Eryndor' POV
The test came sooner than I expected.
His name was Marcus, and he was one of the newer followers. He had come to the warehouse three times, listening quietly to the discussions about freedom and choice. He never asked questions, but he always stayed until the end, his eyes intense and focused.
I should have paid more attention to him.
It was Sera who brought me the news. She ran into the warehouse one morning, her face pale and her hands shaking.
"Something has happened," she said. "Something bad."
I stood up quickly. "What?"
"It is Marcus. He went to the eastern market last night. He was arguing with a merchant about prices, saying that the merchant should not get to decide the cost of food without input from the people who buy it. The merchant told him to leave. Marcus refused. He said he had the right to stand wherever he wanted, that the high gods did not own the market. The merchant called for temple guards, and Marcus..." She stopped, struggling to get the words out.
"What did he do?" I asked, though I already knew it was something terrible from the look on her face.
"He attacked one of the guards. He took the guard's weapon and fought back. He injured two of them before they subdued him. And the whole time he was shouting about freedom and your name."
The words hit me like ice water. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe.
This was exactly what Celestara had warned me about. This was exactly the kind of thing that would make them seal me again.
"Where is Marcus now?" I asked.
"The temples have him. They are going to hold a public judgment tomorrow."
I looked at Lyra, who had been listening from across the room. Her face was grim.
"This is bad," she said quietly. "The temples will use this to prove that your teachings lead to violence. They will say that freedom without control destroys order."
"They will be right," I said. "I gave Marcus ideas about freedom, and he used them to justify attacking people. This is my fault."
"No," Lyra said. "Marcus made his own choice. You did not tell him to attack anyone."
"But I planted the seed. I gave him the words that made him think he was justified."
Kael had been standing near the door. He spoke up now. "What will you do? Will you defend him?"
I did not answer immediately. This was the moment Mira had warned me about. Someone had used their freedom to cause harm. Now I had to decide how to respond.
If I defended Marcus, I would be saying that freedom included the right to violence when someone felt their rights were being violated. That was a dangerous path, one that could lead to exactly the kind of chaos my siblings had sealed me to prevent.
But if I condemned Marcus, I would be saying that freedom had limits, that there were right and wrong ways to exercise it. Which meant I would be judging and controlling, just like my siblings did. Just like I had promised not to do.
"I need to think," I said. "Give me time."
I left the warehouse and walked through the city. It was mid-morning, and the streets were full of people going about their assigned tasks. They moved in orderly patterns, no one rushing or pushing, everyone polite and distant. The perfect city my siblings had built.
As I walked, I felt people's eyes on me. They knew who I was now. The forgotten god who had returned. Some looked at me with curiosity. Others with fear. A few with anger.
I found myself at the eastern market, the place where Marcus had attacked the guards. It was busy as always, vendors selling their goods at prices set by the temples, buyers purchasing exactly what their household allotment allowed them. Everything is organized. Everything is controlled.
I stopped at a food vendor's stall. The woman behind the counter looked at me nervously.
"Can I help you?" she asked.
"The man who attacked the guards here," I said. "Marcus. Did you see what happened?"
She nodded. "He was shouting at old Teven, the grain merchant. Saying the prices were unfair. Saying people should have a say in how much things cost."
"And what do you think?" I asked. "Are the prices unfair?"
She glanced around, making sure no one was listening too closely. "They are what they have always been. The temples decide based on production and need. It works. Everyone gets what they require."
"But what if you want more than what you require?" I asked. "What if you want to save extra grain, or buy more than your allotment?"
"Why would I want to do that?" she asked. "The temples ensure we have exactly what we need. Wanting more is just greed."
I studied her face. She believed what she was saying. She had been taught that wanting anything beyond what you were given was wrong, and she had accepted it completely.
"Thank you," I said and moved on.
I spent the rest of the day talking to people in the market, asking them about Marcus, about freedom, about what they thought of the way the city was run. Most of them gave similar answers. The system worked. The order was good. Freedom was dangerous.
But a few, a very few, said something different. They spoke quietly, looking around to make sure no one heard. They said they understood Marcus's frustration. They said the system felt suffocating sometimes. They said they wished they could make more of their own choices.
By evening, I had made my decision.
I returned to the warehouse where Lyra and the others were waiting.
"I am going to the judgment tomorrow," I said. "And I am going to speak on Marcus's behalf."
"Even though he attacked people?" Thorn asked. He had been lingering in the warehouse, still bitter about his place in this new world.
"Yes," I said. "Because I need to explain something that I did not make clear enough before. Freedom does not mean the right to harm others. Freedom means the right to make your own choices as long as those choices do not take away someone else's freedom. Marcus forgot that. Or I failed to teach it clearly. Either way, I need to correct it."
"The temples will not care about your explanations," Thorn said. "They will use this to condemn you."
"Probably," I said. "But I have to try anyway. Because if I do not define what freedom means, then people like Marcus will define it through their actions. And their definition will be wrong."
That night, I barely slept. I lay on the floor of the warehouse, staring at the ceiling, thinking about what I would say. How do you defend freedom while condemning someone who thought they were exercising it? How do you draw lines without becoming the kind of controlling authority you claimed to oppose?
I still did not have good answers when morning came.
The judgment was held in the central square, the same place where I had first manifested. Hundreds of people gathered to watch. The temple priests brought Marcus out in chains. His face was bruised, and he walked with a limp. When he saw me in the crowd, his eyes lit up with hope.
The head priest, a severe woman named Thalia, stood before the crowd and announced the charges. "Marcus, son of Elena, you are accused of violence against temple guards. You attacked without provocation, causing injury to two servants of the high gods. How do you answer?"
Marcus lifted his chin. "They tried to silence me. I was speaking about freedom, about our right to question the way things are run, and they tried to take me away for correction. I defended myself. That is not a crime. That is my right."
"You have no right to violence," Thalia said coldly. "The high gods give order. You bring chaos. You will be taken for correction and held until you understand your place."
"No," I said, stepping forward. The crowd parted around me, people moving back quickly. "Let me speak."
Thalia's eyes narrowed. "This is a temple matter."
"It is a matter that involves my teachings," I said. "I will speak, or you will have to silence me by force. And I do not think you want to do that in front of all these people."
She considered for a moment, then nodded curtly. "Speak then, forgotten god. Defend your followers."
I walked to the center of the square and turned to face the crowd. "Marcus is right that he should be allowed to question the way things are run. He is right that freedom means having a voice. But he is wrong about what he did. Freedom is not the right to attack people. Freedom is not the right to take what you want by force. Freedom is the ability to make your own choices while respecting others' ability to do the same."
Marcus stared at me, his expression shifting from hope to confusion to betrayal.
"When Marcus attacked the guards, he took away their freedom," I continued. "He took away their right to be safe. He turned his frustration into violence, and that is not what I teach. That is not what freedom means. If we want to build a world where people can make their own choices, it has to be a world where those choices do not include harming others."
"So you condemn him?" Thalia asked. She sounded almost pleased.
"I condemn his actions," I said. "But I do not believe he should be taken for correction. Correction is erasure. It destroys the person to make them fit the system. Instead, Marcus should face consequences that teach rather than erase. He should make amends to the people he hurt. He should work to repair the damage he caused. And he should learn from this mistake so he can do better in the future."
"That is not how justice works in Aethermere," Thalia said.
"Then maybe Aethermere's version of justice needs to change," I said. I looked at the crowd. "You cannot have freedom without responsibility. You cannot have a choice without consequences. But those consequences should help people grow, not destroy them. That is the difference between justice and control."
The crowd murmured. I could feel them struggling with my words, trying to reconcile freedom with limits, choice with responsibility.
Thalia looked like she wanted to argue, but before she could, someone else stepped forward. It was Tessa, the young woman from the garden who had asked me about freedom days ago.
"I think he is right," she said. Her voice was shaky but determined. "Marcus did wrong, but destroying his mind through correction is not the answer. Let him make amends. Let him learn. That is more just than what the temples do."
Another person stepped forward, then another. Not everyone, but enough. A group of maybe twenty people, standing with me.
Thalia's face grew dark. "You are all in danger of correcting yourselves if you continue this defiance."
"Then you will need a much larger correction facility," Lyra said, stepping forward to join the group. "Because we are not backing down."
For a long moment, no one moved. The tension in the square was thick enough to choke on.
Then, from above, light descended. Not harsh like before, but soft. Celestara manifested, alone this time, her face unreadable.
"Enough," she said. Her voice was not loud, but everyone heard it. "Eryndor is right. Marcus will not be taken for correction. He will make amends to those he harmed and face consequences that fit his actions. This is my judgment."
Thalia looked shocked. "But High Goddess, we have always…"
"I know what we have always done," Celestara said. "But Eryndor has raised a point worth considering. Perhaps it is time for some things to change."
She looked at me, and I saw something in her eyes I had not seen before. Respect.
Then she was gone, and the judgment was over.
Marcus was released from his chains. He walked toward me slowly, his face confused.
"You defended me," he said. "But you also condemned me."
"Yes," I said. "Because both things were true. You deserve freedom, Marcus. But freedom includes the responsibility not to harm others. If you cannot understand that, then freedom will destroy you."
He nodded slowly, still processing. Then he walked away, heading toward the two guards he had injured. I watched him go and hoped he would learn from this.
Lyra came to stand beside me. "That was brave. You could have lost all your followers by condemning him."
"I would rather lose followers than teach the wrong lessons," I said.
She smiled. "Then maybe you really are changing."
I looked at the crowd dispersing and felt the weight of what had just happened. This was only the beginning. There would be more tests. More mistakes. More moments where I had to choose between easy answers and honest ones.
But for now, I have passed the first test.
And that was something.