The old woman's voice was a dry whisper, a gentle scratch against the afternoon's deep quiet. "Maya, dear, what are you doing?"
Maya, a splash of vibrant motion in the dust-choked yard, grunted with the effort of her task. "I'm helping!" she exclaimed, small hands struggling to maintain their grip on a watering can far too large for her.
A shadow fell over her, long and weary. It was her mother, Samira. Her own frame was bent under the weight of a heavy bucket, her expression a complex tapestry of love and a fatigue so profound it had become part of her bones. "Now, I appreciate your help, dear," she said, her voice soft yet layered with a deep, unspoken melancholy, a longing for a peace that had vanished years ago when the world had turned on itself like a rabid beast. "But you should leave these things to me." She managed a thin, worn smile. "Go play with your friends."
"Ok, mommy!" Maya chirped, and in a heartbeat, she was gone, her laughter a fleeting melody swallowed by the dusty lane.
Alone, Samira adjusted her grip on the bucket's rough handle and continued the slow, familiar trek home. Cykoliti was not a place of grandeur but of stubborn survival. Its primary defense was its profound irrelevance: wooden palisades and longbows standing against an age of industrialized war. Like the city, Samira's family was unremarkable, refugees who had traded the front lines' certain death for this backwater's quiet, grinding struggle. Here, there was no war at the door, but there was also no extra bread on the table. At least in the cities, there are factories, she thought, not for the first time, the memory a dull ache in her tired muscles. But this life was for Maya. Every breath, every labored step, was for Maya.
She was in the yard, pinning wet linens to the line, the familiar task a mindless respite, when the world shifted on its axis.
It began not with a sound, but a feeling, a deep, subterranean thrum that traveled up through the packed earth and into the soles of her feet. Then came the sound itself, a low, oppressive hum that vibrated in the teeth and pressed against the eardrums, a pressure that swallowed all other noise.
In an instant, the daily rhythm of Cykoliti ceased. And as one, every face, Samira's included, turned toward the heavens.
There, hanging in the vast blue where it had no right to be, was a second sun. It was immense, blinding, and utterly wrong. It did not warm; it loomed. A silent, terrifying omen growing larger, closer, with every thunderous beat of her heart.
The light did not simply fall; it descended. It was a physical, crushing wave of incandescence, a divine judgment rendered not with fire and brimstone, but with pure, annihilating radiance. It shattered the foundations of the relic city not with a roar, but with a sound like the world cracking in two. The wooden palisades, the thatched roofs, the very stones of the streets—they did not burn. They were scoured, atomized, reduced to mere glass and ash in the blink of an eye. Every soul in Cykoliti was blinded by the terrible, glorious presence of Tihnzak, Lord of Light, their forms dissolving into the brilliance that consumed them.
Elsewhere
The air in the divine council chamber was thick enough to choke on, a miasma of ancient power, older grudges, and a new, chilling fear. Tihnzak, his form still humming with the recent, violent expenditure of power, let his sentence trail into a heavy silence. The implications of their informant Ichos's claims were a cold dread in his core, a sensation so foreign it felt like mortality. The others felt it too. In that opulent room, where the fates of worlds were often bartered like grain, natural enemies and sworn adversaries found a single, terrifying point of alignment. Their very thrones, the source of their divinity, were at stake.
"Rhya, that treacherous harlot!" The screech cut through the tension, emanating from Lady Cantar, a goddess whose long hair was a cascade of living flame. Her throne was a forge of perpetual magma, and the fear of its cooling, of her power diminishing into embers, was a terror that eclipsed all hatred. "We should have never let her slip from our watch! We should have scoured her essence from the cosmos when we had the chance!"
A figure emerged from the deepest shadow near the grand entrance, his movement silent, a predator entering a new hunting ground. "Cantar, calm your fires. There is still hope for us." Every divine head turned. It was Kynigi, the Hunter, a lanky form cloaked in shifting darkness, the curve of his great bow a stark silhouette against his back.
"Kynigi." The word was a venomous drip from Cantar's lips. "Bold of you to return to this company. You who slink in the margins."
"Is it?" Kynigi's voice was a low rasp, devoid of offense. "A hunter always returns from the hunt. And I have found prey that concerns you all. There is a new threat to our rule, and you will listen." His gaze swept the room, lingering on each powerful face. "I told you all Rhya was not to be trusted. Her sentiment for these mortals was a cancer."
"Fine, then!" boomed Vektis, the God of Conflict. His form shimmered with barely contained violence, his shoddy mask of formality cracking. "You were right, Hunter! We all bow to your foresight! Now spit it out. What is your grand plan to save our divine asses? And where is that dour sword-saint you drag around? Kaldar. Did he finally find a fight he couldn't win?"
As if summoned by the question, a great slashing noise tore through the chamber. It was the sound of reality itself being parted, and from the rift stepped Kaldar. His armor was scarred, his expression grim, and the air around him grew cold and sharp. He said nothing, merely taking his place beside Kynigi, a silent, deadly promise.
"I was just getting to that," Kynigi said, a faint, predatory smile touching his lips. "Kaldar and I have been… cooking something up. A solution to this little crisis."
Kynigi paced before the assembled gods, a predator circling. "Bear with me. Rhya, in her final act of defiance, gave her dying breath to that rock. She seeded it with her power, hid her relics there to protect it. Yes?"
Atholis, a god of immense age and patience, gestured impatiently. "We are aware of the history. Get to the novel part."
"The novel part," Kynigi continued, "is that these humans, as they call themselves, are insects. They have been tearing each other apart for generations with primitive tools. They are fractured, weak, and utterly unprepared for a unified, divinely orchestrated invasion. They cannot even comprehend the power they squat upon."
Ichos, usually a voice of calm reason, leaned forward, his face grave. "You are not suggesting a direct intervention… The old laws…"
"I am suggesting the only thing that will work!" Kynigi's voice rose, sharp and clear. "The old laws died with Rhya's betrayal. This is survival. We strike hard, we strike together, and we claim what is ours before this 'gift' of hers matures and makes that world untouchable." He paused, letting the audacity of the plan sink in. "And besides…" he added, his tone lowering conspiratorially, "where there are weak, frightened mortals, there are always those who will kneel to a stronger power. We will not be without locals… assistance."
Skia, a deity of shadows and subtlety, recoiled as if physically struck. "Hold on. Our side? You propose we not only work together but recruit these… creatures? To fight for us? The notion is revolting."
It was Kaldar who answered, his voice like a grinding stone. "Listen. We despise each other. This is known. But we crave power more than we cherish our hatreds. Is that not the divine truth?" His cold eyes scanned the room, challenging any to deny it. "This is a temporary alignment. A single, decisive push to shatter their world and secure the relics. Once our thrones are safe and this world is ours to colonize, this alliance ends. Then you may resume trying to slit each other's throats to your heart's content."
A tense silence followed, broken by Cantar. "How long?" she asked, the fire in her hair flickering with calculated intensity. "How long must this… farce of unity last?"
"Not long, Lady," Kynigi assured her. "Their civilizations are a house of cards. The right divine wind, and they fall. From there, the hunt truly begins."
Tihnzak, who had been silent, finally spoke. "It is a ruthless strategy. I concede that. But who will be the tip of this spear? Who will deliver this first wind?"
Kynigi turned to him, a glint of satisfaction in his eyes. "You will, Tihnzak. Light will be the first force to grace that barren world. You are the most glorious among us, the most overwhelming. Your radiance will be the banner under which we march. It is only fitting that you lead the charge to solidify our reign for eternity."
Tihnzak considered this, the logic and the vanity of it appealing to his nature. "Fine, then. I shall be the herald. But what of you two? Where will the hunter and the blade be while I wage this war?"
Kynigi's smile was a thin, sharp thing in the gloom. "Oh, do not trouble yourself over us. Every great hunt requires trackers. While your light reveals the field, we will be stalking the true prey. We will find the key pieces Rhya left behind before her children even know they are in play."
"Then it is settled!" Tihnzak's voice boomed, his form blazing with renewed purpose. He rose, a sun igniting in the council chamber. "The age of mortals ends today! Everyone, to your domains! Prepare your aspects! Follow my lead!" In a flash of unbearable light, he was gone, positioning his terrible majesty above the unsuspecting city of Cykoliti, ready to claim a world for godkind.
Back in Cykoliti, the air itself began to scream. Samira could only watch, her awe a cold stone in her gut, as the second sun resolved into a form of terrifying, bearded majesty. The light was not warmth; it was a weight, pressing down, demanding obeisance or oblivion. Her awe was a fleeting thing, burned away in the instant that this god, this Tihnzak, made contact with the earth.
His heavenly light did not fall; it crashed. It was a tsunami of pure force and radiance. The world dissolved into a deafening, silent white. The familiar shapes of her home, the laundry line, the neighboring huts, the very stones of the street—they did not shatter or burn. They ceased to be. They were unmade, reduced to their base components: ash and glass. The people, her neighbors, the old woman who had called out to Maya, they were not killed. They were erased, their forms dissolving into the overwhelming brilliance, their screams swallowed by the divine cataclysm. It was over in a heartbeat. A city, a life, a struggle, all gone.
Almost all.
By a miracle—or perhaps the final, dying whisper of a betrayed goddess's will—a single small form stirred in the newly made wasteland. Maya Nehaji coughed, her small body coated in fine, grey ash. She pushed herself up, her eyes wide with a confusion so profound it bordered on madness. The world was gone. Replaced by a flat, smoking plain and a terrifying, radiant giant who stood where the sky should be.
She trembled, tears cutting clean paths through the grime on her cheeks. "Wh-who are you?" she stammered, her voice a tiny scratch against the overwhelming silence left by the destruction.
The god looked down upon this lone, surviving speck of life. For a moment, a fragment of something long forgotten stirred within him—a vestige of a humanity sacrificed for power. It was a fleeting, rare impulse, a twist of compassion for such utter vulnerability.
"I am… your friend," he said, his voice modulating into a tone meant to be soothing, a rumble that was less threatening. "Come with me."
"Where is Mommy?" she asked, her eyes searching the empty, glowing ruins for a shape that no longer existed.
Tihnzak's gaze was implacable. "She… she is hurt. But I will help both of you. I will take you to a safe place." It was not a lie, not exactly. In his way, he believed it.
He then extended a finger, not to touch her, but to show her. A vision blossomed in Maya's mind, not as an image, but as a feeling, a memory of a place she had never been. A palace of crystalline light, with towers that pierced a golden sky, rooms of impossible size filled with soft music and the promise of no more hunger, no more fear, no more dust.
The image of her mother's tired smile, the feel of the rough watering can, the sound of laughter in the dusty lane—it all faded, washed away by the sheer, awe-inspiring beauty of this promise.
Her fear was replaced by wonder. "Is… is this all yours, Mister?"
"Yes, it is, Maya," he intoned, his voice weaving a spell of destiny. "But one day, it can be yours too."
"How?" The question was a breath, a desperate hope clung to in a world that had just ended.
"If you continue to be my friend," he said, his voice the only anchor in her void. "If you continue to walk the path of the righteous and do the right thing, you can have anything you want in this world, or any other. All this can be your inheritance."
"The right thing?" she asked, confused. The concept was too large, too abstract for a child who only knew the simple rightness of helping her mother. "What does that mean?"
Tihnzak leaned closer, his radiance enveloping her, warm and safe and absolute. "Maya, do you know why I chose you, of all the children in that city, to become my friend? To survive?"
"No, sir."
"It is because I have seen the flicker of your potential. I know that you will be great one day. That you will wield a greatness the world has forgotten. And you will use that greatness not for yourself, but to do what is right for this world. To fix what is broken. Join me, and you will have the power to make this world perfect. To ensure nothing like this ever happens again. Only you can do it."
The words settled over her, heavy and sweet. They offered purpose where there was only loss, order where there was only chaos. They offered a reason for why she alone was spared.
And from that moment on, Maya Nehaji was a servant to Tihnzak, Lord of Light, First Among the Gods. Not out of a desire for the power he dangled before her, not out of a hope to salvage the family she had already begun to forget, but because she, a lost and terrified child, trusted him completely.
For now.