The world was not silent.
It breathed.
Azhurael walked through the storm as if the snow itself bent sideways around their body. Their footsteps left no prints on the ice, and the wind avoided touching them, curving unnaturally as if recognizing a presence it feared to graze.
They had been awake for barely a day, yet their mind pulsed with old instincts. Not memories — those still slept behind locked doors — but instincts older than the mountain range itself.
Survival.
Dominance.
Creation.
Destruction.
The four pillars of their existence, whispering beneath their skin like threads of gold burning through shadow.
The storm thickened. Snowflakes spiraled like small, dying souls. Azhurael slowed, head tilting as something cold brushed their senses. Not physical cold — that meant nothing to them — but the residue of something living. Something vast.
A tremor ran through the ground.
Then another.
Azhurael smiled.
"A titan," they murmured. Their voice was low, layered, shifting between honeyed feminine and a smooth, deep masculine tone. "How nostalgic. I wonder if you remember who shaped you."
The snow exploded.
A vast, fur-covered limb slammed into the earth where they had stood, sending a shockwave across the icy field. Azhurael reappeared several meters away in a ripple of black shadow, unfazed. Their golden eyes brightened as a shape towered above them.
The creature rose from the storm like a mountain learning to walk. Its body was carved from ice and bone, fur matted with frost, horns spiraling upward like broken glaciers. Its breath came in steaming bursts, and in its eyes burned something ancient — old fear and older loyalty.
Azhurael extended a hand, amused.
"Tell me," they whispered, "do you still kneel instinctively?"
The titan roared instead.
A sound that shook the air. A sound that should have shattered eardrums miles away.
Azhurael only laughed.
The creature lunged, swinging a massive arm down like a falling cliff. Azhurael raised their hand, palm glowing with golden-black radiance. The impact never came. The titan froze, its body locked mid-motion as if held by invisible chains.
Azhurael's eyes narrowed.
"So you do remember. Instinctively, perhaps. On some primitive level."
The titan trembled. Not in defiance — but in submission.
Azhurael stepped forward and placed their palm on the titan's forehead. The beast's breath hitched, frost coating the air around them.
"Sleep," Azhurael said softly. A command, an edict, a truth.
The titan collapsed, the earth rumbling as its body lowered itself into a kneeling position. Snow swept across its back, cloaking it like a cloak of frozen feathers.
Azhurael's smile sharpened.
"Good. Even the mountains remember me."
They walked past the titan as if it were nothing more than a loyal dog guarding a doorway. The storm parted again, revealing a cliffside that rose like the jagged spine of a dead god. Beneath it, a mouthlike cavern yawned into darkness.
Azhurael's steps slowed as they approached the entrance.
Something was calling to them.
No — something was waiting.
An echo slipped through the air, delicate as silk.
A memory.
A single image flashed behind their eyes — a broken spire made of obsidian shards, a throne of bones, a symbol carved into the world that glowed black and gold.
Azhurael's heartbeat quickened.
"This place…"
They touched the cavern wall. The ice hissed beneath their fingers, melting instantly and revealing stone scarred with ancient markings.
Their markings.
Golden symbols burned faintly, reacting to their touch. Runes they did not recognize but felt carved beneath their skin. Azhurael traced one with a fingertip and tasted an echo at the edge of their mind.
"So I built this," they whispered. "A sanctuary… or a prison."
Their breath fogged not from cold, but from anticipation.
The cavern stretched deep beneath the mountains, leading into unnatural geometry — corridors curving at impossible angles, ceilings too high for any mortal purpose. Azhurael walked through as if revisiting an old home.
Then the whispers began.
At first faint.
Then layering.
Then multiplying.
Voices. Too many to distinguish. Echoes of prayers long forgotten. Cries of fear. Songs of worship. Fragments of languages that had not been spoken for thousands of years.
Azhurael paused.
The whispers converged into one sentence.
"Welcome home, Sovereign."
Azhurael's golden eyes dimmed.
"Who said that?"
Silence.
Then a faint blue glow shimmered ahead. Azhurael moved faster now, shadows swirling at their heels. The tunnel opened into a vast chamber — a cathedral buried beneath the mountain.
A stone altar stood at the center.
Above it, suspended by chains of frozen light, hovered a shard of something black and crystalline. It pulsed once, slowly, like a sleeping heart.
Azhurael's breath caught.
They knew that shard.
Not from memory.
From their very essence.
It called to them like an unfinished thought.
"A part of me," Azhurael whispered. "Left here. Why?"
They approached the shard. As they reached out, a blast of force erupted, freezing the air solid and shattering the walls. The titan outside bellowed in panic.
Azhurael didn't move.
Instead, they smiled — a slow, elegant curve of the lips.
"So… you reject me?"
The shard pulsed again, harder.
Golden-black light surged beneath Azhurael's skin. Their hair darkened, shifting to a deeper shadow-blue. Their footsteps cracked the stone.
"Unwise."
They placed their hand on the shard.
The world went silent.
Then the cavern exploded into a storm of visions.
A burning sky.
A field of black flowers.
Three kneeling gods.
A crown shattering.
A voice whispering:
"Seal yourself before it's too late."
Azhurael staggered as reality snapped back. Their heartbeat hammered. Their fingers trembled slightly — not from fear, but from the taste of something they had long forgotten.
Something dangerous.
"Who told me that?" Azhurael murmured. "And why would I obey?"
The shard hissed — a sound like splitting glass — then dissolved into drifting black dust that scattered through the air.
Azhurael caught one piece on their fingertip.
The dust melted into their skin and vanished.
Azhurael exhaled slowly.
"I see. This place was not a sanctuary. It was a warning."
Their smile returned — sharp, elegant, and cruel.
"And I have always ignored warnings."
They turned toward the exit. Outside, the titan bowed low, submitting fully. The storm bent its shape once again, revealing the endless white plains stretching into the distance.
"Let us build a kingdom," Azhurael said softly, voice echoing with an ancient cadence. "A world that will tremble long before it remembers why."
Snow swirled around their body like a cloak.
"And let the first chapter of my rebirth begin with the simple truth…"
Their golden eyes glowed, bright enough to stain the snow.
"…the world has forgotten me."
A slow smile.
"So I will make it remember."