. Good. Elethyl did not wish to be perceived today.
Unfortunately perception had become unavoidable.
The whispers occupied every silence between footsteps. He wants something. Everyone wants something. He stayed. So did Phanmon. So did —
Enough.
He reached instinctively toward the place where Phanmon’s presence had lingered for decades. Nothing. The absence still surprised him. Not because he missed the creature — emptiness had weight, that much he knew — but because the reaching was still reflex, and reflex didn’t negotiate with facts.
...He left you.
No.
He consumed you.
No.
He understood you.
No.
He remained.
No.
...longer than anyone else.
Elethyl inhaled sharply. His nails bit into his palms. Blood welled.
Good. Pain belonged to him. At least that much remained negotiable.
“Elethyl.”
Ilthar’s gravelly voice, too close. A hand reached toward his forearm. Elethyl stepped back before skin met skin — hard enough that loose stone scattered beneath his boots.
“Don’t.”
Ilthar froze exactly where he stood.
“I wasn’t —”
“I know what you were.”
“No.”
“You don’t —” The words came before thought caught up with them. “You think you’re different.”
Silence.
“You think patience makes you virtuous.”
More silence.
“You think waiting long enough somehow changes the destination.” His breathing had become uneven. “When exactly were you planning to collect?”
Ilthar frowned. “...Collect.”
“The debt.”
“What debt?”
“There is always one.”
He could hear his own heartbeat. Too fast. Too loud. Every kindness carries interest. Every touch signs something. Every promise is invoiced later. The whispers diffused into his own thoughts until the border between them dissolved. Ilthar said nothing. Of course he didn’t. He waited. Patient. Steady.
Safe.
The last thought curdled before it finished forming.
Safe.
The vision struck without announcement.
A room. Warm. Perfume thick enough to cling to the throat. Curtains drawn. A hand on the small of his back.
Relax.
The word landed in his memory like a blade finding an old scar. His lungs forgot how to draw breath. Another hand. Another smile. Patient. Always patient. Patient until patience became entitlement. Patient until refusal became negotiation. Patient until silence became consent in someone else’s mind.
He blinked. Predacea returned, but only halfway. Ilthar was still standing there. Waiting. Exactly the same way.
His stomach twisted.
There it is. The waiting. The investment. The calculation. How long before this one asks? How long before kindness becomes ownership? How long before affection acquires conditions?
“...Stop looking at me like that.”
Ilthar frowned. “Like what?”
His voice cracked. “I know exactly how it starts.”
He has been careful. He has been gentle. So were the others.
His pulse climbed. Zehoe’s voice emerged from somewhere beneath the panic: Do not mistake your restraint for mastery.
No. He hadn’t. Not anymore.
“I thought he was trying to tempt me.” Elethyl laughed — the sound scraped through the ruins of the voice he had never truly regained. “But he diagnosed my condition, only to prove it right.”
The felfire within Ilthar’s eyesockets intensified.
Elethyl shrugged. Too restless to stay cryptic. “Zehoe, my incubus.” A pause. An inhale. “...years before I slept with him.”
The words landed like a blade placed on a table.
Ilthar’s fists closed. His jaw tightened. Elethyl didn’t notice.
“I thought he was wrong.” Another laugh. “He wasn’t. He saw exactly what was left after everyone else finished teaching me what love costs.”
The wind scraped through the crystal formations. Across the valley, someone shouted measurements. Nobody looked toward them.
Elethyl kept staring at the ground.
“I’ve spent centuries believing that if I could stay disciplined enough...” His fingers trembled. “...careful enough...” The tremor spread into his wrist. “...useful enough...” He finally looked up. “...then eventually nobody would get close enough to leave another mark.”
His gaze settled on Ilthar. Cold. Exhausted. Suspicious.
“So tell me,” his voice dropped to something barely above a murmur, “what are you waiting for?”
Ilthar did not move.
No recoil. No disgust. No hunger. Just that impossible stillness — as though even breathing too sharply might splinter whatever remained of Elethyl.
The silence became unbearable.
Of course. He wants you to make the first move. He wants clean hands. He wants to tell himself you chose this.
Elethyl stepped forward. One pace. Then another. Ilthar’s gaze never left him.
“...What are you doing?”
“I don’t know.” The first honest answer he’d given in weeks. It frightened him more than anything else he’d said all day.
He looks beautiful — kiss him. For once, be the thief. Steal one moment before the price is named.
Another step. Close enough now to feel the residual warmth beneath the demon hunter’s armor. Leather. Ash. The faint metallic scent of demon blood that never quite washed away.
“Zehoe was right.”
The name shifted something in Ilthar’s expression.
Images struck in jagged succession. Leinathor’s irresistible charm. The eloquent praise — his brilliance, his talent. The hand rubbing gently against a broken ego. The same hand closing around his wrist days later when he tried to leave.
You’re extraordinary.
Gold embroidery. Fingers. The smell of wine.
Relax.
His own heartbeat. A ring digging into skin. Laughter. Silk. The ceiling.
You’ll thank me.
A kiss that had once felt chosen. Another that became expected. Owed. Easier to endure than refuse. Then the lies. The rumors. The violation —
His stomach lurched. He hated that he still remembered warmth alongside humiliation.
“...You know what I think?”
Ilthar did not answer.
Elethyl had been staring up at the kaldorei at an angle that tested his neck. He lifted off the ground — void-light rising beneath his feet without decision — and hovered until their faces were a centimeter apart, his cold breath brushing against burning skin.
“I think everyone eventually wants the same thing.”
His fingers rose slowly, found their way beneath the hunter’s leather harness, just beneath the shoulderguards. He felt the colossal body tremble under his touch. His gaze followed where Ilthar’s body betrayed him. The reaction was unmistakable.
He was nauseated. His head spun. He pressed harder.
“So,” he murmured, “take it.”
“...Elethyl.”
“You’ve waited.”
“El —”
“You’ve been patient.”
“I have, but —”
“You’ve followed me.”
“Yes, —”
Another laugh. Small. Broken. “Then stop pretending.”
His hand slid upward until it rested lightly against Ilthar’s jaw. He leaned in — and Ilthar closed the last centimeter unconsciously. Then —
The kaldorei stopped. Drew a breath. Stepped back.
The word came out like something forced through gravel. “No.”
Elethyl searched Ilthar’s face. Reasons and excuses arrived without invitation. “I’ve seen the way you look at me. You said you wanted me. Why?”
Ilthar’s expression held anger and pain and disappointment simultaneously.
Elethyl leaned forward again — less confidently. A man placing his head beneath an executioner’s blade because prolonging the moment had become more painful than the strike.
“...claim what’s left.”
Ilthar caught his wrist. “No.”
Quiet. No anger. No disgust.
Only grief.
“No?”
Elethyl froze. The world narrowed.
No. Again. Always. Too much. Too strange. Too broken. Too quiet. Too damaged. Not enough. Never enough. Of course.
There it is. Even now. Not worth touching. Not worth wanting. Look at yourself. Used. Broken. He pities you. Even the incubus wanted more than this.
His chest tightened until breathing became an act of violence. He pulled his wrist free.
“So.” His voice had gone frighteningly calm. “I was mistaken.”
“Elethyl —”
“No.” He had forgotten he was hovering. He landed on his feet and stepped back. One pace. Then another. Something inside him had begun collapsing with terrifying efficiency. “I misread you.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did.” His smile returned. Thin. Weightless. “Don’t concern yourself.” Another step. A shrug. “I’ve made a career of misunderstanding people.”
Ilthar took a single step forward. “Not like this —” He gestured between them.
It didn’t land. Or arrived too late.
Elethyl was already shaking.
He doesn’t want your body. He doesn’t want your heart. He doesn’t want your grief. He stayed because he felt sorry for you. Pity. Always pity. No one chooses you. They choose the idea of saving you.
He lowered his eyes. He couldn’t bear being seen.
How ridiculous. Centuries old. Reduced to seeking confirmation of the oldest lie he had ever believed.
His hands curled into fists. His jaw tightened. His nostrils flared.
“...I understand.”
He didn’t. Not anymore. Nothing inside him distinguished rejection from mercy, or restraint from disgust. Only the wound remained — fresh and ancient simultaneously, bleeding exactly where it always had. A poison of humiliation and fury and guilt and resentment, brewing somewhere he couldn’t reach.
“I’ll scout ahead.”
“Elethyl —”
He was already walking.
Ilthar didn’t follow.
“I don’t want your surrender...” The voice echoed behind him.
Elethyl glanced back once. Ilthar had not moved. Not a single step.
He kept walking.
...Everything you touch breaks.
...You are safest alone.
...Let him leave before he disappoints you.
...hate him.
...hate yourself.
...never let anyone see this again.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
Good. Stay there. Farther. Closer... Leave. Stay. Don’t follow me.
Please.
