The golden gates of Florentine, seat of the Electors and heart of the empire, swung open as horns blared. Markos, now dressed in the standard of an officer, with his lammellar-bound armor polished and the scars of battle still fresh on his arms, entered not as a foreigner — but as a champion.
Crowds cheered. Petals fell from balconies. Children ran behind his horse yelling, "Victory at Zariphon!"
The Dome of the Electors, a wide rotunda framed with alabaster columns and imperial banners, echoed with argument and applause. Within its halls sat the Twelve Electors of the Empire — magistrates, generals, merchant-kings, and the despotes.
And in the center of it all, stood Magistrate Cuculus Maximus, the same stern-faced man who had once barely acknowledged Markos at the Citadel. Now, his voice boomed with authority.
"Let it be known across the realm: Markos of Constantinople did not just halt the Pazzonian scourge — he unified our splintered warbands under one banner."
Nods. Applause.
But not all agreed.
From the east wing, a tall figure in cobalt blue robes rose: Stratega Althenea, her expression masked but clearly disapproving.
"Victory is welcome. But glorification is dangerous. He is still a foreigner. His loyalty, though tested, remains… unconfirmed."
A murmur stirred.
Then from the western dais, a woman stood — Despotes Delia of Syrkon, representing Nafonia's interests. With jet-black curls, pale olive skin, and robes lined with amber and crimson, she was grace incarnate. Her voice, however, carried a storm.
"We do not question loyalty when it serves us. Yet now, when unity is our only salvation, we pull back into tribal pettiness?"
She pointed across the room toward the Scolacians, who grumbled behind their armored Duke.
"Would you rather let Pazzonians burn our villages while we squabble over Markos' lineage?"
"Markos fought beside my soldiers," she continued, "bled with them, wept with them. What more is required?"
The hall quieted. All eyes turned to Markos.
He stepped forward, clearing his throat.
"I did not come here for power, nor title. But if my knowledge, my arms, or my resolve can hold the line — then I offer it, not as a Scolacian, Nafonian, or Florentine — but as a servant of this world."
Somewhere in the balcony above, Helena — no, Scelestus, no — Veltrana — smiled beneath three different faces, unseen and silent. Her clone, Despotes Delia, spoke in her voice below:
"Then let us use his flame to relight the Empire's fading torch."
The Electors broke into tense murmurs.
That night, as a banquet in Markos' honor stirred the halls with music and clinking goblets, Markos stood alone near a marble terrace.
From the shadows stepped Despotes Delia again, her eyes gleaming.
"You did well."
"You argue like a lioness," he replied, looking amused. "Nafonia is lucky to have you."
She tilted her head, the moon catching her earrings. "We are lucky to have you."
A pause. Then a sly smile.
"Tell me… If Helena and I stood side by side, would you recognize who is who?"
Markos blinked. "What? WHAT?"
She stepped back into the dark with a laugh, leaving him confused — and deeply suspicious.
He whispered to himself, brows furrowed.
"...That voice…"
Florentine's inner court was alive with music and laughter. Golden chandeliers dripped crystal firelight, and the scent of spiced wine hung thick in the air. Nobles mingled in silks and velvets, and at the center of it all, Markos stood in his hardened leather tunic — an anachronism in a sea of decadence.
He didn't belong, and he knew it. But he endured, sipping cautiously at his goblet. Stratega Althenea had been absent most of the night, and Despotes Delia had vanished into the crowd.
A group of courtiers approached — five women, veiled and clad in flowing white, their eyes lowered in supposed modesty. One giggled softly as she offered him a platter of dates. Another drew near with a whisper.
"Hero of Zariphon," she purred. "Will you dance for us, or shall we dance for you?"
Markos frowned. Something was wrong. Their voices… too coordinated. Their gazes, too fixed. No warmth. No fear. Only… calculation.
He stepped back, but one grabbed his wrist.
"You should have never returned."
Her fingers tightened like iron.
Too late.
The fifth woman drew a dagger from her sleeve — curved, blackened, and pulsing with abyssal etchings.
Steel shrieked.
The assassin's dagger met a sword — Althenea's sword — as she crashed down from the mezzanine in a blur of silver and fury.
"Markos—move!"
The Stratega didn't wait. Her sword cleaved one assassin's head clean from her shoulders in a spray of unnatural, black ichor. Another screamed as she met Delia's shortblade in a counter-riposte that punctured her lung with a sickening snap.
Markos ducked just as the third lunged, grabbing a goblet from the table and smashing it into her face before driving his elbow into her throat.
The last two circled, blades drawn, eyes glowing now with demonic light.
"Children of the Order," Delia muttered coldly. "Bold to walk in my halls."
Markos froze.
My halls?
The two women — Althenea and Delia — moved in perfect coordination, like twin dancers. As one lunged, the other parried. As one blocked, the other struck. Their silhouettes blurred with divine power, enough for Markos to finally see: the exact same footwork. The same eyes when they grew wrathful. The same voice under their breaths as they cursed the Order.
They weren't two women.
They were one god.
The last of the assassins fell to the floor, spasming. Markos stood in the middle of the ruined court, guests fleeing or sobbing, nobles cowering behind columns.
A flaming tapestry crackled nearby.
Only he, Althenea, and Delia stood upright — the illusion broken.
"Helena?" he asked softly.
Both women turned toward him. And then, they merged.
The light rippled like heat, and between them stood the truth: Veltrana, goddess of old, clad in midnight armor, her divine sigils flickering faintly on her skin.
"Markos… I tried to protect you without revealing myself," she said, voice trembling. "But they came too soon."
"What are you really, tell me the truth." he asked, sword half-drawn but not aimed.
"A goddess cast out," she said. "A lover forgotten. A demon to your people, but a guardian still."
She stepped closer.
"And if I must become all things — Stratega, Despotes, Empress, and shadow — to shield you... then I will."
"Markos…" Her voice trembled like a string on the edge of snapping, her eyes wide, glistening — unblinking. "I tried… so hard to protect you without revealing myself… without scaring you… but they came too soon."
Markos' grip tightened on his sword, half-drawn. "What are you really? Tell me the truth."
She tilted her head slowly, a crooked smile dancing at the corner of her lips — somewhere between ecstasy and sorrow.
"A goddess… cast out, by fools who never understood me.""A lover… abandoned, across time and war.""A demon, they say… but only because I refused to kneel. To anyone but you."
She stepped closer, barefoot now on the blood-slick floor, the heels of her disguise left behind in the chaos.
"I have watched you. Cried for you. Bled for you. Burned empires for you."
Her voice dropped to a whisper — shaky, reverent, terrifying in its certainty.
"And if I must become everything — a Stratega, a Despotes, an Empress, a shadow, a monster — just to keep you safe…"
Her hand reached for his face, hovering just an inch from his cheek.
"…then I will. Gladly. Obsessively. Endlessly. Even if you run — I will find you. Even if you hate me — I'll love you harder. Even if you forget — I never will."
Her smile widened now. Almost unhinged.
"Because if I lose you again, Markos…""…then the world deserves to burn."
Markos turned and ran.
The torchlight of the palace corridor blurred, his boots pounding against polished marble. "No. No. Not like this," he muttered, breath ragged. The weight of her words — "even if you run, I will find you" — rang in his ears like a curse whispered by fate itself.
But he didn't get far.
A shadow surged in front of him — Despotes Delia. Her eyes no longer golden and diplomatic, but crimson with divine wrath.
Behind him, Stratega Althenea stood — Helena — her smile gone now. Her expression was one of mournful resolve.
"You can't run from me, Markos," she said, voice echoing in the hall like thunder on silk.
The shadows twisted. Reality fractured.
And then — the world collapsed in light and darkness.
He fell.
Not through air, not through water — but through a memory. Through pain. Through love warped by time.
He landed, coughing, on black stone laced with glowing runes. Above him stretched a skyless void, vast and whispering, with stars that blinked like watching eyes.
Before him — a throne of obsidian bone.
And on it sat Scelestus.
No armor. No disguise. No mask.
Just her — in her true form: haloed in flame and shadow, wings like torn veils, a crown of horn and sorrow. A beauty so terrifying and divine it stole his breath.
Helena, Veltrana, Scelestus — all of them — now one.
"Welcome to the Abyss," she whispered. "Your story began here, long before you were born."
Markos stumbled back. "Why am I here?! Why me?!"
She rose from her throne and approached — barefoot again, like in the palace — but now her steps echoed like judgments.
"Because you're not just anyone, Markos," she said gently. "You were mine. In another world, in another life. You chose me. You died for me."
Her fingers ghosted over his cheek. "And I lost everything."
"So I brought you back."
Markos froze.
"The fall of Constantinople… the portal… it wasn't fate. It was me."
He stared at her. "You—?"
"I tore through the Veil. I shattered laws no god should touch. To reach you. To bring you here. This world… this war… this throne… you are the reason I returned. You are the only thing I have ever loved."
Tears streamed down her burning face — and did not burn.
"But if you still choose to run…" she said, the words trembling like a prayer laced with madness, "…I'll chase you. Across worlds. Across death. Across everything."
"Because if I can't have you, then neither shall the world."
Markos stood frozen beneath the vastness of the Abyss, the very air crackling with divine tension. The obsidian ground below his feet pulsed like a heartbeat. Scelestus — Helena — Veltrana — stood before him, eyes glowing with a fury so intimate it felt like love forged in hellfire.
He did not reach for his sword.
He did not speak.
He simply breathed — slow, careful, as if any movement would shatter the fragile line between devotion and destruction.
Scelestus tilted her head, her divine gaze narrowing slightly.
"You're scared."
Markos lowered his eyes. "…Yes."
"Do you hate me?"
A pause. "I don't know what I feel."
He looked up — and saw not a demon, nor a goddess, nor a tyrant. He saw a woman whose heart had been broken across centuries. A creature who had lost everything… and clawed back to existence through fire and blood.
"I know I'm only a man," Markos said quietly. "You… You're something beyond me. I don't know what I'm meant to be to you. But I know this…"
He swallowed.
"If I make one wrong move, you could end me. You could unmake me. And yet—"
He stepped forward, just slightly.
"You haven't."
The Abyss held its breath.
Scelestus didn't move. But her expression flickered — confusion, pain, hope.
"You read my thoughts," he said.
She nodded. "Always. You've never truly been hidden from me."
"Then you know I'm not trying to trick you. I'm not trying to leave. I'm trying to understand."
The silence was heavy.
Markos inhaled again, deeply. "Why bring me here? Why now?"
Scelestus finally stepped forward — slowly, reverently — as if every inch she moved was a sacred rite. Her hand, burning cold, brushed against his face.
"Because you are mine," she said. "And because I need you to see me. Not as a knight. Not as a goddess. Not as a monster. But as the woman who broke every law in creation… to see your eyes again."
Markos didn't pull away.
"Do I have a choice?" he asked softly.
Scelestus' answer was a whisper:
"Yes. But no matter what you choose, I'll still love you. Even if it burns this world."
She leaned in closer — close enough that he could smell the faint scent of ancient incense and scorched roses.
"You were my light, once," she said, voice cracking. "Now, I'm your shadow."
Markos trembled — not from fear, but from the unbearable weight of her devotion.
The Abyss around them stilled, like time itself had curled inward.
Scelestus — Helena — Veltrana — stepped back, her eyes distant. She raised her hand, and the blackness rippled outward like a curtain being pulled. A vast mirror of void opened before them.
"Let me show you," she said, her voice softer now, less a command and more a plea. "Before I was feared. Before I fell. You were there, Markos… even if you do not remember."
He instinctively reached out — and in a flash of silver flame, the mirror bloomed with color and sound.
A sky of crimson twilight stretched over golden fields. Towers of ivory rose in the distance, their spires humming with power. The world felt ancient, not in the sense of age, but of origin — as if this place existed before time had a name.
Markos saw himself — younger, adorned in regal blue cuirassier armor, flamboyant but humble, a mercenary once known to fight for coin and glory. Not a king. Not a hero. A man who wore no crown, but still knelt in front of a goddess.
He was laughing beside her — not as Scelestus, but as Veltrana. Divine. Radiant. Not feared, but worshipped.
They walked through a garden of crystal trees, laughter echoing in the air.
"This place…" Markos whispered.
"Was once the capital of the first realm," she said, watching the memory unfold. "You were not born noble. You were a mercenary. The Blue Cuirassier. Flamboyant, foolish… a favorite of the ladies, though too naive to act the part."
In the vision, the younger Markos — roguish, daring, but sincere — knelt before her, pressing a ring — simple, unadorned — into her hand.
"I never wanted a throne," he said in the memory. "I only wanted you."
The real Markos blinked, staggered by the raw devotion in his past self's voice.
"You promised to return," Scelestus whispered, watching her memory-self cry tears of golden light. "You left for a final battle. And you never came back."
In the vision, the world trembled. Ash fell like snow. Veltrana's screams tore through the sky as her temples were defiled, her name erased. The gods turned against her, branding her a traitor, a temptress, a demon.
"I searched through lifetimes," she said, trembling. "For a sign. For you. And when I found you again — reborn, shattered, running — I followed. Always just behind the veil."
Markos fell to his knees as the memory faded, crushed by the weight of the truth.
"You… loved me."
"I still do. Even now. Even after the fall. Even after all the blood and fire."
Her voice cracked.
"You forgot me, Markos. But I never forgot you."
Markos looked up, eyes glassy, heart raw.
"Then why didn't you tell me? Why hide behind masks, titles, other faces?"
She knelt beside him.
"Because I feared you'd run again."
Silence passed between them. No longer god and mortal. No longer enemy and protector.
Just two broken souls, woven through centuries.
The Abyss pulsed with quiet malice, yet the darkness did not suffocate—it listened.
Markos stood still, though his heart thundered in his chest. The shifting shadows around him groaned like something ancient awakening.
"I saw it," he murmured. "A memory, a life that isn't mine… and yet it is."
Scelestus stepped closer, her form steady in the swirling void. Her expressions softened now—less demon, more goddess once lost.
"You carry a shard of yourself," she said, voice wrapped in aching reverence. "A splinter of a soul once beloved by me. But you—Markos of Constantinople—are more than a shadow."
His hand tightened on his sword hilt. "No more riddles."
He stepped forward, staring her down despite the storm within him. "Why am I here? Why this world? Why me?"
Scelestus met his gaze. Her eyes glowed not with wrath, but sorrow. "Because you were stolen."
Markos blinked.
"You were taken from the cycle," she said. "Pulled from death by a divine edict. I found your soul before it could fade. The other gods… they forbade me from interfering, but I couldn't let you go. Not again."
He staggered back, stunned. "You're saying I died?"
"Yes," she whispered. "At Constantinople. Cut down by treachery… and I—Veltrana—violated the Law of Echoes. I tore you from death and rewove your soul into this world. You were not meant to live again, not like this."
Markos stared at the ground. "So everything since then—me waking up here, the shrines, the symbols, the war…"
"…was set in motion the moment I defied the Veil," she finished. "Now the others come to correct what they see as a sin. They fear what you are becoming. What you were meant to become."
He looked up slowly. "And what is that?"
Scelestus stepped into the center of the abyssal platform. From the black sky, constellations flared into life—stars ancient and burning, twisting into a circular seal above them.
"You are the Blue Cuirassier," she said. "The one whose heart once bound the gods of old. When you remember… when you awaken fully… you will not just fight in this war."
She held out her hand.
"You will decide who wins it."
Markos didn't speak. He couldn't. His breath came in shallow bursts, not from fear—but from realization. The pieces were there. The signs. The voices in dreams. The memories bleeding into waking life.
And yet one truth remained beneath all of it.
"You brought me back," he said quietly, "because you loved me."
Scelestus said nothing, only nodded—once.
He stepped back, conflicted fury rising. "And if I choose to walk away?"
She smiled—but this time it was the kind that hurt. "Then I will watch you die again."
A long silence.
"I won't force you, Markos," she said. "But they will. The Veil Order is coming. The Pazzonians are but their pawns. This world needs a protector. And I…" her voice faltered, "I need you. Whatever you decide."
Markos clenched his fists. The void no longer frightened him. The gods did not frighten him.
What scared him was how familiar this all felt.
Markos narrowed his eyes, voice low. "Other gods? How many are there?"
Scelestus—no, Veltrana—turned away, her eyes glowing with melancholy as the starlit abyss began to show fragments of a forgotten age: crumbled temples, rivers of flame, armies bowing to altars now lost to time.
"Many," she said. "Once, the divine mantled the earth like stars in the heavens. Each land had its guardian. Astonicum… was mine."
She faced him again, and her voice was like an old song—half divine, half broken. "I ruled as protector, not queen. The forests, rivers, storms, and soul of this land responded to me. And you… you stood at my side. As my consort. My equal. The Flame of the South. We governed not through fear, but through bond—sacred, eternal."
Markos remained quiet, stunned.
"But mortals change," she continued bitterly. "The Nafonians grew restless. Their minds, once full of harmony and invention, began to seek beyond the veil. They found whispers—other voices. One of them… promised unity, power, dominion. Not worship of harmony, but submission through order."
The abyss swirled, and the image of a towering obsidian cathedral rose from shadow.
"The god of the Pazzonians. His name is forbidden among my kind, for he consumes, rewrites, silences. They call him Der Einbrenner—the Branding Flame. His followers wear order like armor, burn what they do not control, and bind the minds of kings to their sacred veil."
Markos tensed. "The Veil Order…"
She nodded. "Their priests, their inquisitors, their emperors… all serve him. They wish to conquer not just land—but memory, belief, even divinity. He created the Veil to suppress gods like me. To break us."
"And me?" Markos whispered.
"You were the heart that defied him," she said. "You rallied Scolacium and Florentine against the rising tide. But he knew. He feared what we were together. So they tore you from me."
Her voice cracked.
"Piece by piece. Through dreams. Through war. Through betrayal. Until you… disappeared."
The stars dimmed in the sky above, as though mourning. Her hand trembled at her side.
"I searched for you across ten thousand echoes of the world. Realms twisted by time and ash. Until… Constantinople. Until you fell again."
Markos closed his eyes. It was overwhelming, yet the ache inside him—something ancient—resonated with every word. The shards of his dreams. The familiarity of her voice. The recognition in the statue's face.
"The Veil wants me dead," he said.
"No," Veltrana replied. "They want you shackled. To twist you into a sword against me. A weapon to end Astonicum. But I will not let that happen again."
She took a step closer, and the air around them ignited softly.
"I would burn Yaegrafane to its roots before I let them take you again."
Markos was silent for a long time. Then finally, his voice returned—faint but firm.
Markos stood at the edge of the abyssal dais, hands trembling not from fear—but from something deeper. A tremor in the soul. The memory still clung to him like ash: the ring, the vow, the fall.
He closed his eyes.
A heartbeat echoed in the dark. Not his own.
Do you remember now?
Scelestus didn't speak. The voice came from within.
From the embers of a thousand lives.
Suddenly, the void beneath his feet rippled—then cracked. A line of molten light split the black stone, running out like veins. The Abyss itself recoiled, not in rage, but awe.
Scelestus stepped back, her lips parting in surprise.
"The seal…" she whispered.
Markos looked down at his hands. They glowed faintly—not with divine brilliance, but a fierce, flickering heat. Like something long-dormant stoked to life.
"What's happening?" he asked, barely above a whisper.
Scelestus moved toward him slowly, reverently, as if approaching an altar.
"You're awakening," she said. "Not just to memory. But to power. To the truth of what you once were."
She raised her hand, palm outward. A mark—circular, ringed with runes—flickered to life across her skin. Markos instinctively mirrored her.
The same sigil blazed into existence on his palm.
They stared at each other.
"You swore an oath before time," she said. "Not just to me, but to the heavens above and below. You were the Blue Cuirassier. The one meant to carry light into shadow."
Markos dropped to one knee, overwhelmed. The air around him now shimmered, distorting like heat haze. Flickers of light danced across his shoulders, like wings trying to form from memory alone.
"I'm not ready," he said.
"No one ever is."
Scelestus knelt beside him. "But you're not alone."
She took his hand and pressed her forehead to his.
"I failed you once," she said. "I will not do it again."
For a moment, there was peace.
Then—
The Abyss screamed.
Not in pain. Not in wrath.
But in warning.
A tear opened in the void above—sharp, jagged, and brimming with blinding silver light.
Markos winced. "What is that?"
Scelestus stood, her face darkening. "The Veil Order. They've found you."
Figures began to descend—tall, robed in light, their faces hidden by halos of flame. Not divine. Not holy.
Judges.
Hunters.
"So," one of them boomed, "the exiled flame still flickers."
Markos rose, sword in hand. Not in defiance. In readiness.
He looked to Scelestus. "Do I run?"
She shook her head.
"You burn."
The first of the emissaries descended, robes flaring like judgment itself. The air distorted under their presence—reality itself folding to accommodate beings not born of mortal law.
Markos tightened his grip on his sword. It was warm now. Not from the Abyss—but from him.
He stepped forward, every instinct screaming at him to flee. But he'd fled before. Not this time.
One of the beings raised a hand. Light coalesced into a blade of glass and silence.
"You are an aberration," it intoned. "Unmake yourself."
Markos took a breath.
"You first."
The thing didn't flinch.
Neither did Markos.
Until he turned his head slightly toward Scelestus, who stood behind him, arms crossed like this was some performance at a theater.
"Uh… you mind helping?" Markos muttered, eyebrows raised.
Scelestus blinked. "No."
A beat.
"No?" he repeated, incredulous.
"You need to awaken, not be babysat."
"They're literal murder angels!"
"Yes. And you're the Blue Cuirassier. Ancient. Flamboyant. Handsome. Go do something gallant."
Markos blinked. "That's not how that works."
Scelestus offered a shrug that somehow managed to be both divine and petty.
"It is now."
Another emissary raised a hand, power gathering like a storm.
Markos groaned, dragging his sword up into a ready stance.
"By all the Saint George.." he muttered. "Fine. Guess I'll improvise."
He dashed forward.
The blade in his hand caught flame—not fire of the Abyss, nor hell, nor heaven. It was memory. The fire of forgotten love, ancient vows, and a man too stubborn to die twice.
"COME ON THEN!" he shouted. "LET'S SEE WHAT ALL THE DIVINE WRATH'S ABOUT!"
Scelestus, watching from her obsidian perch, smiled faintly.
"There he is."
The emissaries moved like starlight given form — impossibly fast, unnaturally fluid, their voices echoing across the Abyss like thunder caught in a jar.
Markos, meanwhile, was yelling.
"You want a duel? THEN FINE! WE DO THIS MY WAY."
He surged forward, the spatha drawn in a blur of silver-blue light. It wasn't glowing because of enchantment — no. It was memory, radiating from him, from the armor that had reformed itself over his body: the legendary cerulean breastplate of the Blue Cuirassier. Stylized bronze and steel shimmered like sapphire lightning across his frame. A cape billowed behind him, purely for aesthetic reasons.
"Finally," he muttered mid-sprint. "Something dramatic enough for this damn cape."
One emissary shot forward — a whip of celestial thread spiraling toward Markos' throat.
He ducked, slid across obsidian ground, and came up with a sharp upward slash that cracked the air like glass. The whip recoiled, severed.
"Bet you didn't expect Kontakarion footwork!" he barked, jabbing a finger at the stunned enemy.
He pivoted — blade up, shield manifesting around his arm in translucent blue fire. Another emissary dived toward him from above, spear descending like divine judgment.
"NOPE!" Markos shouted — and rolled sideways, narrowly avoiding decapitation. He retaliated with a spinning, one-handed slash pure Eastern Roman cavalry drill, smooth and flashy.
The enemy's mask cracked.
"Oh look!" Markos grinned. "I can hurt you."
Another tried to circle him.
He threw his blade.
Yes. He threw it.
It spiraled through the void like a comet, piercing the void-born being clean through before boomeranging back into his outstretched hand.
Markos blinked.
"Okay I didn't mean to do that but I'm keeping it."
From afar, Scelestus cupped her chin, amused. "The Emberborne's instincts return…"
"STOP CALLING ME THAT!" Markos shouted mid-duck as another holy laser-thing blasted past him. "I'M LITERALLY WEARING BLUE!"
He vaulted onto a platform of pure memory — the battle itself now obeying his flair. He fought like a man out of time: Parma in one hand, spatha in the other, cape somehow never catching fire.
A beam of divine wrath slammed into him — or tried to.
Instead, it bent.
Markos didn't flinch. He just raised his shield — now glowing with six-pointed sigils — and reflected it back toward its caster, knocking them out of the fight in a dazzling explosion of screaming stars.
"RIGHT! Next one of you says I'm an aberration, I'm stabbing your soul."
The final emissary hissed. Their voice splintered into multiple tongues:
"You are a mistake… a romance that should have stayed dead."
Markos leveled his sword.
"Buddy. I am a romance. Just ask her."
He charged.
This time, his sword lit with all the fury of his broken lives — the kind of flame that burns quietly, like love remembered and never truly lost. With a single upward arc, he cleaved the last emissary in half. They shattered into silver petals and burned away.
The Abyss fell quiet.
Scelestus clapped slowly, eyes twinkling.
"The Blue Cuirassier… still dramatic as ever."
Markos dropped his shield with a groan.
"My legs hurt. My arms hurt. My soul probably hurts too."
He turned toward her.
"Tell me that was it."
She smiled, walking toward him.
"That was only the first act."
Markos let out a long sigh, pulled off his helmet, and rubbed his temples.
"I hate divinity, Christ would be so mad at me."
The stars above the Abyss dimmed, as if giving space to silence. The obsidian ground beneath Markos shifted, transforming into something softer — smooth marble, reminiscent of a palace long-forgotten. Shadows retreated. The air was no longer heavy with battle or judgment.
Just the two of them now.
Markos sat down with a groan on a carved bench that hadn't been there before. The remnants of power flickered off him like sparks from a dying forge. His cape draped messily over one shoulder, and his cuirass let out a weary clunk as he leaned back.
"Don't suppose you've got a wine cellar in this divine pit?"
Scelestus, now in her calmer form — long silver-black hair flowing like ink, her gown no longer armored but elegant — approached without a word. She raised a goblet.
"It's ambrosia. Will do worse things to you than wine."
"Great," Markos muttered, taking it anyway. "I've already fought space angels. Might as well hallucinate on god-juice."
He took a sip. His eyebrows lifted.
"Okay that's unfairly good."
A quiet chuckle escaped her lips — one that sounded… human. Not a demon queen. Not a goddess. Just a woman, worn by years.
She sat beside him, close but not touching.
They both stared ahead — into nothingness. The Abyss was calm. Peaceful, even.
After a long pause, Markos finally asked:
"Was any of it real? Me… the cuirassier? You?"
Scelestus's voice was barely a whisper.
"Everything. Every battle. Every kiss. Every name you gave me — even the cruel ones, when you forgot who I was."
He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.
"I'm… not good at this, you know. Feelings and all."
"I know," she said, a smile dancing on her lips. "You never were."
He side-eyed her.
"So, you've been disguising yourself as a Stratega, a noblewoman, a demoness, and a goddess — all for what? Watching over me?"
"To protect you," she answered quietly. "Even from yourself."
There was a long beat.
"That's… really unhealthy," he muttered.
"Yes," she said. "But love is not known for being wise."
Markos almost laughed — then caught the look in her eyes. Not mocking. Not manipulative.
Just... tired. And maybe scared.
"You care," he said. "Too much, maybe."
She didn't answer.
Markos leaned forward, setting the goblet down. Then, in a softer voice:
"Do you still see me as that same man from before?"
She hesitated. "No."
He blinked.
"Oh."
She turned toward him. "You're stronger now. Wiser. Still stubborn. Still reckless. But now you fight not just to return — but to belong."
Markos scratched his chin.
"That was… weirdly poetic."
She leaned in, gently — forehead barely brushing against his.
"You've always inspired poetry. You just didn't know it."
A beat passed.
"...Don't kiss me," he warned, half-joking.
"I won't," she replied with a sly smile. "Not yet."
He groaned and leaned back again.
"Gods help me."
"I am a god," she said. "And I think I'm making it worse."
They sat there in silence. The weight of the past lingered between them — heavier than armor, softer than memory.
Somewhere beyond the Abyss, the world stirred again. War, politics, prophecy.
But for a few stolen minutes, there was peace.