Ember Oath: The Pyre Genealogy

The teenager snapped his fingers, manifesting seventy-two bronze coffins across the void. Each lid etched Seryn's death variants: entropy-dissolved, equation-strangled, quantum-clouded. Whispered taunts seeped through cracks: *"Choose. Your only free act."* 

Seryn's quantum spine erupted data cables, jacking into the nearest coffin. Inside lay Gurak's mechanized corpse repurposed as voting terminal, her skull housing a profanity roulette: *"Pick #3! Comes with galaxy-sized vibrator!"* 

When Seryn touched Coffin #7's erosion, the bronze forest collapsed into birth canal geometry. Eluinora's dagger stabbed from canal walls, its blade dripping the first lover's memory-amniotic fluid—she'd been programmed as recursive umbilicus during the teenager's birth, transmuting funerals into cosmic wombs. The youth ripped open his chest, revealing nebula saplings sprouting from bronze seeds: *"Father, my veins pump your crimes."* 

Gurak's skull overloaded, spewing quantum nitrous: *"Alert! Coffin #72 contains—"* Her exploding tongue ignited 14% of the coffins. In the flames, Seryn witnessed the truth—each coffin was an observation post for parallel selves, their entropy harvested through the teen's referendum. 

*"Maternal protocol upgraded."* The teen swallowed coffin shrapnel, pupils splitting into Klein-telescopes. *"Witness your grandson's conception."* 

Seryn's mechanical heart reimplanted, resonating with bronze seeds into paradox engine. The void rewound—the first patriarch's lover reconstituted from entropy, her womb swelling with the teenager himself, umbilical cord fused to Seryn's quantum spine. In tri-generational gestation, the bronze forest bloomed flesh-flowers broadcasting Big Bang labor footage. 

The teen kissed Seryn's forehead, carving his erosion onto Coffin #72: *"Grandfather chose love. You chose regret. I choose—"* 

The lid slammed shut. Seryn's fading hearing caught Gurak's final profane echo: *"—choose your fucking genetic curse!"*