"Raihan!"
Lian Yue's voice reverberated down the ravaged valley, but it was sound hunting ice and sky which recoiled from him as even sound could not bear to touch him.
He hung suspended in the air, his head ringed by spiraling black flame. Runes danced across his skin, blinking faster than thought. His eyes, once soft hazel, just the all-knowing soulless brilliance. For a brief agonizing moment, he was a god.
No. Worse.
He looked like a man rendered more than human!
Elysar, the Judgment Bringer, heaved himself to his feet from the shattered stairs. His golden armor was seared, divine sigils etched along the breastplate sundered. Crimson-silver blood ran down his mouth.
He brushed it away and laughed harshly. "So it's true. The prophecy was not a lie."
Lian Yue whirled around with a blade in his hand. "What prophecy?"
Elysar's lips curled. "The gods feared an apparatus would arise—half god, half mortal—able to harness the forbidden Eye of the World without going mad. But they were wrong. He didn't resist the Eye. He merged with it."
She inched nearer to Raihan, shaking, but eyes bright with defiance. "You sound like he's some monster. "But Raihan would never be one of you."
"Wouldn't he?" Elysar gestured upward. "Then look at him. Look carefully. "He's not the man you followed."
She looked. And her heart cracked.
His expression was serene. Cold. Like a person who had sloughed off the burden of humanity.
But in the depths of his eyes… beyond the shining runes… something sparked.
A memory.
Her.
"Raihan," she murmured again. "If you can hear my voice, fight it. This power is theirs. It doesn't belong to us."
His body jerked.
The black flames stuttered.
Then surged again.
Elysar was swift--through the forest faster even than a mortal could see. One second he was thirty feet away the next his sword was an inch from Raihan's back.
Lian Yue cried out.
But Raihan didn't flinch. He grabbed the blade with his hand.
And shattered it.
It was the sound of divine law cracking.
Elysar took a step back, his eyes wide. "Impossible…"
Raihan spoke at last. His was a quiet voice — but thunder dwelt beneath.
"I am no longer yours to condemn.
He raised a hand.
And willed Elysar to vanish.
The god howled as his form crumbled away to grey debris, a rain of scorched prayer scrolls blown to the wind.
Silence fell.
Lian Yue, who was trembling, looked at Raihan. Her sword fell from her hand.
"What are you?" she breathed, voice barely a whisper.
He looked at her.
Not past her.
Not through her.
At her.
And for the first time since the Eye had opened—his face split.
"I don't care anymore," he mumbled.
Then, he collapsed.
—
She was at his side before his body had thudded onto the snow.
He wasn't burning now. The flames had died. The runes had faded. And what was left was a man–shattered, shaking, with a shallow breath.
"Yue…" he rasped. "Don't. touch the Eye--it's alive. It feeds."
She lowered him onto her chest. "Shh. I'm here. I've got you."
Tears stung her eyes.
He had killed a god.
Not fought. Not wounded.
Destroyed.
And yet here he was, falling to pieces in her arms as if he were a little boy stuck in a terrible dream.
She threw her arms around him. "We'll fix this. Together."
"No," he said. "This is beyond us now."
—
That night, they discovered a cave in the cliffs, which protected them from the storm. Raihan, however, did not sleep well, whispering and counting off parts of ancient languages. With shaky hands, Lian Yue dressed his wounds.
She didn't sleep.
Couldn't.
She felt her heart going too fast, too many things running through her mind.
The gods would come for him. That much was certain.
But worse was something Elysar said. The prophecy.
The gods feared a vessel…
What if this wasn't random? Raihan was born for this, what if all this was meant for Raihan?
What if everything—his banishment, their meeting, the Eye—it had all been planned?
By fate.
By the Veil.
Or worse — by the gods.
She looked into the fire until the first light of dawn slipped into the sky.
And then a voice whispered in her ear.
Not Raihan's.
Not human.
"Either he will annihilate us all … or he will be the new god of endings.
She spun.
No one was there.
Nothing but snow, shadows and silence.
But the words remained, echoing in her bones still.
—
When Raihan awoke to consciousness, he gazed at her as if it were the first time he was seeing her.
"I recollect everything now," he added.
She leaned in. "Everything?"
He nodded. "My mother's death. My father's betrayal. How the gods turned mortals into weapons. The forgotten war the world will never forget.
"And you're going to do what?"
He looked up at the sky.
"Break the cycle."
Lian Yue swallowed. "Even if I become one of them?"
He didn't answer.
Instead, he rose and extended his hand.
"I need you, Yue."
Her fingers shook as she laid them on his and laced their fingers together.
"You have me."
But in her heart, doubt swelled like a bruise.
Because there in his touch something was different.
It was too warm.
Too powerful.
Too… divine.
—
High above them all in the Celestial Court, the rest of the gods convened to discuss the Pool of Prophecy.
They'd heard what Raihan had wrought.
They had sensed Elysar's death reverberate down the divine link.
And at the center of the pool shimmered Raihan's face.
A deep voice boomed.
"He must not ascend."
Another wrote, "It's too late. The Eye chose him."
A third said in a low voice: "Then we decide on our own ship.
The water darkened.
And in its depths…
A shadow rose.
"Awaken the Betrayer."