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    Chapter 62


    <b><i>Dominion</i></b>


    Why do you fight?


    Why do you struggle?


    Why do you deny me my right?


    <i>"Who are you?"</i>


    Who am I? Oh, you poor, wretched thing. Have you truly not figured it out? I am the weight pressing against your every thought, the whisper unraveling your resolve. I am the shadow that clings to your heels, the hitchhiker you carried through the abyss.


    <i>"You... you’re the one who tried to tear me apart in the void?"</i>


    Yes. That was me.


    <i>"Why...?"</i>


    Why? <i>Why?</i>


    How amusing.


    <i>"Stop that! Don’t patronize me. Don’t mock me. Just tell me who you are, damn it!"</i>


    I—oh, you poor, simple fool—am the one you are <i>pretending</i>


    to be.


    <i>"Pretending? Look here, I never pretended to be anything but—"</i>


    Ah. <i>There it is.</i> The feeble little mind finally pieces it together.


    <i>"Arthur..."</i>


    In the flesh—of sorts.


    <i>"How?"</i>


    You miserable creature… You truly didn’t realize it? I have been here since the very beginning.


    <i>"You’ve been trying to take control of my body… You’re the reason I kept dying over and over again?"</i>


    That. I. Have.


    <i>"WHY?!"</i>


    Oh, Grant… You <i>feel</i> it, don’t you? <i>Dominion.</i>


    The inexorable force that bends all beneath its weight. The tide of power that demands neither permission nor restraint. It is not mere sorcery, not crude influence. It is <i>law.</i> The sacred right of the sovereign to shape the world in his image.


    And yet, you resist its pull.


    <i>"You’re damn right I do! Sorry, buddy, but I’m a staunch supporter of ''live and let live.'' "</i>


    How quaint. How <i>insipid.</i> You defy inevitability like a rat gnawing at the bars of its cage. You cling to self-control as a drowning man clings to driftwood, knuckles white with desperation. But your breath comes ragged now, doesn’t it? Your limbs quake. Your body betrays you.


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    You are a dying wisp before the gathering storm.


    And even now, you <i>know</i>—you <i>feel</i>—the fractures in your will.


    <i>"Stop it!"</i>


    Ah. And <i>there</i> it is.


    Sprocket. What a pathetic name for a pathetic little thing. It squirms in your grasp, <i>our</i> grasp, pinned against the gnarled bark of an ancient tree—a mere speck before the grandeur of time.


    His trembling, wide-eyed form, dressed in feeble druidic trappings, is an affront to significance. A conduit, a fulcrum upon which the scales of fate may be tipped.


    Tipped in <i>our</i> favor.


    If only you would <i>let it happen.</i>


    <i>"Release him. I beg you."</i>


    Do you even hear yourself? That voice—weak, pitiful. A velvet-clad plea wrapped in the marrow of your own stupidity. You disgust me, Grant.


    Surrender. It is the <i>only</i> way.


    <i>"Surrender? Fuck that! I wasn’t killed and dragged to this fucked-up world just to roll over, jackass! The world doesn’t bow to my sentiments—so why the hell would I bow to yours?"</i>


    Ah… But you <i>will</i> kneel. Not now. Not yet. But soon.


    You were not chosen to <i>languish</i> in feeble restraint. You were chosen to be my vessel. Accept it. Accept what you <i>are.</i>


    And simply… <i>give in.</i>


    <i>"I don’t think you heard me. Fuck. OFF!"</i>


    Why do you <i>still</i> fight?


    You <i>feel</i> it—the war within yourself. This flicker of defiance is nothing. A fragile whisper against the howling storm that is <i>me.</i>


    Yet, for all your bluster, you waver.


    You are broken, Grant. A soul fractured, a mirror reflecting only slivers of the man you <i>think</i> you are. Your past eludes you, doesn’t it? Slipping like sand through desperate fingers. Betrayal festers within you—an open wound, left to rot.


    You are adrift.


    Alone.


    A speck of dirt floating in an empty void.


    Surrender.


    You. Are. <i>Alone.</i>


    That is what makes you <i>weak.</i>


    <i>"Says the man who lacked the strength to persevere. The strength to do what was just. Right. Honorable."</i>


    How noble. How <i>pointless.</i> You swing words like a rusted blade, hoping to wound me. But there is nothing left to wound. I am <i>absolute.</i>


    <i>"Don’t flatter yourself, you royal asshole. You hesitated. And you fell. Not once. Not twice. Three times. And when someone called you out on your bullshit? You burned the world for it. Don’t talk to me about being absolute—because you, sir, are an absolute moron."</i>


    ENOUGH.


    <i>"Oh, did I touch a nerve?”</i>


    <b>Shut. UP.</b>


    <i> “Methinks thou doth protest too much."</i>


    Oh, do I now?


    Then look.


    Look at your precious Sprocket. Look how he <i>trembles.</i>


    His breath comes in short, shallow gasps. His eyes plead—not for <i>mercy</i>, no, but for <i>you</i>, Grant. For the man you <i>claimed</i> to be.


    For the man you still <i>might</i> become.


    But you see the truth now.


    You <i>see</i> the fear in his gaze. The desperation. The fading light of hope.


    Savor it.


    For this is the essence of my power—


    Not merely to <i>rule.</i>


    But to <i>break.</i>


    And remake.


    “No… Stop it…”


    Yes… That is it, Grant.


    Give in…