"Run," Raihan repeated, squeezing Lian Yue's hand in his own.
But she couldn't move, didn't dare look away from the rip in the sky. Scores of star-faring warriors dropped like a river of light, their armor radiant, their weapons already unsheathed. The air hummed with their presence, thick with divine judgment.
Lian Yue's pulse raced. "They won't stop. Once they've marked us—"
"Then we run faster than they can," Raihan snapped as he hauled her forward. "Or we die trying."
She blinked—and moved.
They cut through the rubble, the air behind them torn asunder as purelight spears rained from the sky and detonated with godfire. Raihan put up a shield, gold and shaking, just in time to deflect the blasts.
"They're not trying to kill you," Lian Yue painted. "Only to capture. But me—they want dead."
"I will not let them take either of us.
They darted into a broken-down temple hall, its arch barely intact. Lian Yue slapped her hand on its broken-edge at the center of the altar. Ancient, glowing runic symbols appeared in a circle around her, reacting to her divine blood.
The wall behind the altar rumbled to life.
A hidden door slid open.
"No one knows of this path," she said, in a whisper. "Not even Kaelen."
Raihan looked at her. "Where does it lead?"
She stepped through. "To the Godless Sanctuary."
A divine explosion caused the temple to crumble behind them.
They rushed down the concealed passage, and the stone closed after them.
---
The Sanctuary was not a location. It was a scar.
A vast echoing chamber under the world's crust, hollowed out by a war fought by ancient deities of which only a distant moon recalls. The air was dry, metallic. Cunningham – The walls were scarred with the old, in a language none but the dead could recall without vomiting.
And the ceiling rose in great height, shadowed. It was hung with huge banners, centred by a great altar: not to any god, but to freedom.
Lian Yue fell to her knees, panting hard.
Raihan looked back, hanging off the backs of his thighs. "That… was insane."
She laughed breathlessly. "You kept up."
He lifted his eyebrows and looked around. "So that's your secret little lair?"
"No," she said. "It was Celestine's prison. I was buried here… once. When, who knows, they decided that I was too dangerous to kill."
He looked at the altar. "And now?"
She rose and brushed dust from her arms. "Now it's our last refuge."
There was a long silence between them.
"You shouldn't have come," she murmured. "None of this was what you asked for.
Raihan approached her, lazy stride and casual. "You're right. I didn't."
She winced — until he grasped her hand, and pressed it to his heart.
"But I'm still here."
A moment passed. Their breath mingled.
"You scare me," she whispered at him.
"I scare myself," he replied. "But not enough to abandon you."
She lifted her gaze to him, her eyes shining as cold as ice in direct starlight.
And then—her knees buckled.
"Lian Yue!" Raihan caught her as she crumpled, her eyes glinting weakly.
Her voice was low, distant. "She's waking up…"
"Who?"
"…Celestine."
Her body convulsed.
Raihan pinned her to the hard stone floor, and she screamed, panicked. "Stay with me. Don't let her take you."
But it was too late.
Her eyes opened—pure white.
"Raihan," a voice not her own, said. "You brought me here. You opened the seal."
He staggered back. "Celestine."
The goddess sat up inside Lian Yue's body, stretching her neck. "This is a fragile form … yet, so familiar."
"I want her back."
Celestine stared at him with pity in her eyes. "She is me. I am her. But she is still weak. And I am not. I can protect you."
"I don't want you to protect me."
"You may not have a choice."
He stepped forward. "Then I'll rip you out of her if I have to."
She smiled, almost fondly. "You are brave indeed, for a man-godling. But power is not something you control. It controls you."
Suddenly, the doors erupted with a new voice.
"That's where you're wrong."
A dark ripple formed in the floor of the sanctuary. Shadows merged into a figure—tall, draped in onyx, eyes glowing violet.
Raihan bristled. "Who the hell—?"
Celestine stood slowly. "No…"
The figure stepped forward. "Did you think, really, that I was going to sleep forever? that your light might silence me forever?"
Raihan's blood turned to ice.
The First Flame. The god whose strength had not died but endured through Celestine---and now, through him.
"You," Celestine whispered. "You shouldn't exist."
"My...existence," said the flame, facing Raihan. "And you… you are my vessel."
Raihan took a step back.
"No."
"Yes," the flame murmured. "You contain both the divine and the abandoned. You are balanced. You are the confusion resulting from order. The child of contradiction."
"I didn't choose this!"
"Choice was never part of the prophecy."
Celestine stepped up, hands across with glowing palms. "I sealed you once. I'll do it again."
But the First Flame raised a hand.
Celestine's light is broken.
Panting, she sank to her knees, golden blood streaming over her.
Raihan dashed towards her, seized her in his arms. "Lian Yue?"
She looked up, and her voice was her voice again. "I'm… here. I think."
The Flame walked toward them.
"There is a third god rising," it declared. "Not of light and not of darkness. A soul that will break the chains of destiny." It is not me. And it is not her."
Raihan met its gaze.
"…It's me, isn't it?"
The Flame smiled. "You will burn the heavens. Or save them. Either way… you're time starts now!"
It transformed into mist — and disappeared.
Silence.
Lian Yue clutched his hand. "We're out of time."
Raihan stared at the altar. "No time is precisely what we require."
He took out the map Kaelen had pinched, the one to the Wyrm's Library.
"There remains one place where the gods cannot reach," he said. "And where we may perhaps finally learn the truth."
Lian Yue blinked. "The Wyrm is just a myth."
"No," Raihan said. "He's real. And he remembers everything the gods have tried to bury."
He folded the map, resolve leaving his jaw firm.
"They want to cleanse me? Let them try. But only after I find out why I was really chosen."
---
But as they stood to go, a crack split the altar behind them.
A solitary, golden feather trickled down from the darkness above, radiant with the authority of the heavens.
Raihan reflexively snatched it—and a sigil seared into his palm.
Lian Yue gasped. "They marked you."
His voice was ice. "Then let them come."