Surviving A Novel I Don't Remember: A Tutor's Guide To Staying Alive Chapter 330: The Dark Side of Love

Alias’ heart still bled. This goodbye was not one he had planned for. He wanted to spend more ti with them, love and protect them. He wanted to be their family. He wanted to love them and for them to love him.

But it seed like this was not their fate in this life. In another life, another... he wished they would et again.

Alias stood in the center of the ruined room, the warmth of the two fragile nodes of light still pulsing gently against his chest.

He missed them already.

Even with the raw ache of Maya’s loss bleeding through his consciousness, his mind began to spin, grasping at the shattered pieces of the logic that had brought them to this grave.

​Norx was a fallen god now, but he was still immortal, and his malice would not fade with the centuries.

The mont Theo and Kael took their first breaths in the mortal world, Norx would begin the hunt.

Alias could not protect them if he remained in the heavens managing the grand design—wirh Norx gone, the cosmos now required his full attention to prevent the universe from collapsing into static numbers.

But he could not stay on earth as a full deity either without his sheer mass warping the lives of the people he wanted to shield.

​He needed to be in two places at once. He needed to be the law, and he needed to be the weapon. The light was not just a shield.

​But as Alias looked down at the fallen deity on the floorboards, a profound, lingering confusion broke through his grief.

His old, fundantal curiosity—the trait that had driven him to descend to the dirt in the first place—got the better of him once more.

​"Why?" Alias asked, his voice shaking but clear. He looked directly into Norx’s bloodshot, red eyes. "Why did you go this far, Norx? Why do you hate them so much? They did nothing to you."

​Norx spat curdled gold onto the dark wood, wiping his mouth with a trembling, grey hand. He let out a harsh, ragged breath. "Because I wanted you to co back."

​Alias’s brow furrowed, his head tilting slightly. He truly did not understand. "The mortals do not live long, Norx. You know their life span better than I do. Even if I stayed until they grew old and died in the dirt, my ti down here would have been no different from a single hour in the heavens. I would have returned to the crystalline halls anyway. Why couldn’t you just wait?"

​"Wait?" Norx scoffed, a bitter, twisted sound tearing from his throat. He forced himself up onto his elbows, his gaze boring into Alias with an intensity that bordered on madness. "I watched you every single second you were down here, Alias. And watching you... it did not make the ti seem like an hour up there. It was slow. Agonizingly slow. Every tick of the sun was a century, and my blood boiled."

​Norx’s chest heaved, his face contorting as the words finally burst out of him, breaking through eons of silent restraint.

​"Why did you let that mortal touch you?!" he roared, his voice cracking with a raw, agonizing friction. "Why did you let him kiss you? Why did you let him hold you in the dark? Why did you give your heart to him... and why never ?!"

​The question echoed violently through the empty house, cutting through the damp air like a blade. The mont the words left his mouth, Norx froze, his own brow furrowing into a deep, defensive frown, as if he hadn’t ant to let the secret drag itself into the light.

​"Why?" Norx whispered, his voice dropping into a desperate, furious register. "After eons together, why did you never feel the sa way about ? I was with you from the very beginning. I sat beside you in the empty expanse. I smiled at you, I laughed with you, I tried everything to get your attention... but your silver eyes were always so focused on the mountains I built. You were always looking at the blueprints, asuring the stars I created, looking at the lives I molded... instead of looking at . You were only ever interested in my creation and never !"

​He let out a weak, self-deprecating laugh, his shoulders sagging against the weight of his new mortality.

​"I made a mistake," Norx muttered, staring blankly at the floorboards. "I was the one who asked you to experience the world down here. I wanted you to feel it better, to understand the beauty of what I made so you’d stop asking questions. If I hadn’t suggested it, this would have never happened. And I could have still... I could have still loved you secretly up there. It would’ve been the two of us... till the end."

​A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the room. Alias stood perfectly still, his mind processing the data, comparing the raw, bleeding confession of his partner against the quiet nights he had spent in Theo’s embrace.

He thought of the jasmine, the sll of the cedar posts, and the gentle, unforced warmth of the porch.

​"How do you know that what you feel is love?" Alias asked softly, his silver eyes fixed on the fallen god. "The love I felt... it is not so dark. It is not so painful, or possessive, or—"

​Norx broke into a sudden, hysterical laugh, the sound bubbling up from his chest until he was shaking. He looked up at Alias, his teeth bared in a mocking, jagged smile.

​"Who do you think gave the mortals their emotions, Architect?" Norx jeered, leaning forward. "I molded the clay! I gave them what it feels like to hate, fear and love! And what a human feels when they are deeply, desperately in love... is jealousy. Maddening jealousy, Alias! Especially when they see the one they want in the arms of another. They will go dark. They will tear the world apart, and they will do whatever it takes to get that love back. I engineered that darkness into their very blood!"

​"No," Alias said, his voice instantly dropping into a firm, unyielding register. "That love is not pure. True love does not tighten the vice. It cos with the purity of the heart, and the desire to shield. I experienced that first-hand on the porch. Theo did not break."

​Norx’s eyes narrowed into two hateful slits, his mocking smile turning razor-sharp as he looked at the silver sphere beginning to manifest within Alias’s chest.

​"Then thank your stars, Alias," Norx hissed, his voice dripping with a bitter, venomous sarcasm. "Thank your beautiful, perfect stars that you never had to experience the darkness that cos with it."