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November 4 - November 16, 2025
And he cared about none of it, because he was losing the love of his life. Carve out your heart for it.
“You have some nerve speaking that way to me,” he hissed, “when you are the reason this happened.” Me?
“You refused to sacrifice his soul to the resurrection spell. But the spell was already in motion. You ended it before you completed it, but the incomplete resurrection, along with the destruction of the relics Alarus used to construct the underworld, put stress upon the underworld that it couldn’t bear. Thus.” He gestured to the wreckage around us.
“I’m a messenger. Don’t expect me to understand the intricacies of your Shadowborn tricks.”
Of course, it was all about a kingdom.
Going on a mission to save the world with my friend’s dead father was not at all what I expected to be doing in death.
They were divine soldiers of Shiket. Once, they had been human. But they had been chosen in their death to ascend to immortality and serve her as guardians of the just—or whatever Shiket deemed “justice” to be.
I had no pity left to spare for the ignorant. Especially not ones that served her.
“I’m giving credit to its rightful owner. I did not kill Atroxus. Mische Iliae did, and she deserves to have her name painted in the stars for it.”
Mische Iliae would be remembered by the bones of time itself, and I knew it because I would write her story there with my blood if I had to.
Only the ignorant believed that death was an end. It certainly would not be for her.
As if the gods had seen some beauty in mortality but failed to realize that the imperfection of it was what made it remarkable.
This felt like false pleasures and a knife poised between your shoulder blades. Beautiful denial.
You changed the world, Iliae, I thought. You’ve terrified even the gods.
The Blade of Retribution. The sword that represented a rightful death granted in a rightful punishment. And, in a repulsive irony, the sword she had used to kill Mische.
“You need not hide your feelings, prisoner. It is no surprise to me that a child of Nyaxia, a fallen one, would so resent the justice of the light.”
“Justice is funny to you. Typical of a fallen one.” “I think it’s amusing,” I said, “that creatures as powerful as you are so stupid.”
That little broken shard of the sun, burning like a grudge.
Acaeja’s face was still. “I am a protector.”
“You would go back to death for another lover, even as the last one despised you for it?”
“She intrigues me,” Acaeja said. “A soul of such simple beginnings. Mische Iliae is no chosen one. Her blood is plain as it comes. And yet, she sits at the apex of so many different fates.”
“Fate and luck are twin sides to the same coin.” The threads rearranged with the dance of her fingertips.
“The two of you are now bound inextricably,” Acaeja said. “Yet, the threads fray under the pressure of this tension. As she did not successfully complete the ceremony, she still holds a piece of Alarus’s power—power
“And Mische.” I could not bring myself to be ashamed that Acaeja was speaking of the damnation of millions of souls and yet I thought only of one. “Yes.”
Perhaps now I only serve what is Right.” Right—she spoke not of moral goodness, but what was Right by fate itself.
Her six wings spread, the three on the left showing me myself upon the throne of the House of Shadow, ruling over the Shadowborn army, building an empire from eternal night. The three on the right, showing me death, destruction, and Mische. It wasn’t even a choice. “Take me to her,” I said.
“Billions of threads,” she murmured, “and not a single one where you say no.”
“Go, Asar Voldari. You agreed to play a game with high stakes. You do not get to waste your time as the cards are drawn.”
Faith is all we have. Perhaps she’d been right about that all along. And then I jumped.
