Chapter Text
Mydeimos’ death marks the day of his birth.
He is breathed back to life by a flash of dawn beneath a mask. Only to be killed once again by the exhale of his eternal rage.
Too cursed to cross the Styx. That is the phrase his father likely uses to describe him. Mydeimos likes to think his stubbornness makes even the Titan of Death turn him away.
Invincible solely for the tenth thoracic vertebrae; the reason for his thirst for revenge, he is cast off a cliff as soon as Gorgo pushes him out of her womb. There, he plunges face-first into the Sea of Souls and not a drop of immortality trickles down his newborn back.
That affliction becomes both his curse and his blessing. It allows him to survive those nine years of perdition with ease. As the nymphs' songs affirm: “The Chrysos Heir who seeks the Coreflame of Strife must suffer a thousand deaths, be bathed in blood on the way home, and endure only the madness of fate, for one must kill a god to become one.”
Eventually, destiny forces him to swim in the blood of Castrum Kremnos.
Mydeimos dies hundreds of times; a thousand ends in which he succumbs to the hostile depths of the abyss. Souls try to claim him, yet he is an heir of Nikador and disallows himself the rest he doesn't deserve.
His companion’s deaths aren't foretold by the oracle, so he sees no need to take precautions. He trusts them. They are strong, often elites on par with the kingdom that fuels the war.
His immortal pride is so great that he forgets about the frailty of mortal men.
Perdikkas falls first. Ironic, in the eyes of the priestesses. Before joining the Kremnoan Detachment, they call him a source of light in their tongue, and for good reason, as this warrior is the finest doctor in the entire kingdom. Mydeimos uses the word ironic because Hephaestion himself once declared that not even he, the greatest medic in decades, could cure his illness.
Mydeimos thinks that if he buys some time, Perdikkas might heal his comrade. Alas, he never gets the chance. Ladonian soldiers soon pierce him with a hemlock-infused arrow.
That day, the exiled prince ensures the smoke from Perdikkas’ pyre touches the welkins and blankets Ladon in ash. The doctor dies a dignified but predictable death. Such enemies are known as cowards; men who rob healers of life mid-treatment with their bows, the weapons of those who fear to die.
With the loss of their best medic comes the fall of their fastest runner, Leonius. He embodies lightning; his speed makes him the greatest messenger Kremnos has ever bred. He circles the walls of Aenionis in the seconds it takes Mydei to drive a spear through a soldier's heart, then rip it free.
On the night of the fiercest winter storm, Aidonia launches an assault and corners the detachment in a bottomless swamp. Again, cowardice unfit even of a mere citizen of Kremnos, the city where mothers slit thieves’ throats with the same knives they use to cut bread.
Leonius sacrifices himself to cover the army's retreat. His first and last race. Enemy soldiers hack off his legs, and his body is never recovered.
And so it goes, the immortal lives out the rest of his exile drenched in the blood of his friends.
Twenty days after Leonius's death, Ptolemy and his cavalry are ambushed by Aidonian rebels inside the city and crushed beneath toppling obelisks, thus leaving the record of their exploits incomplete.
In the penultimate year of his exile, Mydeimos swears to protect the rest of his comrades, even if it means dying a hundred more times. He learns the value of mortality too late, for by then, Peucesta has already thrown himself chest-first into the flames to shield Mydeimos's immortal body.
He is a skilled and taciturn musician.
He lures enemy soldiers into Aenionus with his melodies, buying the army invaluable time. When his foes uncover the ruse, they set the city ablaze. Peucesta's last words are later found engraved on a clay tablet: "All rise for Mydeimos, our eternal king of Kremnos."
By then, tears evaporate on Mydeimos’ skin. The blood of Kremnos burns like fire; with his hands, he fishes, and in that same instant, he cooks. No one sees him weep.
No matter how he flees the prophecy, the omen of decay pursues him even in his dreams, where the faces of his comrades drown him in his own golden blood. Their deaths are as inevitable as his descent into darkness.
Mydeimos fights to stall fate’s march. Yet the nymphs have not lied, and what once seems delirium clears like the fog beyond Kremnos’ murals.
It happens after his father's death. Just as foretold, King Eurypon bleeds dry at the demigod's feet, rigid as a statue. Legends claim the exile's pupils hold not arrogance, but relief. His skin gleams gold like a heroic monument.
He inhales, exhales, and without a word, withdraws to the chambers of the man who had once been his hequetai.
On the eve of the duel, Hephaestion’s illness flares anew, but he conceals his condition from Mydeimos. The most predictable end becomes the most unforeseen.
He lies even on his deathbed when Mydeimos returns from battle. With his last breath, he bids the crown prince farewell and implores him to lead their people back home.
Never again does Mydeimos hear his seal-bark laughter as he pours milk into an already overflowing chalice. “This is sacrilege to pomegranate juice,” Hephaestion often teases.
He remains gentle, blending the spill until crimson fades to soft pink.
Mydeimos confesses this only to him: the oracle speaks of a prince dipped in blood, not of one who’d drink it. The less red, the better.
Despite Hephaestion’s squalid frame, Mydeimos forever remembers his relentless ferocity in battle.
After he faces his father, Mydeimos buries the remnants of his father's surname alongside his thirst for revenge. He calls himself Mydei now.
When the ruler leads his people to Okhema and safeguards them in the sacred city, the last shreds of his reputation crumble beneath their scorn.
“Mydeimos! You treacherous ingrate, you coward who has forsaken the spirit of Kremnos.
“Your noble blood should not be wasted on such unworthy individuals! You should be rallying your armies and plundering resources to carve out a path for Kremnos's survival in these apocalyptic times!
“That supposed Flame-Chase Journey has distorted you beyond recognition, my king! A king requires no equals, no allies, no doubts, no rescue—if any semblance of your clear mind lingers, command us! Let Kremnos's glory eclipse all other city-states!”
The words slide off him like rain. Why would a prince of Kremnos refuse honor? Their rightful king has returned, why not lead them home?
All because of one simple fact: the campaign isn't over.
He considers it, but by that time, Kremnos’ glorious fortresses are a wasteland. Only darkness and insanity thrive there.
Defying dissent, he guides the Kremnoan Detachment to Okhema. A ten-day duel with this millennium’s Deliverer is what aids his resolve to stay. Mydeimos owes his five friends Kremnos’ survival, after all. One oath and the golden baths seal the prophecy: “One day, you shall die with a wound on your back.”
For years, he flees. An exile cursed by visions he once dismissed as folly; he runs like Leonius and chases the naive illusion that he can outwit the nymph’s words. He is no tyrant, unlike his father. No reckless king hungry for war.
His only sin rests on the way he loves his people. Love for the urns he buries when Thanatos claims their spirits, for the countless names he whispers to the rust-flavored winds of Amphoreus when invaders ransack the fields.
No matter where they settle, he knows their glory will endure when ‘Strife’ arrives. And when the tide takes him, he’ll die with the knowledge that he fought until his last breath.
The Deliverer once tells him no path pleases all. He is right. For his people, shackled to ancient ways, Mydeimos can only melt the chains of tradition until they are forced to march into the new era.
There is no word for ‘fear’ in the Kremnoan dictionary, but the hard consonants of his southern borders do assemble into something close; a word for the dread that prophesied destiny stirs in him. One day, insanity will claw at his throat and drag him back into the abyss.
Until the Sea of Souls, so vast and merciless, reclaims its kin; and his strength, his worth, becomes measured in blood and failure, he will raise his fists and roar his plight to the skies beyond Aquila.
“Listen well: if there ever comes a day when we meet again on the battlefield, and I stand opposed to the flame-chase, remember to stab your sword into my back through my tenth thoracic vertebrae. That’s my weak spot, and the only way to kill me.”
He can sprint against the turning world and outpace the eternal dawn that looms like a blade on his back. Before morning befalls, he can block the sun itself. His legs can carry him around Amphoreus all he wants, and still, his death remains as certain as madness.
As the last prince of Kremnos, he strides forward to meet his fate. The pain of seizing Strife’s Coreflame and becoming what he was always meant to be: Nikador’s heir. A ruler remembered as the traitor who once bathed in the blood of his own people.
And so, he alone will step into the blackened maw of his birthplace, ascend the throne, and wait for the tide to swallow him.
“Hephaestion, Perdikkas, Leonnius, Ptolemy, Peucesta… your names will not be forgotten by history.”
— A man’s handwriting