The day began like the ones before.
Same horn. Same dust. Same procession of bodies pulled from sleep and pushed into line—shoulders low, mouths dry, eyes red from a rest that never reached the bone.
But the heat clung heavier today. The air didn't move.
The instructors said less. They didn't have to. Yesterday had spoken loud enough—through torn palms, blistered feet, shoulders that still trembled from holding shields too long. Today wasn't about pain. It was about what pain left behind.
You marched in rank. Sun on your back. Weapon on your shoulder. The leather strap had begun to split beneath your collarbone, but you didn't adjust it. No one did. Not anymore.
Then came the call.
Spear drills. Full shield formation. Rotation under weight.
The voice of command was hoarse, sand-dry. "You hold," it rasped. "If your hand slips, the man beside you dies."
You shifted with the line, shoulder to shoulder, shields locking like teeth. Heat crawled down your spine. The breath between orders grew longer. Heavier.
And then—a thud.
Not a shout. Not a cry.
Just the sound of one man collapsing like a sack of wheat. His shield bounced once in the dirt. His cheek struck earth. And he didn't rise.
No one moved.
The line tightened without meaning to, like the ground itself had flinched.
"Get up," came the drillmaster's growl.
He didn't. His chest didn't rise.
You shifted just enough to see him.
Young. Not enough hair on his face to hide the boy still clinging to his frame. His skin had turned the color of ash beneath the dust, and his mouth hung open—not in protest, but like a breath had tried to leave him and never made it.
Still, no one moved.
A murmur rippled two rows down. Not concern—disdain. Another soldier rolled his eyes. One of the elites spat near the body and turned his shoulder.
But not Arian.
He stood three ranks over. His posture faltered, just slightly. His gaze snapped to you—not sharp, but raw. He didn't speak. His eyes did. They searched your hands, your face, as if asking whether you would kneel. Whether you would offer the boy water. Whether you would offer anything.
Your grip on the spear tightened.
It would take nothing. Just a breath. A flicker of thought. You could call the water in the roots beneath this dust. You could press your fingers to the boy's chest and restart the rhythm his heart had forgotten.
You could unmake this moment.
But you didn't.
You couldn't.
Even here, the Celestials would feel the fracture. One spark in daylight was enough to burn the whole illusion down.
So you stood still. Not because you lacked the power—but because you understood its price.
The silence changed then. It thickened. Hardened.
One man stepped over the body without looking down.
Another cursed the boy's weakness under his breath.
A third shifted his weight just enough to inch farther from the fallen—like death might be contagious.
Arian didn't move.
But he didn't look away.
And in that single glance—in the break of his breath, in the way his jaw slackened just enough to lose its shape—you saw the first crack form in him. Not in faith. Not in courage.
In belief.
In the story he'd carried with him since childhood—that war had meaning, that armies made men noble, that dying with a spear in your hand somehow made you more than bones.
He stared at you like he was asking: Is this what you already knew?
You gave no answer.
Only the silence.
The sun had lowered its voice, but not its teeth.
Light stretched long across the camp now, casting everything in the shade of something larger—fatigue, disappointment, things no one could name but all could feel.
Men crumpled wherever they could find ground that wasn't burning. Some leaned against barrels, others crawled beneath carts, a few just lay with arms flung over their eyes like that might undo the day. No one spoke of the boy. No one needed to.
You sat alone, as you always did.
Back to a crate of dried grain. Elbows resting on your knees. Head tilted slightly toward the light, not because it comforted you—but because it reminded you what you'd chosen not to do.
Then came footsteps. Slow. Uneven.
Arian.
He didn't speak when he reached you. He didn't sit like a soldier, didn't lower himself with caution or respect. He just dropped into a squat beside you, as if his body had surrendered before his voice ever could.
His tunic clung to him in creases of sweat. Dust marked his throat where the collar had rubbed raw. The smile he wore when you met him—the one that had tried to defy the road—was gone now. Buried somewhere in the dirt with a boy whose name no one asked.
He stared ahead.
"They didn't even stop," he said, voice low and dry. "Not even to check."
You didn't answer.
He didn't expect you to.
"I thought…" He exhaled, jaw shifting. "I thought war would be ugly. But not—"
His words buckled mid-step. He didn't finish. There wasn't enough breath left for illusions.
He scratched at the back of his hand absently, the skin there raw from shield drills. His fingers twitched once. Then stilled.
A long silence opened between you.
He didn't look at you.
But you could feel his question rising—slow, tentative, pressing against the air like something half-shaped.
Not about the boy.
Not about the others.
About you.
You felt it in the way his eyes flicked sideways—not directly at your face, but to your hands. To your posture. To the way you hadn't flinched once all day.
He was close enough to see what others missed. Close enough to wonder.
But he didn't ask.
And you didn't give him reason to.
So the question drifted—unspoken, unanswered—and settled between you like another layer of dust.
A call rang out from the water line. He shifted his weight, then stood with a small grunt, not quite pain, not quite protest. His shoulders slouched as he turned away.
"See you at dusk," he murmured.
You didn't nod.
You only watched the space he left behind, still warm from where he sat.
And told yourself—quietly, convincingly—that it was better this way.
The quiet didn't last.
Not here. Not where silence always felt borrowed.
**********
It cracked just after dusk—near the edge of the ration line, where the heat still clung to the air like a second skin and tempers had outlasted the sun.
The first sound was sharp.
A shout. A slap. The dry thud of boots sliding in the dust. Then the hollow crack of a clay bowl hitting stone—shattered food, shattered temper.
You turned before most.
Two men—one wiry, from the Elamite levy; the other broad-shouldered and Median, fists already curled—had locked into each other like animals in a pit. One shouted about stolen figs. The other spit back something about lies and starvation.
By then, neither one cared what was true.
The Elamite lunged low, head first. He rammed into the larger man's ribs. The Median barely flinched. He grabbed a fistful of the smaller man's tunic and slammed him down so hard the air left his lungs in a single broken gasp.
No one stepped forward.
"Let 'em fight," someone muttered.
Another chuckled under his breath.
The Median raised his fist.
You moved.
Not fast. Not loud. Just forward.
With the kind of stillness that parts people without touching them.
Your shadow crossed the dust before your boots did.
The Median didn't see you until his arm was already in motion. The Elamite lay stunned, eyes open, chest barely rising. One more blow might shatter his nose. Might stop his breath.
You caught the blow mid-air.
Flesh met flesh—but his fist stopped like it had struck iron.
You didn't yank. Didn't flinch. You simply held his wrist. And something in him faltered.
The fight drained—not from his arm, but from his certainty.
Then you spoke. Low. Even.
Not raised, not shouted.
"Enough."
The word carved the air in two.
The Median froze.
His breath hitched and held. The Elamite blinked slowly beneath the rising welt on his cheek, disoriented but conscious.
You stepped between them.
Not to defend. Not to command.
Just to close the distance war had opened.
"You think this is strength?" you said, voice like stone beneath water. "Breaking those already starving?"
No answer.
The Median's hand twitched. Then dropped.
You released him.
He didn't swing again.
Someone coughed behind you. The crowd shifted—their silence no longer entertained, only uneasy.
Then came boots.
Clean. Measured. Purposeful.
The officer stepped into the ring of firelight. Bronze gleamed at his shoulder. His eyes were younger than his voice.
He didn't raise it.
"Name."
You turned to meet his gaze.
You gave the one they'd assigned you—no more, no less.
He studied you. Not with suspicion. Not with praise. Just calculation.
"Reassign him. Median elite. Third-tier line. Effective dawn."
He turned. That was all.
But something had shifted.
Not in your stance. Not in your breath.
In how they saw you.
Not as one of them. Not anymore.
You adjusted your cloak—slowly, carefully—like brushing off dust that hadn't earned the right to cling to you.
And just then, from somewhere behind your ribs, her voice returned.
Not loud. Not summoned. Just there.
Ajak's voice came back to you—not as a command, but as a rhythm:
"If you must walk into it, then walk in as yourself."
You had.
And now they'd seen it.
No one asked who you were after that.
They already knew they didn't have the right to.
**********
The morning didn't come with horns this time.
Just orders.
You were told before the sun cleared the horizon: report to the Median elite encampment. A curt nod. A scratched name. No one explained why.
You didn't ask.
The Median quarters sat uphill, away from the dust-choked commons. Their tents were thicker, their shields polished, their sandals real leather. Their voices were quieter. Too quiet.
When you stepped into the new line, all movement paused. Not dramatically. Just long enough to notice.
They saw your cloak first.
Then the fastening ring.
Then your face.
And none of it added up.
The man to your left—tall, sharp-boned, with skin like polished bronze—clicked his tongue without turning. "Wrong camp," he said flatly.
Another snorted. "Or the war's gone soft."
No one made space.
You took none.
You stood among them, neither invited nor dismissed. Just there.
Until someone muttered, "At least he's not Babylonian."
Laughter followed. Dry. Practiced. Measured cruelty, spoken for performance.
You said nothing.
You'd known gods more fragile than these men's egos.
Later, while adjusting your spear along the rack, you caught the whisper of your name—no, not your name. The name they gave you here.
"Parsa."
You turned.
A familiar voice.
Arian stood at the edge of the camp, his arms folded tight across his chest. Sweat darkened his collar. His boots were worn to the seam.
"You could've told me," he said, not accusing—just… uncertain.
You stepped away from the rack, slowly.
"I didn't ask for it."
He gave a short laugh, almost bitter. "Yeah. I figured that out."
You didn't move closer.
He did.
"They say you stopped a fight with your hand. Like it was nothing."
You didn't correct him.
He scratched the back of his neck, avoiding your eyes. "I don't know if I'm supposed to be proud. Or just worried I don't really know you."
That caught. Just for a breath.
"I'm still me," you said quietly.
He looked at you then. Really looked.
And what he saw was not what he'd met by the campfire.
"Then why does it feel like you're further away now?"
He didn't wait for an answer. Just nodded once—curt, too controlled—and walked off toward the lower ranks.
You stood there a moment longer.
Not angry. Not even regretful.
Just… aware.
Of the distance between men. Of what power costs.
Of how far you could walk into this war before the man they remembered vanished completely.
The wind shifted. A banner snapped behind you.
And somewhere deep in memory, a voice returned. Older than steel. Woven with patience and warning both.
Ajak. Years ago. After a moment not unlike this.
"You will not be hated for your strength, Seidon," she had said. "You will be hated because it shows them their own weakness."
She had been threading a garment at the time. Needle to cloth. Her hands never paused.
"And when they see you bleeding for them—when they still choose not to understand you—do not let that turn you bitter."
You'd asked her then: "And if it does?"
She had met your gaze, her fingers still threading the line between stitches.
"Then bleed slower," she said. "So they have time to remember you were trying."
The banner snapped again, louder this time.
You looked forward.
And stayed very still.
**********
The fire had burned low, its breath no more than a flicker against the wind-pulled sand. All around you, the camp had surrendered to a restless quiet. Not silence—never silence—but that ragged hush made of shallow breathing, shifting limbs, and the groan of leather cinched too tight.
You sat with your back to your tent wall, cloak pulled over one shoulder. The cold didn't touch you. It never did. But still you let it settle across your skin, let your breath rise like theirs, shallow and visible in the night. The weight of pretense was heavier than the weather.
Ahead, the watchfires lined the perimeter like teeth. Beyond them, nothing moved—but the space between the flames felt too still. Too quiet. You didn't trust quiet.
You didn't sleep either. That was expected now.
Even the officer rounds had stopped bothering to rouse you. You'd become a fixed point in the camp's uneasy rotation—neither useful nor threatening. Just there. Awake.
Your eyes traced the sleeping forms around the circle. You had begun to read them without meaning to.
One man curled so tightly around his pack, you wondered if he was trying to return to the womb that war had torn him from. Another clutched his dagger like it might promise something in the dark—safety, maybe. Or revenge. His grip never loosened, not even in sleep.
Beyond the second line of tents, toward the lower slope, a vague cluster of shadows stirred. You couldn't see his face, but you knew Arian was somewhere in that mass of huddled limbs and bruised dreams.
Still alive. Still changed.
Your hand rested on your knee, still and steady. Not clenched. Not ready. Just aware.
The wind shifted, and a step crunched lightly against loose gravel behind your tent.
A guard. Checking for sleepers. You didn't move. They passed by, as always, without a word.
You had become something whispered, not spoken.
They said you didn't blink when men screamed. That you bled differently, or maybe not at all. Some claimed you had fought before—against Scythians, even demons—and lost your voice somewhere in the killing.
You let them talk.
Rumors were easier than truths. Rumors gave them reason to avoid you.
You looked up.
Dust and smoke veiled the stars, but you could still make out the constellations through the haze. A lion's jaw. The curve of the hunter's bow. Above it all, the cold breath of the gods you once defied.
Somewhere beyond them, the ones who had sent you remained silent.
But you remembered them.
You remembered the flicker of Sersi's gaze, soft even in farewell. The way Thena gripped her blade like it was a promise she couldn't speak. Makkari's hands, signing her goodbye without hesitation. Gilgamesh's silence—his pain too loud to need volume.
And Ajak. Always Ajak.
Her voice lingered not as memory, but as instinct. Etched deeper than thought, nestled beneath your ribs like marrow:
Do not forget what you are meant to protect.
The fire behind you snapped—a sharp pop like bone beneath pressure.
You glanced sideways.
A soldier sat by the dying flame, knees drawn close, staring into the embers. His eyes were wide, but unfocused. He wasn't tired. He was terrified.
Not of battle. Not of pain.
Of what he might become in the days ahead.
You recognized the look. You'd seen it in kings before their first betrayal. In mortals before they begged gods to spare them.
He blinked. Once. Slowly. And didn't see you watching.
You turned away.
The fire dimmed again. The dark crept in at the edges. Somewhere beyond the ridge, the land whispered of war. Of Athens, of boats that moved like ghosts. Of gods choosing sides again.
No alarm had sounded. No messengers had come. But still—you felt it.
The weight wasn't in the sand.
It was in the breath before the first scream. The pause before the wheel breaks.
And it was already here.
**********
The camp had fallen silent by the time you returned to your tent.
No horns marked the hour. No drillmasters paced the rows. Only the slow shuffle of guards trading places, the occasional snap of cooling wood, and the soft rhythm of sleep pressed into the breath of men who had no dreams left.
You ducked beneath the flap and let the fabric fall behind you. The space inside held still, untouched by firelight. You sat carefully—not from weariness, but to recall the shape of it. The cloak slipped from your shoulders, pooling across your spine like something exhaled.
The silence held.
Then shifted.
It began in your core—not a sound, not a chill, but a stillness. Not of peace. Not of rest. A silence that arrived by subtraction.
The kind that comes when something vast turns to face you.
The air did not change. But your body noticed what had vanished.
No wind tugged the edge of the tent. The campfire outside no longer cracked. Even the dust in the seams of the floor seemed to still itself. You breathed, but the air came shallow, as though borrowed from another time.
They weren't here.
Not in form. Not in flame. Not in any shape your eyes could name.
But they were watching.
Not with malice. Not even with expectation.
With precision.
With distance.
As if the weight of every moment since you stepped from Ajak's side had been set into an equation—one they were waiting to solve.
You didn't blink. You didn't bow.
But your fingers found the dagger at your side.
Thena's blade. The balance of it familiar, cool against your skin. You didn't grasp it for safety. You didn't draw it.
You simply touched it.
Not in fear.
In defiance.
If they had hoped to watch something obedient, they had chosen the wrong soldier.
Beyond the veil of tent cloth and starlit sky, you felt it shift again—their gaze adjusting. Not gone. Not displeased.
Only… noting.
Noting that you had not broken.
Not yet.
Morning came without horns again.
But the stillness didn't last.
**********
A boot struck the tent post just after dawn—short, sharp. Not a call to arms. Just a reminder: you were expected elsewhere now.
You rose without speaking, slinging your cloak across your shoulders, checking your blade with practiced ease. No one waited outside your tent. They didn't need to. Men like you were meant to know when to arrive.
The Median elite formed their training circle on the western ridge, just above the infantry camps. Their grounds were flattened by laborers, swept clean of stones. Even the dust felt finer here, like war had been filtered.
Their armor was better. Not decorative—functional. Reinforced at the shoulders and thighs, oiled at the joints. The spears they held were uniform in height, real metal tips bound to darkened ash shafts. Their instructors didn't shout.
They didn't have to.
Discipline had already taken root.
You stepped into line without hesitation. You were two paces taller than the man beside you. He noticed. Said nothing.
The drill began at once.
Formations—not sprint drills. Not sun-standing.
Movement without breaking symmetry.
Four steps forward. Shield pivot. Brace left. Pivot right. Backpedal. Advance.
Over and over.
No one collapsed here. No one lagged behind.
Here, error wasn't punished with lashings. It was met with precision. A misstep didn't earn a bruise. It earned a silence sharp enough to bleed. And that silence cut deeper.
You matched their rhythm easily. Too easily.
The man to your left glanced your way once—only once—after your shield returned to guard faster than his. He said nothing. He didn't need to.
The instructor noticed. Of course he did. His gaze passed over the line like a blade, but it lingered on you a breath too long.
"Again," he said, and the circle turned.
Later came weapon drills.
Not combat. Coordination.
You were handed a javelin—not for distance, but precision. The targets were human-shaped dummies, spaced evenly across the field.
"Center mass," the instructor said.
Not "kill."
Not "strike."
Center.
A philosophy, not an order.
You threw second.
Your aim hit true. Not dead center. But deliberate. Clean.
The man who followed you missed low. He grunted, adjusted his stance.
The instructor said nothing.
But you caught the glance again.
Noted.
Marked.
Remembered.
You retrieved the javelin without ceremony. Dust clung to your boots, but you didn't brush it off.
By midmorning, the line broke for rest.
You sat on the far edge of the training ground, where a shaded awning had been erected for elite officers and record scribes. You weren't offered a place beneath it. But no one told you to move either.
A skin of watered wine passed your way. You drank.
Not deeply. Just enough.
And as you sat with the cup between your fingers, you heard a whisper—not from men.
But from somewhere deeper.
A thought not your own:
They are shaping spears.
You blinked once.
Then answered, without speaking:
Let them.
**********
It came during formation drill.
Not a challenge. Not a test.
Just the crack of a misaligned shield—too far left, too late—and the entire line began to fold.
You caught it before it broke.
Your pivot was exact. One shift. One correction. You didn't shout. You didn't signal. Your shield snapped into place just long enough for the formation to realign.
No one fell.
But everyone noticed.
The instructor paused mid-step. His gaze passed over the line, lingered on you.
He said nothing.
The line reset.
The man beside you, the one who had slipped, kept his head low. But when your footfall matched his again, he didn't flinch.
Later, during water break, someone offered you their skin first. You didn't take it.
But the gesture lingered.
That should've been the end of it.
But pride doesn't die with silence.
That night, when the drills were done and the fires had settled into quiet glow, he came to you again—not the one who faltered, but the one who watched. A favored recruit. Clean armor. Loud voice when the captains were near.
He didn't challenge you.
He mocked you.
"Shields don't win wars," he said, circling like a dog testing a wolf's silence. "Neither does hiding behind transfers."
You didn't rise.
He kicked a pebble toward your boots.
"You quiet types always break first."
And when he leaned in closer—when his hand brushed your shoulder like he owned the space—you struck.
One fist. Center chest.
Not rage. Precision.
He flew.
The dirt caught him the way a wall catches a thrown helmet—harsh, final.
He groaned once. Didn't rise.
No one rushed in. No one called foul.
They had seen.
And when you sat back down, the firelight flickering against your knuckles, not a single man crossed your silence again.
By dawn, orders had changed.
You led the left wedge during torsion drills. No reason given. Just a name listed first.
And when the halberd bearer passed you during weapons check, he tapped your javelin shaft once—not as warning. As mark.
Later, when someone muttered, "He doesn't blink when he moves," no one laughed.
And that night, no one asked who you were anymore.
They already knew they didn't have the right to.
Ajak's voice came back to you—not as a command, but as a rhythm:
If you must walk into it, then walk in as yourself.
You had.
And now they'd seen it.
That night, the fire ring wasn't as quiet.
A few men laughed—not loudly, but enough to loosen the edge of tension that had gripped the elite ranks since your arrival. Someone passed a skin of wine. Another muttered a complaint about sand in his boots. It wasn't camaraderie, not yet. But it wasn't rejection either.
One of the recruits—the same who had circled you days ago, voice full of mockery—sat opposite you now, cross-legged, ribs still bruised from your strike. He didn't look away when your eyes met. He didn't speak, either. But his chin dipped once. The closest thing you'd get to a salute from him.
And somehow, it was enough.
A younger soldier nudged his companion. "You saw how fast he pivoted during the last drill?"
"Fast?" the other scoffed. "It was like he already knew where we'd fail."
You didn't correct him.
You just sat there, cloak draped over one shoulder, the fire casting long light across the curve of your cheek and the edge of your blade. You let their voices pass around you like smoke.
Let them wonder.
Let them guess.
Let them build their myths—because it was easier for them to admire a story than to accept the truth standing two feet away.
Still, someone passed the skin to you next.
You didn't drink deeply.
But you didn't pass it either.
They watched you—some openly, some with caution. And one by one, they stopped pretending you weren't part of their circle.
No one asked where you came from that night.
No one asked why you didn't bleed like them.
They had stopped needing to know.
They'd already decided:
If you bled, you bled for their side.
And for now—that was enough.