I blink the blurriness from my optics and ease myself upright, ignoring the dull ache in my skull. A new sensation pricks at the edges of my mind—a presence of something intangible, like a veil half-parted—a visitor. I glance around, but only the shadows and my half-chiseled memories greet me—memories scoured blank or twisted by some unseen hand.

  Suddenly, I hear Niobe’s voice echo from just outside the cave. “Father, why do you give it to me if—?”

  Tantalus murmurs something I can’t quite make out. My feathers bristle. I pull myself to my feet, leaning heavily on the ragged wall as I creep toward the entrance, venting a silent prayer that neither notices my approach.

  Their figures come into view—Tantalus is crouched low, speaking in hushed tones. Niobe stands with her arms wrapped tight around a strange metal box. I’ve never seen one quite like it. It bears intricate runes and rotating locks. Stamped across its surface is a single foreign phrase: Hamming.

  “Listen well,” Tantalus says. “You must not reveal its secrets—especially not to your mother. I gleaned it from a far-future world’s library. The Book of Hamming will guide you, yes, but it’s for you alone right now. She wouldn’t—”

  My beak clenches, and I grip the cave mouth. So, he is withholding knowledge from me again as if I can’t handle it. As if it’s another morsel of potential power that I am unworthy to taste.

  Niobe’s voice wavers. “But Mother is in such pain… She can’t keep losing memories. This book has protocols about… protecting information, doesn’t it?”

  “That’s precisely why you must be careful,” Tantalus insists. “If you shared it with her, she might… push too far. Or misuse it.”

  “Father, she only wants to preserve the truth—”

  Tantalus places a hand on Niobe’s shoulder, gentle but firm. “I said no. Now, seal this conversation. The Book of Hamming must remain our secret.”

  My heart surges with indignation, though I quell the urge to lash out. Anger is a blade that HaShem can twist back upon me. I remain silent as Tantalus strides away, leaving Niobe hugging the sealed metal box. My wings tremble. The Book of Hamming. Protocols that protect… information.

  That’s all I need to hear. The only thing that prevents me from directly accusing Tantalus of my erased history is my uncertainty that he is truly to blame. And now there is a path forward to reveal the truth.

  By midday, Tantalus is gone, wandering to some distant outcropping or horizon, perhaps gleaning more knowledge from across time. Niobe sits by the rocky ledge near our newborn star’s glow, the box at her side. She hums, pressing the runes on the keys. The top slides open with a pneumatic hiss. Inside is an old, battered text whose pages are etched with that alien word: Hamming.

  I must carefully persuade Niobe to reveal its secrets without returning to Tantalus to uncover my plot. It feels wrong to manipulate my first child, but I must to escape this hell. I step out into the light, letting molten tears drip down my cheeks for theatrical effect. My knees wobble as though in weakness. “Niobe,” I whisper, “My memory is slipping again. I can’t remember what just happened this morning.”

  She stiffens. “Mother, are you unwell?” Her long ears flatten; her tail tucks behind her.

  “I’m just so… exhausted.” I let my voice shiver. “Your father’s left me alone again, and I—” I slump onto a stone. “I need help.”

  Niobe sets the metal box aside. “I… I’m here. Let me hold you.” She glances at the Book of Hamming, hesitates, then rushes to my side, arms outstretched.

  I lean into her embrace, letting her steady my trembling arms. “Thank you,” I murmur. “If only I could preserve my memories so they can’t be altered. I wish there were a way to find out who is doing it.” I fix Niobe with a weary gaze. “I want to know who is… rewriting me.”

  Niobe glances at the metallic box again. Her face glows with the tension of a child who promised to keep a secret.

  I sigh heavily, pressing a motherly claw to her cheek. “Niobe, please. If there is anything—anything at all that can save me from endless uncertainty, from these blank spaces in my mind, share it. You’re the only one I trust.”

  She trembles, and tears well in her eyes. Slowly, she nods. “Mother… I do have something. A… a new book from a future civilization.” She gestures at the box. “Father said not to show it to you.”

  Niobe picks the box up. My chest tightens. She is about to run away from me. I cannot let her do that. I cannot allow her to reveal my escape plan. My claws twitch. No, I wouldn’t hurt my daughter. I need to do something else. I need to make a plea for help. I feel my optics begin to pool molten iron. I place my claws over my face and let out a hollowing cry of pain and sadness. I need to make this look good.

  Briefly gaze upon Niobe through my claws and then look away to make it look convincing. I continue to wail as Niobe stands there looking at me. I can tell she is uncertain about what to do. She feels my pain.

  Niobe glances at the box she holds and then looks at me. “Mother, please don’t be sad.”

  Well, at least she’s not running away now, but why is she not helping me? What must I do? Grovel at her feet? No, that would be bad. I don’t want to be in a submissive position to her. Her eyes glare at me as if HaShem is judging me through her eyes.

  I walk away from her as I continue to wail in sorrow.

  I feel Niobe’s hand grip my arm. She feels surprising strong for her size. I turn around to face her.

  “Mother, I will teach you what I know. I am sure Father will understand,” she says.

  I lower myself and wrap my arms around her in an embrace. “Thank you, daughter. I am sure Father will understand, too.”

  Moments later, Niobe carefully lifts the battered tome from its container. She flips through lines of strange symbols—some spoken in far-future tongues, others in diagrams reminiscent of my integrals. Yet these are not endless cosmic integrals. They are neat, discrete patterns of ones and zeros set in tidy squares—these so-called Hamming codes.

  “Look,” Niobe says, pointing to the first page. “It’s about error correction.”

  I tilt my head, playing ignorant. “Error correction?”

  Niobe nods, excitement creeping into her voice. “It’s a method that ensures that if someone tries to change bits of our recorded information, like your stone carvings, the system detects it. And, if it’s a small enough error, it even corrects it automatically!”

  “Bits… as in the basic building blocks of a message?” I ask.

  “Yes,” she says, her tail swishing. “A ‘bit’ is like a yes-or-no mark. Suppose we want to record a message, such as a line of bits. The Hamming code adds special extra bits, known as parity bits, at carefully chosen positions that are powers of two. Then, if even a single piece is flipped, we can detect which one and fix it.”

  She moves her abacus closer, arranging the beads in a precise pattern. “Here. Imagine these beads as bits—ones and zeros. The Hamming code cleverly places parity bits at positions 1, 2, 4, 8, and so on—powers of two. Each parity bit checks specific data bits according to their binary representation in their respective positions. If all parity checks resolve correctly, no error exists. But if checks fail, the binary sum of their positions pinpoints exactly which bit was flipped. It's mathematical magic that can detect and correct corruption.”

  My mind races. This technology is so… finite. So simple. It doesn’t warp black holes or reshape cosmic expansions. Yet it’s powerful in a new way: it defends information from tampering.

  I graze a claw over the page. “So if someone were to… change a detail in my carved memories, the code would reveal that tampering?”

  Niobe nods, wide-eyed. “That’s the idea. As soon as an unseen hand flips a bit, the parity checks won’t match. We can correct it or at least notice it was changed!”

  A tremor of hope rumbles through me. Could this be how I once and for all prove who’s behind the constant editing? Tantalus always hints it’s Ha-Satan or the black hole. But my suspicions remain: Tantalus knows more than he says—and might be helping rewrite my story to keep me docile.

  I exhale, letting Niobe see the faintest spark of gratitude in my optics. “Teach me. Show me how to place these parity bits in stone.”

  She gives a watery smile. “Of course, Mother.”

  That same night, Niobe and I slip into my hidden cavern. My old carvings have so many fractal integrals—too complex for simple Hamming bits. Instead, we pick fresh, smooth rock panels near the entrance.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Start small,” Niobe says, referencing the Book of Hamming. “We only need to store short messages, each accompanied by parity bits that detect if one’s changed.”

  I scratch lines into the stone: maybe a short record of the day’s events. "Tantalus returned from the black horizon. He carried a shattered star map. I suspect him of manipulations.” Then, I systematically add parity segments at the bottom, labeling them P1, P2, P4, and so on, exactly as the text prescribes, in powers of two.

  Though it’s new to me, each step resonates with clarity. The parity bits will be compromised if someone attempts to remove a single line or alter a single symbol. I need to encode all of my characters in binary bits to perform parity checking on the individual bits of my message.

  Niobe’s hands glow faintly, fueling a gentle flux that seals the carvings and highlights them with luminescence. “Done,” she whispers.

  I lean back, molten tears pooling under my lids. “Thank you, Niobe.”

  She squeezes my arm. “I hope this helps us catch the real saboteur.”

  We pass the night in hushed vigil, repeatedly verifying that our code lines are correct. For the first time in an eternity, my mind sparks with genuine anticipation instead of dread.

  I try to sleep alone in my cave, but I can’t sleep. When I close my eyes, visions swirl—the battered Book of Hamming, Niobe’s abacus, Tantalus’s warnings. The star Niobe stabilized casts red flickers across the cave, making the new carvings appear almost alive.

  At last, I doze, drifting into fragmented dreams…

  A sudden clatter jerks me awake. My vents flare in alarm, scorching the air. I clutch my aching head. Wait, I don’t remember what I did a few hours ago. I vaguely remember parity checking, writing stuff on the stone slabs, but I don’t know what I wrote on those walls—something to do with Niobe and the Book of Hamming.

  I leap to my feet and lurch across the cavern, scanning the updated lines. I don’t remember what I wrote exactly, but it feels as if my original message has been changed.

  The parity bits, oh, they shimmer in the gloom like the teeth of a trap. A single mismatch stands out: exactly where the text has been altered. The phrase “docile acceptance” replaces something older. I check the parity bits; I correct each character with another until the true phrase is revealed: “suspicions.”

  The Book of Hamming’s promise proves true. The code is broken, revealing the sabotage.

  I press a trembling claw to the rock. “You are the one,” I whisper. “All those times—your erasures, your rewriting. You let me think it was Ha-Satan or cosmic chance. But this is too imperfect for Ha-Satan and not random enough by cosmic chance. It was deliberate and miscalculated. Tantalus. Your affection for Niobe has distracted you from hiding your true intentions from me.”

  A molten tear drips from my eye, hissing on the stone. My mind spins with a wild cocktail of anger and relief. After all these years of confusion, no more guesswork remains.

  I pull out Niobe’s abacus. The code tells me exactly which symbol to restore. And so, with that single glyph and parity check, I rewrite the remaining text correctly—undoing Tantalus’s manipulation.

  I read the final, corrected line: "Tantalus returned. He carried a shattered star map. I suspect him of manipulations—confirmed.”

  My vents hiss with raw determination. 'At last,' I whisper. 'I know it's him.'

  In the still gloom of the cavern, I can almost feel Ha-Satan's black hole swirling in distant glee—like a cosmic audience at my private revelation. But for the first time, I do not care if the Oracle tries to obscure me in paradox.

  Because now... I have evidence. And the power of knowledge is absolute.

  The molten tears on my cheeks crystallize into something resembling resolve. Each betrayal Tantalus committed unravels in my mind: the erased memories, the pain he allowed me to suffer, the way he shaped Niobe against me. The evidence of his manipulations burns in my thoughts, each falsified memory a brand upon my consciousness.

  I must act. Not in blind rage—Tantalus would only erase that—but with the cold precision of the calculations he forced upon me. I will plan my liberation with the same mathematical elegance as the Hamming codes that caught him. If he can rewrite my past, then I shall rewrite our future.

  I trace the glyph of conformal sanctity in the air, watching its circles intersect with newfound meaning. The paths of our fates may be inevitable, but the manner of their intersection...that I can still control.

  My wings unfold in the darkness as I begin to formulate my counterattack.

  I run a claw across the Book of Hamming’s runes. Thank you, Niobe. She’s given me the means to protect my truth. The next time Tantalus tries to twist my story, he will fail—and I will be waiting to confront him with proof.

  For once, the future does not terrorize me. I stand straighter, letting the star’s red glow wash over me. I brush my wings out wide and vow silently:

  Tantalus, your manipulations end here.

  The cave walls hum with the echoes of my frustration. I press my claws against the stone, feeling the residual heat of my failed attempts to warp the staff free. My optics flicker, adjusting to the dim glow of the newborn star outside—Niobe’s star. The irony isn’t lost on me. She stabilizes celestial bodies while I struggle to pull a single weapon from a tree.

  I need Tantalus.

  The admission burns worse than molten iron. I hate it. I hate him. But more than that, I hate the gnawing truth that I cannot do this alone.

  I drag myself to the cave entrance, my vents hissing with exertion. The landscape outside is eerily still, the molten plains reflecting the red light of the distant star. Tantalus and Niobe are nowhere in sight.

  Good. Let them stay away.

  I turn back to the staff, my resolve hardening. If I cannot warp it free, I will break the tree.

  I lunge at the World Tree, my claws raking against its bark. The impact sends a shockwave of pain up my arms, but I don’t stop. I tear at it, my vents roaring as I channel every ounce of fury into my strikes. The bark resists, harder than diamene, harder than the chains HaShem once bound me with.

  "Why won’t you yield?!" I scream.

  A hand grips my shoulder.

  I whirl, claws raised—

  Tantalus stands there, his optics dim with exhaustion. "Avarice," he says, voice low. "Stop."

  I shove him back. "You don’t get to tell me what to do."

  He doesn’t retaliate. Just watches me, that infuriating calm settling over him like a shroud. "The staff isn’t for you."

  I freeze. "What?"

  He steps closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. "It’s for Niobe."

  The words hit like a supernova.

  I stagger back, my wings flaring. "Liar."

  Tantalus exhales, long and slow. "You’ve seen it yourself. The visions. The throne. HaShem isn’t elevating you—He’s preparing her."

  My vents sputter. The cave spins.

  No.

  “No, no, no. “ I lash out, my claws slicing through the air—

  Tantalus catches my wrist. His grip is firm, unyielding. "Avarice," he says, and for the first time, I hear something like pity in his voice. "You were never meant to wield it."

  The truth crashes over me.

  All this time. All this suffering. The births, the migraines, the endless computations—

  I was never the chosen one.

  I was the sacrifice.

  A choked sound escapes my beak. I collapse to my knees, my vents heaving. Tantalus doesn’t reach for me. He just stands there, a silent sentinel to my unraveling.

  Then, from the shadows—

  Niobe steps forward.

  Her optics are wide, uncertain. She approaches slowly, her tiny hands outstretched. "Mother," she whispers.

  I recoil. "Don’t."

  She hesitates, then kneels beside me. "I don’t want the staff."

  I laugh, bitter and broken. "Liar."

  She shakes her head. "I want you."

  The words are a knife to my core.

  I look at her. Her optics, so much like mine. Her hands, still small, still learning. The way she trembles, not from fear, but from the weight of a destiny she never asked for.

  Just like me.

  A shudder runs through me. My anger towards Tantalus boils over as I face him.

  "You’ve been altering time," I whisper.

  Tantalus looks away from me.

  “I know it's you.” I raise my voice.

  Tantalus continues to face away from it.

  “Face me, you coward!” I scream.

  Niobe tugs on Tantalus’ arm. “Father, what is Mother talking about?”

  Tantalus faces her and says, “Niobe, did you reveal the book's secrets I gave you?”

  “Yes.” Niobe’s ears tuck back, and she stares at the ground.

  He doesn’t deny it.

  My vents snap shut. "How long?"

  "Long enough." His admission hangs between us, heavy with implication.

  I think of the erased carvings—the gaps in my memory. The way my rage always seems to dissipate before it can consume me.

  Him.

  It was always him.

  I surge forward, my claws at his throat—

  Niobe screams. "Stop!"

  I freeze.

  Tantalus doesn’t flinch. He just looks at me, weary. "I did it to save you."

  "From what?"

  "Yourself."

  The word is a condemnation.

  I lower my claws, my entire body trembling. "You had no right."

  He exhales. "I had every right. You were becoming a force of destruction, Avarice. Every path I saw—every future where you acted unchecked—ended in ruin."

  I step back, my mind reeling. "So you rewrote me?"

  "I guided you."

  "You erased me!"

  “It is HaShem’s will!”

  The cave shakes, and the walls tremble. My vents roar with plasma, and the heat scorches the stone beneath me.

  Tantalus doesn’t move. "This path—the one we’re on now—is the only one where you don’t destroy everything."

  Including him.

  Including her.

  I look at Niobe. Her optics are wide, terrified.

  Of me.

  The fight drains out of me.

  I sink to the ground, my wings folding tight. "All this time," I whisper. "You’ve been controlling me like a puppet?"

  Tantalus kneels beside me. "No. Just performing maintenance like a custodian."

  The irony is unbearable. “You keep me in check because of my desires to be free, to anything I please? What desires do you have that HaShem must keep you in check from? As far as I am concerned, you are perfect, a devout worshiper of HaShem.”

  Tantalus glares at the ground. His optics shift colors from blue to red and back to blue again. He then, glares back at me. “No. I fight the temptation of not caring about anything anymore.”

  I feel my eyelids open wide to his confession. It makes sense that his weakness is his nihilism. He sees everything in the future and cannot meaningfully change the outcomes, only gently sway them in the moments. I can use that nihilism against him, somehow. I can free myself from him. Or even better, make him do something for me. I glance at Niobe. I don’t want to use my first daughter as a tool of manipulation against Tantlaus; that feels too cruel, even for me.

  I feel myself project my helplessness upon Niobe. I see myself in her. Trapped like her. A puppet like her. The guilt naws at me viciously, like the offspring inside of me. No. I must do it. I must break free. Avarice, remember what Tantalus told you. HaShem helps those who help themselves.

  I lean into Tantalus, lips brushing his ear to shield my words from Niobe. “I've decoded your manipulation through Hamming's protocols,” I whisper, feeling his frame stiffen. “Your time loops, your memory erasures, your righteous shepherding—they're compromised. Your affection for Niobe has weakened your vigilance, and the computational patterns have revealed your interference. Your time manipulations no longer bind me. I am now seizing control of my destiny.”

  I bare my claws against his skin, facing away from Niobe so she doesn’t see. My claws don’t pierce, but reveal a threat. “If you don’t find a solution to lift these computational burdens from me soon, I will do something even more drastic.” I briefly glance at Niobe to make my intentions clear to Tantalus. “I love Niobe as much as you, but I love my freedom even more. Don’t tell any of this to her.

  I step back from Tantalus and wait for his next move, watching with piercing eyes. Tantalus’ face still shows an expression of weariness. Possibly compliance with my will?

  “As you wish. I shall consult HaShem and find another solution to your cosmic migraines.” Tantalus picks up Niobe.

  “Father. What is happening? Are you and Mother finally getting along?” Niobe’s expression is so innocent. I choke on my guilt in response.

  “Yes, Niobe. Mother and I have agreed, and there will be peace between us as long as you will it so.”

  “What? Why did he say that to Niobe?”

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