h4Chapter 138: The Gatekeeper/h4

    I was on my knees, de buried in the ashes of Caelum’s ruin. His body had not fallen; it had simply unraveled, pulled apart by the same chaos he’d once wielded. I had not emerged untouched. My hands were scorched. My ribs ached like they were shattered. Blood—divine, tainted, ancient—dripped from my jaw.

    But I was alive.

    Barely.

    "I did it," I rasped, though no one stood near enough to hear.

    Or so I thought.

    A whisper drifted from the ckened edge of the realm. Not in words. In sensation. A cold knowing. Like something exhaling behind the veil.

    Then I heard it.

    A name.

    Not screamed. Not spoken.

    Breathed.

    Athena.

    I staggered upright, my sword grating against broken stone as I pulled it free. My shadow moved oddly too fluid, too detached and I realized with a chill that it no longer belonged solely to me.

    Caelum’s corruption had clung to something inside me. And it had opened a gate.

    "I know you," I whispered to the void, even though I didn’t.

    But my blood knew. My magic red withoutmand, the Moonfireced now with something darker. Something that had slipped in during the crucible of my battle.

    "I made Caelum," the voice finally spoke aloud. "What makes you think you are beyond shaping?"

    It didn’t appear.

    It unfolded.

    A ripple in space. A tear between godhood and something much older. As if the fabric of reality had bruised, then burst, and from the wound stepped a figure neither man nor beast nor anything in between.

    It was wrong.

    Faceless. Endless. Shadow-cloaked. Its limbs moved like smoke but hit the ground like thunder. It looked at me or through me and smiled with a mouth it should not have had.

    "You were the real n," it said. "Not him. Not Caelum. He was the hammer. But you... you were the vessel."

    I backed away slowly.

    "No."

    I’m not yours."

    "You will be."

    The stars overhead screamed again each one blinking out in sequence. Not dying. Fleeing. Like even the heavens refused to watch what came next.

    I lifted my de.

    My arm trembled.

    But I stood.

    Lucas

    The instant Athena’s power surged through the veil between realms, I knew.

    She had won. And something terrible had followed her victory.

    The god-king’s court was in chaos. Oracles choked on prophecy. Highwolves wed at their chests as the magic in their veins writhed. But I didn’t care.

    I’d stolen the de they said I wasn’t worthy to touch. I’d forced open the sealed passage beneath the silver temple—a crack of power only a bonded soul could walk through. The path tried to kill me. It shredded my skin and tore at my lungs.

    I walked anyway.

    Because she was there.

    And she might be dying.

    When I emerged into the realm of the gods, it was like stepping into a dream that had caught fire. Moonlight warped the edges of time. Gravity bent. The ground itself pulsed.

    I ran.

    Faster than I’d ever moved in my life. I followed the scent of blood. Of ash. Of her.

    Then I saw her.

    Athena.

    Standing before a nightmare cloaked in void.

    Her back was to me. She hadn’t heard me arrive. Her hair, wild and scorched with light, blew around her like a war banner. The de in her hand trembled but it was raised.

    She hadn’t knelt.

    Not even now.

    "ATHENA!" I shouted, stumbling to a stop.

    She turned her head just slightly. Our eyes met. And for one second, I saw it.

    Not fear.

    Not pain.

    Just the quiet, terrible rity of someone who had nothing left to lose but refused to break.

    And then the thing spoke again.

    "Oh good," it purred. "The boy’s here. Shall we show him what you really are?"

    Athena

    The enemy lunged—and the world shattered.

    It didn’t attack with magic.

    It was magic.

    Every movement ruptured the ground. Every flick of its shadow sliced through space itself. My de screamed against its body each impact like shing with an avnche of smoke and steel. My magic barely held.

    But I didn’t back down.

    Not this time.

    "I’ve already been unmade," I hissed. "What more can you take?"

    "Not take," it said. "Unleash."

    It struck my mind then.

    Not my body.

    Memories erupted, visions I didn’t own, pain I’d never lived. Wolves torn apart in forgotten wars. Gods twisted into dust. I screamed as ancient echoes flooded me.

    It wanted me to drown in the past.

    To forget who I was now.

    But Lucas’s voice, still echoing somewhere behind me, cut through the noise.

    Athena,e back.

    And I remembered something true.

    I was not only what I’d lost.

    I was what I’d chosen to be.

    With a cry, I drove my de straight into the creature’s core.

    It split like fog but not fast enough.

    Moonlight exploded from the impact. The ground gave out beneath us both.

    We fell.

    Through light. Through memory. Through some corridor between godhood and damnation.

    Wended in a chamber of stars, impossible, ancient, hollow.

    And at its center, a throne.

    Mine.

    Already marked with my name.

    "I didn’t choose this," I said, staggering upright.

    "But it chose you," the voice returned, weaker now.

    The creature dragged itself from the crater. It bled shadows, its form unraveling.

    "I was the first," it growled. "I was the gods’ fury. But they forgot. They buried me. And now... now you’ll take my ce."

    "No," I whispered. "I’m not your recement. I’m your reckoning."

    I lifted my hands both light and shadow spiraling together, fused by pain, sacrifice, and choice.

    And I unleashed everything.

    When it was over, silence reigned.

    The being was gone.

    Not dead. But exiled. Cast into the prison it once tried to w me from.

    I stood, alone in that throne chamber, trembling.

    Then footsteps echoed behind me.

    Lucas.

    He didn’t speak. He didn’t ask what had happened.

    He just came close.

    "Do you remember me?" he asked quietly.

    I hesitated.

    Then nodded, barely.

    "Not everything. But... enough."

    He swallowed hard. "Are you staying here?"

    I looked to the throne.

    To the ruined stars.

    And to the road behind me.

    "I don’t know yet," I said. "But something worse ising. He took my hand.

    Then I whispered, almost broken, "Lucas... I’m afraid."

    He squeezed back.

    "Then I’ll stay until you’re not."