Chapter Text
Light Calendar Year 4936, Day 6, Month of Freedom
Somewhere in Amphoreus, a bell tolls. It makes no sound, but the world stills. Quiet, waiting.
Somewhere in Amphoreus, a single crack splinters rock in two. An executioner swings his blade, delivering a clean, precise blow. A flame rages high, then extinguishes completely, as if it was never meant to burn.
Somewhere in Amphoreus, a clock ticks. The world exhales, a single breath — not in relief, but in resignation. It trudges forward again, a silent march to its own end, this time a little faster, a little more shakily, as if it is a chariot with slackened reins, or a cart with three wheels instead of four.
Phainon of Aedes Elysiae feels this, in the form of an unsteady hand when he sharpens his blade. In the Everday, where the shadows are longer. There’s a hollowness in his bones that can’t quite be explained, fragility where the earth had once felt solid beneath his feet, silence where the skies had once echoed with the roar of a war god’s strikes, absence where there once had been messages carved into divine metal.
It is the rumors that spur him into action.
Marmoreal Market is, all things considered, lively as ever, even with the shadow of ruin hanging over the city’s head. And yet, underneath its gilded wares, uncertainty snakes through the civilians. Goods that were once affordable now saw their prices skyrocketing. Banter that had once been light-hearted are now snappish and borderline argumentative. Bartering for goods, once a common sight, is rare nowadays, with an increasing shortage creeping in, just as the Black Tide crawls steadily across Amphoreus like a giant serpent slowly closing its jaws around a world.
“I heard,” an elderly woman whispers to her companion, just as Phainon breezes past, “that some explorer, the adventurous fool, had ventured to the edges of Castrum Kremnos in an effort to search for treasure.”
Phainon stops, pretends to run his fingers over some carved porcelain pots in front of an antique store. Its shopkeeper babbles something about discounts and genuine goods. Phainon fixes a placating smile on his face and ignores him, focusing on the woman’s conversation.
“And?” her companion asks, leaning forward eagerly. His fingers drum rapidly on the wooden edges of his seat. The sound, though muffled by other distant chatter, is grating.
The elderly woman cackles. “He found absolutely nothing, save for what must be an army of monsters. Castrum Kremnos is a dead city, child. That fool was lucky to return with his limbs intact, though I heard that when he returned, he fainted from exhaustion.”
Her companion pouts. “Seriously? That’s it? And here I thought you finally had a good story to tell.”
“No story is complete without speculation,” the woman snaps back bitingly. “Here’s what I think. Castrum Kremnos is overrun. Perhaps its king is dead too, buried under the rubble of his fallen kingdom. And,” Phainon feels her gaze slide over to him, before it darts away just as quickly, “who knows how long Okhema can last.”
Phainon sets down the vase he had absentmindedly picked up with far more force than necessary, swearing under his breath. The shopkeeper flinches, his eyes wide, before his face turns dark with anger.
“Hey!” the shopkeeper shouts. “Be more careful, will you?” He points at a sign on the storefront. Written in capitalized, bolded letters are the words ‘once broken considered sold’.
Phainon reaches into his pocket and throws a few gold coins onto the table, where the porcelain vase sits, completely intact. It is a petty gesture akin to a bribe, one that Aglaea would have reprimanded him for. The shopkeeper chokes and splutters indignantly, before launching into a rant about fairness and integrity. Phainon tunes it out, spinning on his heel and hurrying out of the market.
He needs to find a dromas, and quickly.
The dromas he had borrowed from the city refuses to move the moment the last of Kephale’s light fades from the horizon. The Evernight sets in, slowly, and then all at once, with a chill that left goosebumps all over Phainon’s skin. From the saddle, he can see the jagged, towering spires of the fortress that is Castrum Kremnos, like spears thrust into the underside of a great beast. He urges the dromas forward, and it, the stubborn thing, refuses to budge.
When Phainon tries again, it lets out a loud bellow, stamping its feet hard on the ground, before roughly jostling Phainon off the saddle. His bag of supplies, attached to the dromas’ side, tumbles to the ground, spilling its contents — packed rations, canteens of water, a dromas whistle — all over the dirt.
“Seriously?” Phainon mutters as he lies winded, watching the dromas lumber leisurely back in the direction they had come from.
Prideful, selfish animals. No wonder Professor Anaxa had adored them.
It had taken a while before Phainon hauls himself to his feet, his back aching where he had landed awkwardly on the ground. At least his rations are salvageable, flattened as they are.
Phainon picks one up, grimacing as he unwraps it. It is a dry chunk of plain bread, and it tastes like sand when he bites into it. He washes it down with a bottle of water, then tosses their empty packagings onto the side of the road.
He takes what he can carry, and sets off down the trail towards Castrum Kremnos.
Castrum Kremnos is a city of ghosts. Crimson crystal shards spear the earth, and within them, Phainon sees the shadows of faceless soldiers, dead warriors of a past long buried beneath a Titan’s insanity. There are monster carcasses too, abandoned and left to decay in the aftermath of what must have been a devastating battle. Some are still alive, pinned helplessly beneath rubble and crystal alike, their limbs twitching jerkily like puppets on strings.
An army waits for him at the city’s centre.
The air is stifling, heavy with the stench of rot and iron. A black wave, like tar, roils steadily towards the great iron doors, beyond which the throne room, the last bastion of the castle, stands.
It does not take long for Phainon’s presence to be noted. One beast, with black ichor dripping from necrotic wounds in its side, turns to him. It unhinges its jaws, revealing knife-like fangs, and lets out a deafening scream.
The terrible sound rips into his eardrums and carries, echoing off ruined, vine-tangled walls and rusted ornaments. The horde stills, a motion so perfect and so machine-like it was hard to believe that they were once walking flesh indistinguishable from the civilians that lived so carefreely within Okhema’s walls. Then, they turn as one, surging forward to meet him.
Phainon’s greatsword has never felt heavier. He shoves it into the gut of one monster, then decapitates the next. Black ichor, viscous like oil, splatters across his armor, and the few droplets that land on his exposed skin sting sharply, as if Phainon had dipped his fingers into Aidonia’s frigid waters. A third beast swings at him wildly; Phainon ducks, but its claws manage to snag on his cloak, reducing the blue cloth to mere tatters, with ease.
That had been Aglaea’s cloak, woven with her bare hands and gifted to Phainon upon his arrival to Okhema. For all of her divinity, golden and radiant, she was still fated to meet a mortal’s end.
Tribbie had found her in her bed one morning a year ago, her sightless eyes devoid of light and golden threads slack. An ugly slash across her jugular spilled gold — the work of a cowardly assassin who slit her throat in her sleep, leaving her to drown in her own blood.
Phainon had raged, of course, pinning the act on the Okheman Council of Elders. Elder Caenis had been an assassin once, and for Phainon, that was more than enough. But there was not enough evidence, only speculation and his word as a Chrysos Heir, and in the end, the Council was deemed innocent by a neutral court. The Elders basked in their victory, the culprit was never caught, and Phainon and Tribbie quietly lit a funeral pyre in the Garden of Life, then buried Aglaea’s ashes in the dirt while embers smoldered behind them.
Tribbie had begged him then, with tears and soot lining her cheeks, for Phainon to follow prophecy till its end, no matter what happens. And Phainon had linked his pinky with hers, and promised her just that, with sour bile rising in his throat and the solemn burden of destiny like a rock settling in the pit of his stomach.
He had clung to that promise in that garden-turned-graveyard, even when Tribbie’s body had shrunk and shrunk until a plain red-headed doll was left in her place. He’d kept what little belongings the Chrysos Heirs had left behind, treasured them deeply as the last mementos Phainon had of them.
But now, Aglaea’s cloak was torn, ripped to shreds.
A red fog creeps in from the edges of his vision. His veins burn with a familiar feeling — hatred, just as blinding as the day the Black Tide had marched on Aedes Elysiae and left death and ruination in its wake.
A guttural roar tears through Phainon’s throat, the sound drowned out by inhuman screeches and cries. Sweat drips into his eyes, and the outlines of the monsters in front of him blur into indistinguishable, unrecognisable shadows. His blade, heavy in his hands and the hilt slick with his blood and the beasts’ ichor alike, cleaves through the Tide-turned. Rotting flesh and sinew split grotesquely to reveal pulsating, corroded, once-human organs held together underneath cracked yellowed bones.
The monsters fall, one after another. Phainon’s surroundings bleed into a black, iron-filled haze. He could no longer see the doors to Castrum Kremnos’ throne room in front of him; all he can do is chip away at the endless black swarm in front of him, in a futile effort to carve a path through the castle.
This is not a fight he could win alone.
“Mydei!” Phainon manages to shout. Sharp claws slice jagged wounds in his thigh. His blood paints the stone at his feet a deep gold, and the syllables of the name of his tongue end in an agonising scream. Phainon stumbles, narrowly avoiding a wild slash that would have rent his throat to ribbons. “Mydeimos!”
And still Castrum Kremnos slumbers; the golden Blade that hangs in the sky does not move, waiting for an order never issued, and no Lance descends through the clouds to annihilate the encroaching beasts. Phainon stands his ground alone, prophecy-chosen and yet still painfully, damningly human, in a battle meant to be fought with divine might.
If you find yourself faced with no other recourse , Mydei had whispered in the Vortex of Genesis five years ago, his gauntlets brushing against Phainon’s bare wrists and the touch a searing brand against his skin, then pray to that blade in the sky and loudly call out the name of the new god.
Liar. You promised. The thought went as swiftly as it came, but it leaves behind a bitter aftertaste that constricts his throat.
“Mydeimos!” Phainon screams again, the copper tang of golden blood on his tongue. His gaze seeks a response from the sacred light above. “Where are you, bastard! Are your promises so empty?”
And yet, only silence answers Phainon’s desperate prayer.
You promised!
“Coward!” Phainon roars, his greatsword carving through a row of monsters as he fights his way to the city’s heart, where Mydei’s throne no doubt still stands. His feet burn from exhaustion, and every swing sends a flare of agony through his trembling hands. Something in the hollow of his ribcage twists painfully; not from a mortal blow, no, but from an emotion Phainon feared to name. “Have you no honor, King of Kremnos?”
Why won’t you answer?
Step by arduous step, Phainon inches towards his goal, leaving a trail of bodies engulfed just as fast. In front of him, the Tide recedes, just barely, thinning just enough for Phainon to glimpse the great iron doors to the throne room. He could see the handles — worn, rusted brass, with knobs carved into the shape of lions’ heads — before the Tide swarms his vision again.
The minutes (or perhaps hours?) drag by. The doors grow in size before Phainon’s eyes, and eventually, Phainon reaches the final steps leading to the throne room. Blindly, he grasps for the brass handles, and slams his shoulder into the iron.
The doors do not move. Locked. Of course.
Phainon careens off-balance as a corrupted Titankin’s fists smash into the doors, inches from his head. He rolls with the impact with a shaky gasp, feeling rubble cut new wounds into his skin. His sword slips out of his grip. Something above him cracks faintly.
When he looks up, there is a sliver of an opening in the doors, caused by the impact of the Titankin’s blow.
It is enough.
Phainon peels himself off the ground, nearly slipping on ichor as he snatches his sword off the ground. The weight of it is familiar, comforting even, and he jams the flat of the blade through that tiny gap, and pushes.
The heavy doors groan, resisting, but Phainon’s will would not crumble here, not when Mydei is just behind these doors.
The doors give way, sluggishly, with an ear-splitting shriek of metal. Phainon squeezes through them, the metal grazing painfully against his skin, and they slam shut behind him, silencing the cries of the monsters outside.
The throne room is quiet, save for his dry, ragged breaths. A welcome blessing, all things considered. Phainon squints into the darkness. The golden light of torches lining the walls have long faded; not even embers remained.
Under the faint light of distant stars, a lone figure sits, hunched, on a crystal throne.
Matted blond hair, sticky with golden blood and black ichor, clings to pale, sallow skin. His armor is marred with soot, his once-red cloak stained a near-black, and jagged red glass slice bleeding wounds across his torso. The figure is still as a statue, save for the minute rise and fall of his chest.
Indignant, Phainon stomps forward until he is in front of the hunched figure.
“Mydei!” he snaps. “What in Kephale’s name are you doing?” Phainon jabs Mydei’s shoulder angrily. “There’s a whole army of mon—”
A clawed gauntlet wraps around Phainon’s neck, cutting off his next words.
Phainon sucks in a panicked breath as his sword clatters from his hands — or tries to, as Mydei’s fingers tighten around his neck. Black spots dance in the edges of Phainon’s vision as his windpipe constricts under the applied pressure, cutting off the flow of air into his lungs.
Phainon scrabbles weakly at the gauntlet, his bloodied hands leaving golden streaks on the metal. He kicks his feet wildly, but the toes of his boots ricochet off sturdy armor. Mydei does not loosen his grip at all despite Phainon’s struggle, seemingly content to let Phainon dangle in the air for his amusement like a predator toying with its prey.
“Sto—” Phainon gasps, choking off into a wet gurgle, “’Dei.”
Their gazes meet. Mydei’s eyes are hollow yellow orbs, devoid of recognition. They resemble that of a wild, untamed creature, driven more by instinct than rational thought.
With dawning horror, Phainon finds himself staring into the eyes of the Mad Titan Nikador.
Phainon opens his mouth again, to shout, to scream, to cry, to snap Mydei out of his Strife-induced craze, or simply to gasp for air, and Mydei—
Mydei flings Phainon across the room, as if he weighs nothing — an insect barely worth a god’s ire.
Something in Phainon’s chest snaps as his body slams into the stone wall. He crumples to the ground, a half-sob escaping his parted lips with a rush of air. When he raises his gaze, Mydei is stalking towards him, dragging a golden spear against the ground, the metal screeching shrilly against the stone.
Phainon’s hands slip on the ground as he tries to pull himself to his feet. His chest burns, pain spiking through his flesh with every breath. His leg buckles beneath him, sending another jolt of agony through it. Another broken bone.
Phainon wheezes weakly, sweat and tears blurring his vision. His eyes sting, and his hair, greyed with dust and soot, plasters to his forehead uncomfortably. There is an incessant ringing in his ears, and his head throbs in time with his erratic pulse.
“Mydei,” Phainon chokes out. “It’s me.”
Mydei is standing in front of him now, amber eyes more red than gold. The faintest hint of lucidity flickers in his gaze. He raises the spear, the weapon poised to kill.
Phainon closes his eyes.
Clang!
The blow never comes. When Phainon’s eyes snap open, the spear is buried in the stone mere inches from his head.
Above him, Mydei pants raggedly. The muscles in his jaw tighten and strain. His lips move, the faintest whisper of air hissing through his clenched teeth.
“Ki—ll—” Mydei rasps, the sound a guttural, barely-human thing.
“Ph—ai—”
Mydei was asking Phainon to kill him.
“No, no, no,” Phainon gasps, scrambling backwards. He digs his fingers into his scalp, clutching at the roots of his hair.
“I can’t. I can’t!” He can’t. He won’t. Not after he had sworn to no longer raise a sword against his friends. The destruction of Aedes Elysiae at the hands of the Black Tide had broken him. His friends, children still, had begged him for mercy, for they’d rather die as humans than wander as Tide-turned. The only salvation they had found was in a dulled, rusted blade Phainon found in his father’s shed.
Guilt had weighed heavy on his shoulders afterwards, gnawing at his bones like a hungry beast. It had taken months before Phainon had opened up to Aglaea about his past, and he had vowed to himself that never again would he let Aedes Elysiae repeat itself. Never again would he end the lives of his companions, for he would ensure he was strong enough to win against the Black Tide before it would ever come to that.
But now, Mydei was asking Phainon to kill him. Mydei, who had fervently insisted that there was no word for love in the Kremnoan Language, and yet had regaled myths of battles spanning cities over a princess’ beauty, for obsession so blinding that a mortal would dare stand against a god for his beloved.
Mydei, who had asked Phainon to watch his back with a lilting smirk and the confidence of a warrior who had already won a war. Mydei, who stands before him now, fighting against a Titan’s will in a struggle Phainon is unable to overcome.
The spear jammed into the wall dislodges, hitting the ground with a piercing jingle. It rolls languidly, and stops inches away from Phainon’s hand, as if mocking him.
A clawed hand pushes the spear into his palm. Despite himself, Phainon’s fingers curl around it. When he looks up, Mydei’s blank gaze bores into him. The hand that rests against the wall curls into a fist jerkily. It slams into the stone, cracking it. Mydei’s neck snaps to the side, teeth bared at an unseen enemy.
The hand that cradles his palm is gentle, tender, warm. It raises Phainon’s hand, letting Phainon run his fingers over the knobs of Mydei’s spine. It pauses when Phainon digs his thumb into the skin, that thin membrane of tissue and veins and nerves, above the tenth thoracic vertebrae, waiting.
“Please,” Phainon sobs quietly. His grasp on the spear trembles. “I can’t. Please, Mydei. I beg you. Please.”
Please don’t make me kill you. Please don’t go. Please don’t leave me alone. This weight is too much for one person to bear. I’m not a hero. I’m just a farm boy. I know how to make bread from dough, to tend to animals, to dance under the sunlight and to name the constellations in the night sky.
I don’t know how to save the world.
A weight drops onto his shoulder. Mydei’s forehead presses against the side of Phainon’s neck, heaving breaths ghosting his skin. He speaks again, the sound muffled.
“—ve—y—ou—”
Phainon screams, a wretched, cursed sound that leaves the taste of salt and iron behind, and drives the spear into Mydei’s flesh.
The body above him goes limp.
Phainon reaches up, his hands trembling as they grip Mydei’s shoulders. Blood, heavy and thick, trails in golden rivulets from his hands.
A feather-light kiss brushes against his neck. A shaky hand raises to brush its fingers against his skin, wiping away the tears that spilled down his cheeks.
“Phainon,” Mydei murmurs quietly. “Deliverer.”
“Deliverer!” Mydei had snapped in frustration, when Kephale’s light had bathed his skin in radiant gold.
“I’m here!” Phainon had laughed, carefree, looping his arm through Mydei’s and hauling him towards the market.
“I’m here,” Phainon sniffles, carding a hand through Mydei’s blood-caked hair. “I’m here.”
Mydei smiles, a weak, fragile thing.
“You are,” he says. “Promise me.”
“Anything.”
“Smile,” Mydei breathes. Phainon tries for one. It must look more of a grimace, wobbly and unsure and terribly out of place. Another tear slips down his cheek. Phainon scrubs it away frantically.
Mydei leans forward, a pained groan falling from his lips. With difficulty, his other hand comes up to cradle Phainon’s face. A kiss, warm and fleeting, brushes against his forehead.
“The next life,” Mydei says. The words lodge themselves deep in Phainon’s heart like a barbed arrow.
“See you tomorrow, Phainon.”
Under Phainon’s touch, Mydei’s body crumbles to crimson dust, scattering into the Evernight. It leaves behind his cloak, and once-golden armor.
Phainon picks up a gauntlet slowly, hesitantly, as if it will shatter in his fingers. He clutches it close to his chest like a lifeline, feeling the last of Mydei’s warmth vanish into the frigid Evernight, and wails.