She reached a door.
Her knock echoed.
A voice from within replied in a single word: Athena.
The figure drew back the veil.
And beneath it? A mask like mine.
I gasped.
The scene shattered.
Back to Reality
I woke on the floor of the gods’ realm again.
Only the empty seats and broken throne remained. And faint smoke rising where the throne once was.
My heart trembled, even though the ability to feel had been sacrificed. Because what called my na was not dead. Not powerless.
It waited.
Behind every shard of vision I had swallowed, behind every revived mory, behind the throne etched with my na, lay a question I could not yet answer:
What is the enemy that calls MAEATHENA?
.
The gods’ realm did not sleep. It pulsed, like a living heartbeat across stars and silence, the mountains carved from bone-white and the sky above stitched with stardust.
The gods’ realm did not sleep. It pulsed, like a living heartbeat across stars and silence, the mountains carved from bone-white marble and the sky above stitched with stardust.
The shadows bent when I moved. They coiled around my ankles like tad beasts, silent and loyal. The divine light in my chest burned coldly, not like a sun, but like a dying star, dense with power, edged with loss.
I had beco what Caelum feared.
And now I hunted.
They called it the Howling Wood—though there were no wolves here, only ancient gods long devoured by ti and left behind as twisted things that mimicked the shape of mory. My target had slipped into the woods after calling my na across the Cradle. That voice, that cold whisper, Athena, had not been Caelum.
It had been sothing older.
Sothing that rembered before I was reborn.
A chill wind scythed through the high trees. Their trunks were blackened, not from fire, but from ash, ash that fell endlessly, blanketing the ground like snowfall. The divine sigil carved into my skin pulsed softly, warning . Sothing was watching.
I drew the blade from my back. The tal shimred with shadow and moonlight—it had forged it for , but only I could wield it now. With a whisper, the weapon stretched, rippling like silk, morphing into a double-ended spear. The shadows sang approval.
"You don’t have to co," I told the godhound at my side.
It snarled in reply, blue fire glowing in its throat. Loyalty. It would follow even if the stars fell.
The scent was sharp now, cloaked, old magic. Wrong.
I moved between trees, faster than sound. The forest distorted around . Every step bent the dinsion. I passed shrines swallowed by roots, skeletal remains wrapped in golden robes. This wasn’t a forest, it was a graveyard. The place where the gods buried what they feared.
And still... the voice kept calling.
Athena. Co ho.
No.
I leapt into a clearing, and the world changed.
A wall of fla cut across the space. Gold and red. Divine fire. I shielded my face just as sothing lunged, huge, serpentine, fangs the length of my arm. I twisted midair, drove my spear through its eye. The beast scread—but did not die. It burst apart in a storm of light, reshaping itself instantly.
I landed, crouched. "Illusions," I muttered. "Old gods. Tricks."
The hound leapt forward, tearing the creature in half again, but it reford once more—laughing this ti, with a human voice. You cannot kill mory.
I raised my hands. The sky split open.
A thread of raw lunar light cut through the clouds, and I channeled it straight down. The illusion tried to flee—but shadows erupted around it, slicing it into a thousand flickering screams.
When the light faded, there was silence.
Then laughter again. Higher. Darker.
I was not alone.
A figure stepped into the clearing. He wore no face, only a mirrored mask. His body was layered in armor etched with sigils of the old world, marks I hadn’t seen since before my curse. But I recognized the energy.
This was the one who had called my na.
He bowed mockingly. "Welco ho, Moon’s Wrath."
"Who are you?" I demanded.
He tilted his head. "Don’t you rember?"
That struck a nerve. I didn’t rember anything except Caelum’s betrayal and the burning scream of the blade through my chest. The rest had been swallowed in the Cradle. My na was all I’d kept.
He saw the hesitation and smiled behind that mirror. "You gave up more than love. You gave up yourself. And now your mories belong to ."
I launched forward.
The spear struck true, but the figure vanished, replaced by mist.
A trap.
Chains wrapped around from behind, black, glowing. My body locked mid-motion as they pulled backward, slamming against a tree carved with ancient runes. I snarled and broke one with my will, then two—but the third was forged in shadow older than mine.
The godhound leapt at the chains—and was blasted away by a pulse of energy.
The masked enemy reappeared. "You wield both divine fire and ancient shadow. But you do not rember who gave you that gift. Do you?"
"Enough riddles," I spat. "Face !"
"I am your face," he whispered.
He removed the mask.
And I saw... .
Not quite. But close. A twin, twisted by darkness, eyes glowing void-black. This thing had my smile—but none of my soul.
"You were split, Athena. One side burned, one side bound. The gods never ant for you to survive the curse. But when you chose power over fear, you awoke the other half."
"No..."
"Yes. I am you without restraint. You without rcy. I am the Moon’s Rage. And I rember everything."
He surged forward, and we collided in a blast of shadowlight.
The forest shattered around us.
He moved like I did—every strike a mirror of mine. Blade against blade. Thought against thought. For every blow I delivered, he knew the counter. For every flicker of magic I summoned, he had already stolen it from my shadow.
"You cannot win," he hissed. "You severed half your soul to survive. Now I am whole. And you, part "
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