"Every god we worship is just a man we refused to let die."
— Alaric the Mad
The temple was silent now.
No hymns. No screams.
Only the faint echo of what once was devotion.
Lilith no longer knelt before me. She stood at the altar, back turned, tracing the sigils we once carved together.
Her fingers shook, leaving small streaks of blood where the blade had nicked her skin.
Ritual by ritual, she was trying to undo what we had made — as if erasing me from the divine could save us from the inevitable.
I watched her, the way she breathed, the way her shoulders trembled like something breaking under invisible weight.
Once, I thought I knew her completely.
Now, every heartbeat felt like a stranger's rhythm.
"Do you regret it?" I asked.
My voice carried across the temple, low and hollow.
She didn't turn. "Regret implies there was ever a choice."
Her words cut deeper than any blade.
And yet, somewhere beneath the grief, I felt the same hunger — the same damnable need that had drawn us together in the first place.
She still loved me.
Even if she wanted to kill the god I had become.
The cult was dying. Their faith no longer fed the divinity; it poisoned it.
Every prayer sounded like accusation. Every offering, like apology.
I could feel their doubt corroding the marrow of my being.
At night, I began to mourn myself.
To sit by the altar and listen to the silence that once sang my name.
Power had turned cold. Worship had become rot.
And Lilith —
She was drifting away. Not out of hatred, but out of mercy.
She looked at me one last time that night — her eyes not of a lover, nor a disciple, but of someone about to bury what she once adored.
"You were never meant to be worshipped," she whispered.
And I — foolish, divine, broken — could only smile.
"Then why did you teach me how?"
The silence that followed was holy.
And somewhere deep inside it, something began to die.