CHAPTER 221: CHAPTER 222: THINGS WE DO FOR...

She held his gaze a second longer, then turned to the controls. With a flick of her finger, the layers began to undo themselves—magical locks pulling back one by one, their sound like sighs from a sleeping dragon.

The final door groaned.

Warmth. Soft, perfumed air met his face.

He stepped through.

For a moment, neither moved.

Then Elizabeth sat up.

Her gaze, calm. But her lips curled slightly, like she’d tasted his name in her dreams and woken to find it real.

"...Three days," she said softly. "You made me wait."

"I was busy preventing war."

"And I was busy not breaking this place apart."

He tilted his head, half-expecting fire. But instead—

"...You look tired," she said.

That stopped him.

He opened his mouth to speak, but she stood, slowly, gracefully. The air shimmered faintly around her as if reality hesitated in her presence. Her bare feet whispered across the marble.

Merlin said nothing. Only nodded slightly as he vanished in a flare of white mist, taking the hint.

Elizabeth stepped within inches of Atlas. The tension between them was strange. Not sharp. Not soft. But unfinished.

Her hand lifted—slow, tentative—and rested lightly against his chest.

"You smell like fire and old books," she whispered.

He caught her wrist gently, not pulling away. Just... holding.

"You smell like trouble."

"And yet you visited ," she murmured. "Even when I’m locked away."

He said nothing.

They stood in the silence for a long beat. Not hostile. Not tender.

Just them. Just memory.

"...I thought you’d break out by now," he said finally.

"I thought you’d come sooner."

"Why?"

Her answer came quickly.

"Because you know I’m not finished."

The air cracked.

Her eyes sharpened. Her voice never raised—but it held a tremor now. Not of rage. Not of desperation.

Of ache.

"I can’t stay in here forever, Atlas. You know that. Eventually they’ll force your hand. Or mine."

He looked at her, and—for a brief second—saw the girl she once was. Proud. Furious. Beautiful. Broken.

Then she added, softer, "...But I’ll wait a little longer. If it means I can see you again like this.... Without a battlefield between us."

His heart clenched.

There it was again—that wound. That undeniable thing between them. That fracture that no war, no empire, no throne had yet managed to erase.

She stepped back.

"I’ll behave..... For now," she said.

"And Merlin?"

"He behaves as I do."

"...That’s what I’m afraid of."

A soft laugh escaped her. The kind only someone deeply tired can give. She sat again, reclining as though all this—dungeons, guards, relics—meant nothing.

"Send Claire my regards," she said. "Tell her next time, she can stay longer than thirty seconds. I don’t bite... unless she wants me to."

He sighed.

"You haven’t changed."

"Neither have you," she whispered.

He turned, one hand resting briefly on the edge of the wall before he stepped back into the barrier room. The door sealed slowly behind him, casting her once more in gold and glass.

"...So?" Aurora asked.

He didn’t answer.

Not directly.

He only said, "...Increase the guards. Double the frequency. And tell Merlin if he so much as breathes the wrong way, I’ll personally silence him."

Aurora smirked, but nodded.

As Atlas walked away—through warded halls and shifting locks, through silence older than kings—he found himself wondering not if Elizabeth would break free...

...but if, when she did, he’d have the strength to stop her.

Or if he’d open the gates himself.

Atlas stepped out from the jagged stone arch of the dungeon’s gate, the torchlight behind him flickering like dying stars.

And from his shadow, liquid and slow, rose Veil.

Like ink being poured back into the skin of reality, the familiar silhouette coiled and bloomed upward, arms crossed, voice low.

"...How’s Loki?" Atlas asked, not stopping. His voice was quieter than he meant. Not tired—no, it was something else. Something like guilt with its fangs buried behind his ribs.

Veil’s head tilted, the tip of his smoke-like hair flicking in rhythm to his flickering shape. "...Breathing," he answered flatly. "That’s enough for him. He’ll recover. Don’t worry."

Atlas exhaled, a long, tired breath that felt like it scraped bone on the way out.

"Haaa... things we do for fucking love..." he muttered, the corner of his lip twitching in a humorless smile.

The dungeon groaned behind them, settling. Atlas didn’t look back.

Veil slid forward, a brief smear of black underfoot before he reformed near Atlas’s shoulder, his presence coiling like a phantom scarf in the heavy heat.

"I don’t know much about love," Veil said dryly, "but that was the single most dumbest decision I’ve seen him take. Ever."

Atlas let out a half-laugh, sharp but brief. "Well... he had priorities. I understand."

And he did. That was the worst part.

"Haaa... you lot and your mating rituals," Veil mumbled, slithering slightly around his arm.

The words should’ve been amusing. Instead, they sank heavier than they should’ve. Atlas’s steps slowed—not visibly, not enough for Veil to comment—but internally, a pressure curled around his ribs like a vice.

He remembered Loki’s eyes. The moment he stepped between the god and that girl. Not hesitation. Not calculation. Just... clarity. The kind only found in the madness of affection. Of desperate meaning. Was it love? Or guilt? Atlas couldn’t tell the difference anymore.

Silence stretched for a few seconds. Dust crunched underfoot. The stench of sweat and centuries-old metal scraped the back of his throat.

Then Veil broke it, quietly, as if admitting a sin. "So... you faced a god and didn’t come out like Loki. Call me dumbfounded, but the things you said in that meeting... most of them were cap, weren’t they?"

Atlas smiled. Slowly. No denial. Just that smile—wolfish, self-aware, worn at the edges.

"You’re learning faster, staying in my shadow."

Veil clicked his teeth. "So how was it... facing a god up close?"

Atlas’s lips parted. A breath escaped.

"I don’t think it’s that big a deal," he answered finally. "Not like all of you thought. Yes, they’re powerful. And yes, they’re immortal. But what more?"

The torchlight dimmed as they passed another corridor. The dungeon’s air got colder, heavier. Moss climbed the stone like forgotten veins. Their footsteps were ghosts on a forgotten path.

Veil laughed. A dry, sandpaper sound.

"My mother told me—gods are just ancient beings. Very... very ancient. She said they were there when the first lifeform crawled out of the dark ocean. Before stars had names."

He tilted his head. "So I’d say... there’s more to them than the odds."

Atlas didn’t speak at first. The memory came unbidden—a silver blade in the air, light bending around divinity, the voice of something that didn’t blink. Not like men. Not even like monsters. The god had looked through him.

He shivered slightly. Not from fear. From recognition.

Only one god mattered in the game. The one who watched from behind the veil of prophecy: the goddess of Hope and Despair. The one the Holy Kingdom prayed to. The one whose name could silence a battlefield.

But that wasn’t what he faced.

These other gods—violent, primal, wrath-fed—they were only in the background scripts. Odin.Thor. Floki. Ouserous. Names with teeth and iron in their mouths.

Atlas blinked and rolled his neck. His pulse was back to normal now.

"I’ll need more on them," he said quietly. "Devour more books. Data. Anything. I need to know what makes them ....bleed."

Veil narrowed his eyes. "And what do I get in return?"

Atlas glanced at him, deadpan. "Mate. You already fed on every dead imperial mage and soldier back there. What more do you want?"

Veil grinned. It was a crooked thing. "Hmmm... yeah. I was going to evolve, actually. But I stopped... when you arrived on the scene. I knew you weren’t the same Atlas. So.... I ask you the simplest thing."

Atlas kept walking, steps echoing off the dungeon stone. "And that being?"

"Actually....Later," Veil said, flicking into the shadow of a broken beam. "First, I’ll get your data on these gods."

He vanished, leaving the air colder than before.

Atlas exhaled and pushed open the final door.

Stone scraped. Light broke across his vision. Not sunlight—torches and crystal orbs flickering above the courtyard floor. His boots hit solid marble.

And there they were.

Claire. Lara.

Standing shoulder to shoulder in silence, as if summoned by fate.

The morning light clung to their faces, half-shadowed, eyes sharp. Claire’s jaw was tight. Lara’s arms were crossed, but one foot tapped. Both of them looked at him like he had returned from a battlefield with someone else’s heart.

Atlas slowed. Something tightened in his throat.

"...?"