Athena’s POV
The trial wasn’t announced. It simply began.
Fla lashed out from the stone, circling in a halo of wild heat. I didn’t scream—not when the fire kissed my skin, not when my power rebelled against the pressure. I let it co.
Then the shadows followed. They poured from the cracks in my mind, coiling around my ankles, my wrists, my throat. The voices ca louder now.
You are not her.
You are not real.
You were made from pain.
And worse—mories. Of blood on my hands. Of screams that sounded like my own. Of Caelum’s knife twisting into my ribs as I gasped for a na I couldn’t rember.
"You can’t have ," I whispered.
But the shadow grinned. We already do.
The fire turned cold.
Then—
A mirror. Floating in front of . Shimring silver. And inside it?
.
But not the version I’d co to know. Not the goddess. Not the weapon.
Just a girl.
Shaking. Bleeding. Lost.
I stepped toward it.
And it shattered.
The trial splintered ti.
Every breath was another world, another fracture. I fought monsters made from mory. I faced myself, again and again, until the edges of my identity were blurred with those I’d killed.
I relived every betrayal.
Kieran’s silence.
Lucas’s lies.
Caelum’s blade.
The shadows fed on it all.
But when they reached for my heart again, I held the fire tighter.
"Burn," I said.
And they did.
I don’t know how long I scread.
When the flas finally died down, the stone beneath was scorched black. My knees were raw. My voice gone.
Lucas stood at the edge of the circle. Silent. Still breathing. But barely.
"You stayed," I rasped.
His eyes were glassy. "I always will."
Sothing inside cracked again.
But this ti—it was light that poured through.
The shadows whispered. But they didn’t scream.
They bowed.
And the fire... it obeyed.
Later, I stood outside the temple and looked at the horizon. The sky was bruised purple and red, like the gods themselves had bled there.
Lucas joined .
I didn’t turn.
"You know what this ans, don’t you?" I said.
He nodded. "You’ve tad it."
"No." I smiled, barely. "I’ve made it mine. But it’s not tad. Just waiting."
"Then we keep it waiting. Together."
I didn’t answer.
Because far beneath us, sothing stirred in the deep.
A na I hadn’t heard yet.
A throne I hadn’t claid.
And a voice... calling again.
The sky above the god-realm cracked like old bone.
Stars bled light that pulsed and flickered, as though warning of a presence that didn’t belong. Or perhaps... one that had been forgotten too long.
I stepped into the Vale of Echoes—an ancient pathway carved between realms. Only gods walked here. And only with permission.
But I wasn’t waiting for anyone’s permission anymore.
The fire inside burned quietly, a steady rhythm in my core. The shadow curled behind my shoulder like a second spine, watching, always watching. We were no longer at war. Not quite allies either. But there was a mutual understanding now: I was the blade, and it was the edge. I could feel its thoughts bleeding into mine. Not words—intent. Hunger. mory. Vengeance.
Lucas walked beside .
No longer just a guardian, no longer fully mortal.
He had crossed realms with , not because he was allowed—but because the gods had once touched him in the womb, marked him with prophecy, and then abandoned the truth of it. Like all forgotten truths, it had sharpened in the dark.
He walked with a limp from the trial I’d endured. And yet he never faltered.
The Vale narrowed ahead.
At its end: the Gates of the Evercourt.
And beyond them, the gods who had exiled Caelum.
And the throne that whispered my na.
They were waiting.
All of them.
Not just the seated gods—air, fire, bone, ti—but the Old Ones. The naless. The ones who had fallen silent when the mortal world no longer needed their cruelty. I felt their attention like a weight across my spine.
A hall of silence.
Until the eldest one spoke. A god shaped like a tree, with eyes like carved obsidian and branches for a crown.
"You should not be here."
His voice cracked across the sky.
I held his gaze. "Then why did the realm open for ?"
The god to his left—slender and made of smoke—answered in a rasp, "Because your na is etched into the Evercourt."
I frowned. "What does that an?"
Lucas took a step forward. "It ans your ascension was always fated. The exile of Caelum left a vacancy not just in power—but in order."
Another god hissed, one made of stone and starlight. "You wear both light and shadow. You bring fire into mory. You are chaos."
"No," I said. "I am balance."
My voice echoed like a strike of iron.
And the throne behind them responded.
A low, ancient hum. A pull in my chest like a heartbeat not mine.
I turned—and saw it.
The throne.
Black tal carved with runes that bled gold and ash. Flas danced at its feet. Shadow poured from beneath it like silk.
It was waiting for .
No god moved.
Then the ancient one spoke again. "Your claim must be tested."
"Tested?" I asked coldly.
He inclined his head. "One throne. One truth. If you are not the rightful heir... it will unmake you."
Lucas grabbed my hand. "Athena—"
I pulled away. "I didn’t co here to ask. I ca to rember who I was."
Then I walked.
One step. Another.
The gods watched. None interfered.
The mont my foot touched the first stair, the entire realm pulsed. Not just with light or heat—but with mory.
Not mine.
The world shifted.
Suddenly—I was elsewhere.
Standing on a battlefield of gods.
Ashes rained from the sky. A man knelt before a burning crown, a blade through his chest, eyes wild with betrayal. I didn’t know his na—but the gods around him wept.
Another mory.
The Bleeding Realms
A girl with my eyes standing before the throne. Not . Not Athena. But soone older. Soone who had been the throne once. Her voice echoed with power and grief: "Only in dying shall the line awaken again."
And then—I was back.
Breathless.
The throne now roared with recognition.
The shadows around it bent in worship.
The gods fell silent.
I reached the top stair.
Placed one hand on the throne’s edge.
The shadow inside howled.
The fire in surged.
A perfect balance.
A perfect storm.
The throne accepted .
It didn’t burn. It didn’t consu.
It bowed.
I sat.
And in that mont, I knew the truth:
I had never been born mortal.
I had always been a god.
I had only needed to rember.
The realm shifted to accommodate my presence.
The court—those seated immortals who had ruled for eons—did not kneel. But they watched with sothing close to fear. Sothing ancient.
"I rember now," I said aloud. "Who I was before I fell. Before the exile. I was born in fire and sealed in flesh. You buried . But my shadow found a way to return."
Lucas stood below, eyes locked on mine.
"Do you know what this ans?" he asked.
"I do," I said.
Caelum had not risen by mistake.
He had risen because I had fallen.
And now that I rembered—I would finish what I began.
"Call the Hunt," I said to the court.
A low gasp rippled through them.
"You would pursue him?" the stone god asked. "In the Bleeding Realms?"
I stood. Power surged around .
"He summoned with my own shadow. He walked in my na. He broke every law you were too cowardly to enforce."
I descended the steps.
Lucas t halfway.
"We’re going into the Bleeding Realms?" he asked.
"Yes," I said, the shadow crackling like armor on my skin. "And we’re bringing him ho. In pieces."
The sky bled crimson.
The stars above were foreign—wrong—twisting slowly in shapes that no mortal or god should ever na. The trees here were hollow things that scread when the wind pushed through them. And the wind—it carried more than sound. It carried mory. Emotion. Hunger.
The Bleeding Realms were not built. They were punished into existence. Every rock scread of so forgotten god’s agony. Every river ran red with old curses. The soil reeked of ash and godbone. This was the prison where the oldest truths were buried. And now it called my na.
"Athena..." the wind rasped. Not as a greeting, but as a dare.
I didn’t blink.
I didn’t break stride.
I carried Caelum’s blood on my skin like war paint and a new power within that didn’t belong to just the gods. I had shadow in my bones now—ancient, crawling, shifting—alive. It whispered of devouring. Of undoing. It had tasted Caelum’s fear and wanted more.
Good.
Let it feast.
Because I wasn’t here to survive.
I was here to end him.
But the Bleeding Realms don’t give without cost.
The first trial waited where the trees thinned into a clearing. A single obsidian mirror stood there, suspended in the air, spinning slowly. No fra. No base. Just hovering like a thing watching breathe.
I approached.
The reflection was not my own.
It was her.
The version of that had bled for nothing. The girl who had begged the king for rcy. The one who cried out when Caelum drove the blade through her stomach. That broken, sobbing creature with wide, innocent eyes and trembling fingers.
I stared at her.
She stared back.
"You could’ve died," she said. "It would’ve been easier. Quieter. No pain. No shadow. No gods. No war."
"I’m not here for quiet," I said.
Her lips curled into a grin. "But you miss it. You miss who you were before you beca this."
"No," I whispered. "I mourn her. But I do not want her back."
A crack split the mirror.
And then she scread.
The glass exploded outward, slashing into my arms, my face—but I didn’t fall. I let the blood drip. Let it mark the soil.
Trial One: The Mirror of Before—passed.
But the Realms weren’t done with .
They never would be.
I walked until the sky above turned completely black and sothing growled beneath the earth. A second trial waited—hot, brutal, and ancient.
A temple of teeth.
That’s the only way I could describe it. A ruin shaped like a wolf’s jaw, its walls built of bone and its doors forever gnashing.
Inside waited temptation.
It wore the face of soone I didn’t expect.
Lucas.
He stood there, shirtless, golden-eyed, mouth soft with so impossible sorrow. But I knew it wasn’t him. Not really. The Realms were cruel—not stupid. They knew who I’d once yearned for.
"You’re tired," the false Lucas said gently, stepping toward . "Let carry it for you."
I said nothing.
"You don’t have to bleed anymore," he continued. "Let love you. Let fix what the gods broke."
I laughed—dry and low. "You aren’t real."
"But what if I was?" he asked. "What if I said I forgave you for forgetting ? For walking past like I was a stranger?"
I froze.
His voice changed—deeper, sharper. "You think vengeance will fix you. But it won’t. You’ll finish Caelum and then what? You’ll be alone. Empty. Broken beyond recognition."
The shadows inside snarled.
"Then I’ll rebuild myself out of ash," I said coldly.
The false Lucas smiled—and then his body burst into crows, screaming as they flew apart.
Trial Two: The Voice of Longing—passed.
I staggered out of the temple of teeth with blood on my tongue and fire in my breath. My arms were shaking. My soul felt like it had been scraped raw.
And still I moved forward.
Because I had to.
Because vengeance was a song now, and I was the blade dancing to its rhythm.
The third trial ca not with a warning, but with a choice.
Three doors stood before in a field of ash.
One burned endlessly.
One was carved entirely from ice.
One was made of shadow, pulsing gently like a heartbeat.
Choose.
I stepped toward the shadowed door, but it hissed.
"Not yet."
I turned to the ice—but my fingers froze the mont I neared it.
Only the fire welcod .
So I stepped through.
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