In the beginning, before time had a name, before the heavens had stars, before the earth had mountains, there was Chaos.
An endless void. A world without light. A silence that had never known a voice.
Then came Gaia, the Earth.
And above her rose Uranus, the Sky.
Together, they gave birth to beings the world had never seen before.
The Titans.
Colossal beings whose heads scraped the heavens, whose footsteps split mountains apart, and whose roars shook the foundations of the newborn world. To them, oceans were puddles. Mountains were stepping stones. And the earth itself trembled beneath their feet.
But their father feared them.
Uranus feared his own children.
One by one, he cast the monstrous young into Tartarus, burying them in the endless darkness of Gaia's womb. Their cries echoed through the depths, and every scream tore at their mother's heart.
Until grief became hatred.
Gaia forged a sickle of adamantine, a blade born to spill the blood of a god. She called upon her children to rise against their father.
None answered.
Until Kronos, the youngest Titan, stepped forward.
He took the blade.
And waited.
When Uranus descended to embrace the Earth, Kronos struck. The heavens roared. The earth convulsed. And the Sky was severed from the Earth by the very son he had sought to destroy.
The first king had fallen.
And Kronos took his throne.
Beside him stood Rhea, his sister and queen. Under their rule came the Golden Age, when the earth flourished, spring never died, and mankind lived without sorrow or toil.
But kingdoms built upon blood are never free of its curse.
As Uranus fell, he left Kronos with a prophecy.
One of your children will destroy you.
The words haunted the new king. He had overthrown his father, yet now feared the same fate at the hands of his own blood.
So Kronos made a choice.
Whenever Rhea bore him a child, he swallowed it whole.
Hestia. Demeter. Hera. Hades. Poseidon.
Five children.
Five gods devoured by their own father.
And Rhea could do nothing but watch.
Until the sixth child came.
Zeus.
This time, Rhea refused to surrender her son to the monster she called her husband. She fled to Crete and gave birth in a hidden cave, far from the eyes of the Titan King.
Then she wrapped a stone in swaddling clothes and placed it in Kronos's arms.
He swallowed it without hesitation.
And the king returned to his throne, believing fate had been defeated.
But fate had never been in his stomach.
It was growing.
Far from his father's reach, Zeus grew into a god worthy of challenging the heavens themselves. And when the time came, he returned with a potion given to him by Metis.
Kronos drank.
And the children he had swallowed were brought back into the world.
The prophecy had begun.
"Will they ever return, Mother?"
The question lingered in the quiet room.
Candlelight danced across the pages of the ancient book resting in her hands. For a long moment, she said nothing. Her gaze remained fixed upon the final lines of the story, as though the words concealed a truth she had spent her entire life dreading.
Then, slowly, she closed the book.
The soft thud echoed through the silence.
She extinguished the candle, and darkness swallowed the room.
"If they return," she whispered, "the world as we know it will cease to exist."
Before I could ask what she meant, she leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss against my forehead.
"Goodnight, my child."
My earliest memory is of my mother on a winter morning.
I remember playing outside, falling into the snow and scraping my knee. I cried until Mother knelt before me. She gently blew on the wound, and somehow, I felt the pain disappear, as though she had magically healed it.
I remember the cold air against my cheeks, the untouched snow beneath my feet, and the quiet beauty of mornings when the world seemed to stand still.
Looking back, I suppose she was everything to me.
She was my mother. She was my father. She was my teacher, my protector, and the very first person who ever taught me what it meant to be loved.
Perhaps I was too young to understand it then.
But if there is one thing I wish I could experience just once more, it would be a winter morning spent with her.
Mother and I lived in a wooden cottage deep within the woods, so far removed from civilization that I never knew Caelum existed. For as long as I could remember, our world consisted of just the two of us—no cities, no kingdoms, only the wild beyond the endless trees.
I believed, in the way children do, that the world had been made for us alone.
Mother woke before dawn each day, vanishing into the wilderness to hunt and gather. We lived on wild fruits from the woods, marine life from the lakes, and whatever game roaming those woods she could bring down. Every evening, she chopped wood to keep our fire alive and made clothing from the fur of the animals she had hunted, ensuring we never got cold through the bitter winters. Her care for me always outweighed her concern for herself—every meal, every sacrifice, and every quiet moment of exhaustion in her eyes proved it.
Then, on the day I turned six, our world cracked open.
A stranger came that morning—the first person I had ever laid eyes upon besides my mother.
I remember staring at her, unable to look away. She was beautiful, more beautiful than anything I had ever seen. Her long, flowing hair was braided in delicate strands, and she wore white robes unlike anything I had ever seen, let alone worn.
Yet, what I remember most was her smile.
It was warm, gentle, and strangely familiar. She smiled at me as though we had known each other for years, as though I were not a stranger to her at all. I remember feeling no fear, only a quiet curiosity about the woman who had appeared before me.
She knelt slightly, bringing herself closer to my height.
"My name is Illustrious," she said softly. "I'm looking for someone."
I tilted my head, waiting.
"Liora," she added. "I'm looking for Liora."
I didn't know what a name meant—or who Liora might be. Only later, when Mother returned, did I learn the truth: Liora was her name. From the ease with which they spoke, it was clear they had known each other long before I existed.
Illustrious soon became a familiar face, visiting us so often that I eventually stopped thinking of her as a stranger. She brought with her the strangest of treats and stories of places beyond the trees—places I had never imagined existed.
She told me of magnificent cities, towering castles, and people who looked just like us. Through her stories, I slowly came to understand that the tales Mother used to read to me before bedtime were not merely stories. They were fragments of history, memories of a world that existed far beyond our little home in the forest.
She told me that we were called Colossals. Mother, Illustrious, and I—all of us belonged to a world I had never known existed.
Every visit brought something new, another piece of a world waiting beyond the trees.
And with every story, my little world grew a little bigger.
Then, one day, she stopped coming.
At first, I thought she was simply late. Perhaps she had been delayed somewhere beyond the trees, or perhaps she would arrive the following morning with another strange treat and a story I had never heard before.
But the days passed, and Illustrious never came.
I remember waiting. I remember looking towards the trees whenever the wind stirred their leaves, hoping to catch a glimpse of those familiar white robes or hear the sound of her gentle voice.
But there was nothing.
The treats disappeared. The stories grew quiet. Even the world beyond the forest seemed to fade, as though it had never existed at all.
And just like that, the little world she had opened for me closed again.
I never understood why she left. I was too young to know that sometimes people simply disappear from our lives, leaving behind nothing but memories and questions.
All I knew was that I missed her.
The books Mother read—the dusty tomes of the Colossals—were more than bedtime stories. They were legends of rulers who had shaped Caelum, heroes who had conquered lands, fought beasts, and left their mark on history. Each tale stirred a hunger in me: to leave the forest, to see, to conquer, to live beyond its shadows.
By the time I was eight, two years had passed since Illustrious's disappearance, and I began to notice something strange about myself. I was small. Smaller than Mother, smaller than Illustrious. And I knew, deep down, that I would never grow as they did.
Questions clawed at me: Why wasn't I like them? Why did I live so far from the others? Why did Mother keep secrets I felt I was meant to know? Some part of me wanted to ask. Another part was terrified—afraid of leaving the safety of our woods, afraid of the truths that might await outside.
And then came the knock.
My heart leapt. Could it be Illustrious, returning after all this time?
Mother opened the door with her hunting bow, as if a threat had just knocked at our wooden door. Standing there was not Illustrious, but someone else: another Colossal, taller than Mother and broad-shouldered. He wore black-and-gold armor, its intricate engravings gleaming beneath a blood-red cloak. A majestic golden helmet crowned his head, its arched crest resembling the rising sun. In his hand rested a towering black spear. But that wasn't the first thing I saw. The first thing I noticed was his hair.
It didn't just cover his head, but his jaw and chin, too.
Mother had always said staring was rude, but I couldn't look away. The eyes were too dark, like the lights inside them had been switched off.
Then those same eyes looked at me.
I hid behind Mother's legs.
I didn't know why I was frightened. He hadn't done anything wrong. He hadn't even touched me.
He was the first man I had ever seen, and I was more like him than mother or Illustrious.
"How did you find us?" Mother said, with the bow still pointing at the man's head.
"Good day, Lady Liora. You were honestly not as hard to find as you thought you were," he said, his voice deep, echoing like a drum. "Put that bow down. I come in peace. I have been sent by His Majesty to deliver this letter, personally written by his own hand."
He unrolled the parchment, which bore a red wax seal. The symbol resembled the crest on his helmet.
"Let the heavens bear witness, and let the earth tremble beneath the weight of my decree!
I am Titus, First of His Name, Emperor of All Colossals, Sovereign of Caelum, and Lord Beneath the Eternal Firmament. By the blood of the ancients that courses through my veins, by the crowns of fallen kings that rest beneath my throne, and by the primordial oath sworn when the world was young, I hereby summon Liora and the boy into my royal presence.
Let no mountain bar their passage, let no river hinder their journey, and let no mortal hand dare defy the will of their sovereign. They shall stand before me within the walls of my ancestral castle, beneath its towering spires and the watchful gaze of the old gods, before the dying season strips the final golden leaves from the trees and the breath of winter claims the land.
For when fall yields to the grave of winter, the hourglass of fate shall turn, and what has long remained concealed shall be brought forth into the light.
Let this decree be carried upon the wings of the wind, proclaimed by the tongues of heralds, and engraved into the memory of the realm. Let every soul beneath the heavens know that the Emperor has spoken."
After he finished reading, he studied me sharply, then bowed, mounted a massive black beast, and galloped away, leaving only the thundering echoes of hooves behind.
I had only read of Titus in the books Mother loved. He was a conqueror, a unifier, a ruler of all Caelum. And now, he wanted us.
The question gnawed at me: Why? What could the most powerful ruler of our time want with a mother—and with me?
Until that moment, I had known Mother only as my mother. I had never imagined the life she had left behind, nor the fate that now seemed to be calling me beyond the trees.