Chapter 5 – Ash in the Light
Morning came pale and wrong.
The sun that rose over the ruins was colorless, its warmth hollow. Sand shimmered like glass, and where the light touched, shadows flinched as if burned.
Elian woke to find the god sitting at the edge of the temple's threshold, staring at the horizon. The black veins on his neck had faded overnight, but faint cracks still laced his skin—delicate, gleaming like gold leaf mending porcelain.
"You didn't rest," Elian said.
"I listened," the god replied.
"To what?"
He turned his head slightly. "The world dreaming of its lies."
Elian joined him, the air between them heavy with silence. "You speak like poetry and prophecy had a child," he murmured.
"That is what creation is," the god said. "The impossible, born screaming."
For a heartbeat, he looked almost human. Elian wanted to ask a hundred questions—about his name, his past, why he created a world he could no longer love—but the god's attention had shifted, eyes narrowing toward the dunes.
"They're close," he whispered.
Elian stiffened. "The Council's men?"
"No." His voice darkened. "Their echoes."
Before Elian could ask, the air changed. Light began to move against its will—stretching across the sand in long, trembling fingers. The shadows of the ruins bent backward, crawling toward the brightness as if dragged by unseen strings.
A figure walked out of the glare.
At first, Elian thought it was a traveler—robed, graceful, its face hidden beneath a veil of white. But when it stepped closer, he saw the truth: its feet left no prints, and its veil shimmered with faces that flickered in and out like dying candles.
"Stay behind me," the god murmured.
The figure spoke in a voice that wasn't one, but many. "Beloved Creator." The sound was like a choir gasping through one throat. "Return to the light. The world is safe in our hands."
The god's smile was sharp, cruel. "You always did love speaking in my language."
The figure's head tilted. "You are dying. Come home, and we will preserve you."
"Preserve?" He laughed softly. "You drain the living to keep your corpses shining."
Light flared in the saint's hands. "Then decay with your sins."
The blast struck the sand where they stood, turning it to glass. Elian fell backward, shielding his face. The god didn't move. He raised one hand, and the air thickened, shattering the light into a rain of embers.
The saint screamed—a terrible, melodic sound—and lunged again. This time its veil fell away, revealing a face made of many: eyes and mouths flickering across translucent skin, each whispering a prayer that bled into the next.
Elian felt bile rise in his throat. "What—what is that?"
The god's voice was quiet, almost tender. "A child of my light. What they made from what they stole."
He stepped forward. Each word he spoke trembled the air. "Return what is mine."
The saint's body convulsed. Light burst from its chest, spiraling toward the god like smoke drawn to flame. He inhaled it, eyes burning brighter, and for a moment the cracks in his flesh sealed.
When it was done, the saint collapsed—empty, pale, dissolving into dust.
Elian stared. "You… you killed it."
"It was never alive," the god said.
The wind scattered the ash. Silence settled again.
Elian swallowed, his hands shaking. "You absorbed its light."
"My light," the god corrected softly. "They fractured me into seven pieces. Now one returns."
He turned to Elian, and the world seemed to tilt. The god's face was more radiant now—terribly beautiful, almost unbearable to look at. His shadow stretched long behind him, spined with light.
Elian's breath caught. "And when you have them all?"
The god's gaze met his. "Then the world will remember what it means to kneel."
Something in his tone chilled Elian. The warmth from before—the weary gentleness—was gone.
He stepped back, voice unsteady. "That's not salvation."
"It is correction," the god said. "Do you not see what they've done? They feed on the people you call holy. They've made temples from blood. I gave them will, and they turned it into worship."
Elian shook his head. "Maybe they can change—"
"Mortals do not change," the god said, voice low. "They only rot differently."
He turned away, but Elian caught his sleeve. "You said you wanted the truth. Maybe this is your test."
The god paused. For an instant, his hand trembled. "You speak as if you know me."
"I'm trying to," Elian said. "You said your name wasn't Durvasa. Then tell me what it is."
The god's eyes softened—almost pitying. "Not yet."
"Why?"
"Because the last time someone spoke it," he whispered, "the world burned."
A shiver ran down Elian's spine.
The god looked toward the east, where a column of light now reached the clouds. "They know I've taken back a piece. They'll send more soon."
He started walking.
Elian hesitated only a moment before following. "Where are we going?"
"To the next relic." His tone was calm again, but his eyes gleamed with a strange hunger. "And perhaps, if fate is cruel, to the place where they buried my heart."
Elian frowned. "Your heart?"
"Yes," the god murmured. "The Council keeps it beneath their cathedral, still beating to fuel their light."
Elian stopped walking. "You mean—they're alive because—"
The god smiled faintly. "Because my heart refuses to die."
Before Elian could speak, a low rumble rolled through the ground. The sand beneath their feet cracked, glowing faintly from below. A whisper—familiar and sweet—rose from the earth:
"Elian Vale," it sang. "Do you know who you freed?"
Elian froze. The voice was the same one that had whispered to him in dreams before the excavation. But it hadn't sounded like a god. It had sounded like a woman.
He turned toward the god—only to find that the glow around him had darkened to crimson.
The god smiled without mirth. "It seems," he said quietly, "you are not the only one who heard my call."