The world lay broken.
The land that once pulsed with Selanyth's veins and breathed Kaerion's winds was now a carcass of rot. Rivers festered into sludge, skies hung heavy with gray silence, and flowers that once bloomed crimson now sprawled blackened, brittle corpses beneath the ash. The scent of iron, of ruin, of burnt divinity lingered over the air like a shroud.
From the shadows of Erythros Peak, Aelior stepped forth.
His eyes were empty, his body hollow. No tears, no screams—his grief had shattered past expression. He wandered through the wreckage like a ghost. Wherever he turned his blank gaze, there was only death: villagers sprawled in frozen terror, temples sundered, fields drowned in blood. And among them, the bodies of his kin.
There lay Aelthar, mouth open in a silent scream, thunder forever stolen. Symera's limbs were twisted, her storm having devoured her. His mother's crimson rivers had withered into dust at her feet, and his father's once-boundless form had collapsed into gray ash scattered by the wind.
Fernir's voice echoed in his skull like a curse: "Your son will die forgotten."
The words gnawed at his silence as he staggered forward. At his parents' side lay the rusted axe of a fallen villager, caked with dust and grief. He bent, fingers trembling, and lifted it. Its weight was foreign, but it was something—something to hold against the emptiness.
Behind him, chains rattled. Seth loomed, his hollow eyes burning, checking Fernir's shattered but living form. The Withering God turned as Aelior's footsteps crunched against the broken earth. For the first time since the slaughter, movement stirred behind him.
Aelior did not hide. His face was expressionless, carved of grief and numb fury. He moved slowly, then faster, until the axe swung with a broken cry of rage. Steel kissed Seth's cheek—just a scratch, shallow, almost meaningless. But blood welled.
For an instant, silence.
Seth raised a trembling hand, touched the wound, and stared at his fingers slick with crimson. His fury erupted, his voice tearing the air:
"How dare you put your hands on me, you filthy scum… Who the fuck do you think you are?"
Aelior didn't answer. His eyes were blank, his soul too numb for words. He moved again, raising the axe. But Seth's fury was swifter—his skeletal hand clamped the weapon, rusting it to dust between his fingers. Chains writhed like serpents, snapping through the air, intent on crushing the boy into ash as they had done to Kaerion.
And then—impossible.
The chains passed through him.
Like water through shadow. Like memory through time.
Seth snarled, drawing the links back, only to find the boy gone. Vanished.
The last thing Aelior heard before the world collapsed around him was Fernir's whisper curling through the wind: "Your son will die forgotten…"
Darkness seized him.
He woke to light.
Aelior stirred, his body pressed against something coarse and solid, his skin prickled by warmth. Sunlight fell across his face, too bright, too strange. He flinched, raising a hand to block it. His breath caught as he blinked into focus. This was not Olympus. Not his land. Not even ruin.
The sky was a blue he had never seen, too gentle, too wide. Birds chirped not in divine harmony, but in small, earthly songs. Walls of stone rose around him, cracked and patched with moss. Scents of bread and smoke lingered in the air—human scents.
His chest tightened. "Where… am I?" His voice cracked the silence, hoarse, unmoored.
Something moved—a small creature, furred and fragile. A cat, eyes wide, arched its back at the sudden stranger who had appeared from nothing. It hissed, then fled with frantic leaps into the alley.
Aelior stared, startled, one hand pressed against his pounding heart. His breath came ragged. "This… isn't my world." Panic climbed through him. His eyes darted left, right, desperate for something familiar, for any trace of gods or skies or rivers of blood. There was nothing.
He rose to his feet, naked, unarmed, dust clinging to his skin. And then his eyes caught it—a poster, weathered and nailed against a wall.
"WANTED," the letters declared. A face glared back from the parchment. Sharp cheekbones, scarred skin, a twisted grin. Beneath it, a name.
Aelior stepped closer, tracing the ink with his fingers. Confusion deepened in his blank eyes. Who was this man? Why did mortals hunt him? Before he could think, a shadow stretched across the wall.
"Da…" a voice rasped, thick with cruelty. "It's been moons since I earned my keep."
Aelior turned.
The man from the poster stood before him. Scar split his cheek. His lips curled into a smirk that stank of arrogance. His eyes—dark, cunning, unfeeling—drank Aelior in like prey. He wore a coat of torn leather stitched with old blood. Around his neck hung a necklace of rings—tokens of slaughter. His dagger glinted, chipped but eager.
"The heavens finally answer," he spat. "A fresh quarry. I'll break you, sell your story, and leave nothing worth pitying. You should be honored."
He stepped closer, dagger drawn.
Aelior froze. Naked. Mortal. No storm, no thunder, no blood to call upon. His fingers curled into trembling fists, raised clumsily before him. He looked a child—terrified, powerless.
"Go away!" His voice cracked, sharp with fear and grief.
And the world answered.
A silence rippled outward, unnatural and suffocating. The alley drowned in stillness. The criminal—Kaelen—hesitated mid-swing, eyes widening. His smirk faltered. His dagger slipped from his grasp, clattering to the stone.
Then, nothing.
Where Kaelen had stood, there was emptiness. Not a body, not a scream. Just absence, as though he had never been. Only his dagger remained. The poster on the wall fluttered in the wind—blank parchment, its ink vanished. The man's face, his name, his very existence… gone.
Aelior's chest heaved. His fists unclenched. He stared at the emptiness, breath shuddering.
The silence around him was too deep. Too absolute. As if the world itself had chosen to forget.