Dawn had not yet broken cleanly.
The sky was the color of worn riverstone—soft, dull, streaked with the ash of night's last breath. You stood barefoot at the edge of a narrow stream behind the Median camp, its water winding slow and brown through scattered reeds. Too shallow for boats. Too warm for fish. But quiet.
Your cloak lay at your feet.
Your boots rested on a flat stone where the current split around them, hissing gently against the edges. You crouched, not in prayer or preparation, but in something older. One hand hovered just above the surface.
And the river moved.
A ripple turned back against its own flow, folding toward your fingers—not touching, but reaching. The water curled like it remembered you. As if the element itself had not forgotten the shape of your breath.
You didn't command it.
You simply inhaled, slow and steady—and the river matched. The stream's rhythm fell in time with your chest: inhale, crest… exhale, fall.
No words. No symbols. Just memory, and a bond too ancient to need speech.
Then: a footstep.
Heavy, deliberate. Crushing dew-soaked grass behind you.
You pulled your hand back. The current stilled in an instant, snapping back into ordinary disorder. The stream went quiet, as though ashamed it had shown too much.
Arian stepped from the thicket, boots damp with morning mist, hair curling with sleep and sweat. His cloak was hastily thrown over one shoulder, the wool fraying at the seams.
"You shouldn't have sneak into this side of the camp this often…"
He saw the motion of the water—or what had just ceased. But he said nothing at first.
"You always come out here alone?" he asked, voice hushed as if not to disturb what little peace remained in the hour before orders, or to draw attention of his presence in this side of the camp.
You didn't look at him. But you gave a faint nod.
He lingered. Then shifted his weight. "I used to think you just didn't like people. But now I'm not sure."
A pause.
"Maybe it's people you're protecting."
You said nothing.
"Or maybe…" he continued, voice slower now, searching, "maybe you're just afraid of what they'll see."
You turned then.
Not sharply. Not defensively. Just enough to meet his gaze.
He didn't flinch.
"What happened yesterday," he said, lowering his voice even further, "when those soldiers tried to shove you during drills… you didn't even move. One of them nearly tripped, but you—" he exhaled—"it was like you anticipated their attempt, you stood like stone."
You waited.
He stepped closer. "You're strong. That's obvious. But it's more than that."
A silence stretched between you. You let it grow, until it asked its own questions.
Then, finally, he said, "I just want to know who I'm fighting beside."
He didn't ask it like a demand. He asked it like a man afraid he might already know the answer.
You looked past him, back toward the water.
"I've seen more tides break than I can remember," you said.
He frowned. "What does that mean?"
You tilted your head slightly. "People," you said, "are like rivers."
He hesitated. "In what way?"
You looked at him again, this time letting him see a little more than he was ready for.
"They move toward what they fear," you said. "And run from what they need."
That quieted him.
He looked down at the water, then back at your feet, then further—perhaps wondering where the man standing in front of him, where you had learned to speak like that. Or why those words sounded like they belonged to something older than any empire.
He didn't reply.
And you didn't explain.
The current behind you turned once—subtle, obedient.
You rose before he could ask more. Reached down. Took your boots in your hand, and wondering what the Celestial prepared in store for you.
**********
The summons came at first light.
No horn. No roll call. Just a leather cord wrapped around your wrist while you rinsed your hands in the stream—placed there by a silent runner, already gone by the time you stood.
The cord bore a single bronze ring. Unmarked. Clean. The kind that didn't belong to rank or unit—but to decisions made higher than anyone here would speak of aloud.
You knew what it meant before anyone said the words.
By the time the sun reached the crest of the eastern ridge, you stood in the shadow of the command pavilion—built of lacquered wood and dyed cloth, its corners staked with weapons instead of flags. The interior was cooler, the air thick with cedar smoke and sweat from armor never worn outside parade.
Around the central map, a handful of officers gathered. Not generals—generals didn't give orders this close to soil—but satrap aides, scribes, and one man whose shoulder bore the twin braid of royal dispatch.
He didn't look up when you entered.
You took your place without speaking.
So did three others—Median, Persian, Elamite—each in their prime, each with the eyes of men who had commanded before.
The briefing didn't begin with greetings.
It began with grain counts. Salt transport lines. A missed supply barge outside Leros. The kind of talk that broke armies when neglected, but meant nothing to the dead.
You listened. You were meant to.
Then the map was cleared, and another one laid over it—vellum drawn tight, etched in dark ink. A coastal slope. A ridge overlooking the city of Kleisthenes, its low buildings like pebbles caught between the hills. At its center: a sanctuary walled in ashlar stone. Small. Elevated. Sacred.
No one named the god. They didn't need to.
A low-voiced officer gestured with the end of his stylus.
"The enemy is using the hill shrine to signal reinforcements. At dusk, they burn oil in the tower hearth. Their smoke is visible all the way to the outer sea. They are not warning the heavens. They are talking to their fleet."
A pause. Then: "Tonight, we cut the voice from the mountain."
The men around the table nodded once. Sharp. Silent.
No one asked about the sanctity of the shrine. That was for philosophers.
The dispatch officer turned to you last.
"You'll lead the southern breach line. Twelve men. No torch. No noise. No prisoners."
You wanted to question why you're called upon this night assault. But you know better to voice it aloud.
The dispatch officer paused just long enough to let the final word hang.
"The slope will be marked. Your ascent must begin before moonrise. There's no signal after that. You're not waiting for stars. You're waiting for silence."
A scribe lifted a scroll, unrolled it, held it for the dispatch officer. He read:
"Parsa of Median Line. Authority assigned by command. Witnessed by two. Registered under token 145-Naphata."
He lowered the scroll.
"Do you accept this bearing?"
It wasn't a question. It was an invocation—one that reminded you of another.
The first had come from Arishem, when he bound your path to Ajak's. But this one felt no less final.
You remembered another moment like this. Not at a war table, but beneath the sky—where stars bore witness in place of scribes.
Ajak had placed her hand on your shoulder, fingers light but immovable.
"I do not ask this because you are the strongest," she had said.
"I ask this because you understand what it means to carry what cannot be named."
That night, she didn't give orders. She gave trust.
And you had accepted it with the same breath you now gave to the silence in this tent.
You answered without flinching.
"I do."
Another officer stepped forward then, holding out a small clay tablet, still warm from the seal press. It bore no name—only a mark shaped like an open flame, the symbol of Mithra's oath.
It wasn't ceremonial. It was conditional.
If you lived, it meant you had fulfilled the role the gods saw fit to test.
If you died, it meant you were never meant to be remembered.
You took it without hesitation, pressing it once to your forehead before tucking it into the inside fold of your cloak.
No one saluted.
The officers resumed discussing grain tonnage.
You stepped out into the light.
**********
The camp had already begun to fold in on itself when you returned.
Tents lowered. Fires covered. No shouting, no laughter, no clatter of bowls. The kind of quiet that didn't belong to sleep, but to waiting.
You made no announcement.
Twelve names had been marked. Twelve men gathered by the southern post near the ridge line—where carts were stacked to block the wind and horses were hobbled to keep still.
They were younger than you expected. Or perhaps just less broken. No scars. No frostbite along the fingers. Not enough hate in their eyes to recognize its absence in others. To your surprise, Arian is among them, carrying the supplies needed for this assault mission.
They waited in two lines—spears wrapped in canvas, cloaks fastened with utility pins instead of ornament. No torches. Just the faint copper glint of oil rubbed into blades.
No one spoke.
Until one did. Quiet. Nervous.
"What if it's still holy to them?"
No one answered. Another spat gently in the dust, a ritual meant to ward off ill fate.
You moved to the front of the line. No signal. No salutes. These weren't soldiers trained to follow banners. They followed fear.
And now they followed you.
You made no speech. They wouldn't have listened.
You nodded once toward the rise—and began to walk.
The first slope rose like a swallowed breath.
Loose gravel. Patchy scrub. The wind shifted strangely here, swirling instead of sweeping, as if even the air second-guessed the climb. You moved in silence. One step. Another.
The moon had not yet breached the mountain's shoulder, but the sky was beginning to bruise—soft indigo bleeding into the horizon's edge.
The others followed close behind.
You heard it in their steps.
Too fast at first—too sharp, too loud. Their fear made them eager. Then slower, when the weight settled in: the truth that they were moving not toward a city, but a shrine. A place where blood, if spilled, would not be forgotten by the locals. Or the gods.
Someone stumbled.
A rock cracked beneath a boot.
You didn't look back. You didn't need to.
Their breathing was starting to sync with yours—not by instruction, but by need. They matched your cadence because it was steadier than theirs. Because your footfalls didn't slip. Because your hands didn't shake.
You didn't carry a torch. But somehow, they walked in your shadow like it was the only light they trusted.
The halfway point came without fanfare.
Just a notch in the rock where an old goat trail bent inward, hidden beneath a shallow outcrop. A place older than the road itself—older than any map these boys had ever seen.
You raised a hand. Fist closed. They stopped.
The silence crept in again. Only now it was heavier. Different.
They didn't know it yet, but this was where the shrine's watch line began. Any further, and even a dropped coin could betray them.
You crouched.
Pulled your blade slowly from its sheath—not to threaten, but to remember.
The edge caught no light. But it remembered the last time it had drawn blood.
You let your fingers drift across the flat. Not in ritual. In recognition.
You were not born for these missions. But the Celestial had made you for similar task.
And somewhere, behind the haze of stars and fire-forged sky, they were still watching.
Still measuring.
Behind you, someone whispered too loudly: "Why do they send us to do this?"
No one answered.
But one of the Median boys—the one who'd mocked you, once—shifted closer, not to speak, but to be closer to your silence. Like being near you brings the easing presence to their panic mind.
And just before you rose to move again, you felt it.
Not fear.
Acceptance.
The kind that comes when men realize they are not escaping death—but following it.
You exhaled once.
Not to steady yourself.
To remember how to lead.
**********
The climb leveled just before the third ridge.
Below you, the campfire lights had vanished into the horizon's curve. Ahead—nothing but shadows etched into stone.
You raised your hand again.
The column stilled.
The shrine stood not fifty paces away—partially carved into the mountain itself, half-hidden by a natural outcrop that disguised its entry. Cypress trees clustered along its perimeter, their roots gnarled like forgotten limbs. A faint scent of burnt herbs lingered in the air. Myrrh, or blood. Maybe both.
No guards stood visible.
But shrines like this didn't need them. Reverence had done the work of sentries for generations.
You crouched low, hand brushing the dirt. The ground was cool, undisturbed. No bootprints. No torch ash. They didn't expect anyone would come this way. Especially not at this hour.
You motioned them forward in silence—one at a time. And signaled Arian to wait for them beyond the Shrine's watch line.
Eleven men moved as one. No rattling armor. No careless breath. Their fear had become focus. Their youth had turned to silence.
The shrine loomed larger as you approached—its outer columns cracked with age, but still upright. Relief carvings lined the lintels—winged bulls, suns-within-circles, robed figures pressing palms to the sky. It bore the marks of both Median worship and Elamite ancestry.
A place made to invoke gods no one remembered how to fear.
You signaled the halt.
The group crouched in a half-circle around the entrance. One man—Davash, you remembered—began to whisper a question. You cut him off with a glance.
Words would rot the air here.
Instead, you approached first.
Your feet made no sound.
The entrance wasn't barred—just covered by thick woven cloth, its edges stiff with soot and sacred oil. You pressed your hand to the curtain once, let it register your presence.
Then stepped inside.
The air within clung to your skin. Thick. Old. Too old.
Incense still burned somewhere deeper in the shrine, a remnant offering—perhaps from a priest who thought daylight had bought him safety.
There were no soldiers. No bells to signal alarm.
Just three figures in deep blue robes—kneeling at a low altar, backs to the entrance, unaware.
They were praying.
You held your breath. Raised a hand.
The first man behind you understood.
He moved like a whisper with a blade.
The second hesitated—but followed.
The third... didn't.
He paused. Eyes wide. You turned just enough to see it—his jaw clenched, his body frozen.
You stepped back into his view.
Not to scold. To look him in the eye.
He met your gaze. Shaking.
You placed your hand lightly on his shoulder.
And gently moved past him.
Your own blade left its sheath without sound.
The first priest never turned.
The second did.
He didn't scream.
You pressed your palm over his mouth. Your dagger drove and its enchanted edge did the rest.
It was over in heartbeats.
The altar ran red. The incense dimmed.
When the others followed, they did so slowly—some unable to meet your eyes, others unable to stop watching you.
You wiped both blades clean.
Not because it needed it.
But because they needed to see you do it.
Let them believe you didn't flinch.
Let them believe that blood didn't stain you the same way it did them.
Even if, deep in your ribs, you knew the difference was only this:
You had done it before but with powers beyond their comprehension.
**********
The smell didn't leave easily.
Not even after they stepped back into the mountain air, not even when the stream at the foot of the ridge stained red as they rinsed their hands.
Some didn't speak.
Some couldn't.
One of the younger soldiers—Talem, with the pale eyes and unscarred boots—bent over the rocks and vomited until there was nothing left but dry heaving. Another sat with his back to a tree, blade still drawn, hands shaking without rhythm. The third stood upright, eyes blank, repeating under his breath: "They weren't armed. They weren't armed…"
You moved among them. Not as officer. Not as equal.
But as something the air followed.
No one questioned your silence. No one asked how your hands stayed steady. They watched you the way mortals watch fire—warily, gratefully, afraid to come close but needing its warmth to not break entirely.
Talem turned toward you, face pale, mouth still slick with bile. "That wasn't war," he muttered.
You didn't argue.
You crouched beside him, took his blade gently, cleaned the hilt without a word. Then handed it back—not like a command. Like a reminder.
He took it with both hands.
Still trembling.
Another soldier—a Median boy barely older than sixteen—spoke next. "My mother prayed at shrines like this. She told me no soldier should ever carry a weapon past the altar fire."
You looked him in the eyes.
And didn't deny it.
But when your voice came, it was low. Measured.
"And what do you think the gods saw tonight?"
The boy opened his mouth, then closed it.
You didn't press further.
You simply stood, and the rest followed.
As they gathered their gear, you felt the shape of her words return—not as memory, but as instinct:
You cannot protect their innocence, Seidon. But you can protect their shape. Let them walk through the fire. But remind them where the path ends.
Ajak.
Always Ajak.
You turned back to the shrine one last time. The stone columns had lost their glow. The firelight inside no longer flickered.
What had been sacred had ended.
The descent was quiet.
Not solemn—hollow.
No voices. No gear rattling. Even the air between footfalls seemed thinner, as if the mountain itself had swallowed what remained of their breath.
Then the trees parted.
And you saw her.
You felt her first—not through presence, but through stillness, like the moment before the sky splits open.
Kneeling beneath the portico of the second shrine, head bowed, hands bound behind her. A gag pressed tight over her mouth, but her spine unbent. Not struggling. Not resigned.
Two guards flanked her. Wrong.
Too still. Too perfect.
The first leaned with a looseness no mercenary ever earned. The second toyed with a strap, but never once blinked.
You raised your hand. The men halted.
You stepped forward.
A scent rode the air—not unclean, not decay. Wrong. Like metal soaked too long in seawater.
Then she lifted her head.
No struggle. No sound.
Her gaze met yours like ice across obsidian—refusing to reflect you. Not in defiance. In knowledge.
Behind her, the guard with the strap muttered, "Tried to run."
But you weren't listening anymore.
They didn't breathe right.
You stepped closer.
One heartbeat.
Two.
Then moved.
Your blade sang twice.
The first dropped like cloth. The second reached for a blade and found the air split by your second cut.
They died without noise.
And as they fell, their skin tore open—not from your strike, but from within. What was flesh folded back into black sinew. Tentacles uncoiled from split ribs, glistening with bile the color of iron and sea-rot.
Deviants.
No doubt.
Without a word, you extended your palm.
The ground answered.
It opened beneath the bodies—not with violence, but with judgment. The earth swallowed them whole. No bones. No stain.
Only dust.
You did not look at the woman.
But you felt it when her breath caught—not in panic, but in understanding.
You turned back to her.
She still hadn't moved.
You wiped the blade clean across your sleeve—slow, deliberate.
Then drew Thena's dagger.
It passed through the bindings like silk through smoke.
She remained kneeling.
Then slowly rose.
She didn't speak.
Didn't flee.
She looked at you the way one watches storms form at the edge of the world.
Her wrists bled slightly where the ropes had rubbed. She made no effort to cover them.
One footstep behind you—Talem.
You didn't turn.
He choked when he saw the carcasses before the earth finished its meal. "They sent me to check... the others were worried—"
He stopped, voice shaking. Then, quieter: "She looks like a curse waiting to happen."
You ignored him.
So did she.
She walked forward—not toward the camp. Not toward the boy.
Toward you.
She studied you like scripture.
Then said, her voice quiet, steady, no more than breath:
"What kind of man slays in silence… and then spares the voice meant to curse him?"
You didn't answer.
You didn't need to.
She already knew.
She was not speaking to a man.
Only something that wore the shape of one.
**********
The sun had crested by the time you returned.
Not fully risen—just high enough to stain the ridge in ochre, drawing long shadows that stretched like blades behind your unit. The soldiers moved as one now—not in formation, but in fatigue. Their boots dragged. Armor scuffed. The smell of ash, sweat, and half-dried blood clung to them like second skin.
No drums greeted you.
Only a line of officers near the command fire, scrolls open, eyes unreadable.
You dismounted without flourish.
Behind you, the Median adjutant gave a short whistle—acknowledgement, not celebration.
Two guards stepped forward to take the prisoner. There was only one.
The priestess.
Untied. Upright. Unshaken.
You didn't flinch when the Spāhbed of the Ridge Campaign broke from the officer line.
He was taller than you remembered, or maybe that was the armor—lacquered bronze, the links tight as doctrine. His beard was neatly braided in the old style, his eyes sharp behind it. He moved like a man who never needed to raise his voice to be obeyed.
He didn't ask for a report.
He came straight to you.
"You left the northern wing intact."
Not a question.
You met his gaze. Unmoving.
"There were no weapons," you said. "Only ink. Clay. Words."
His mouth tightened. "And the servant of Artemis?"
You didn't look back.
"She's here."
He glanced toward her—then back at you.
"She's breathing."
You didn't answer.
He stepped in close enough that the air changed.
"You defied the terms of selective purge," he said, quiet but sharp. "One priestess isn't worth an imbalance in the line."
Still, you didn't break stride.
"She's worth what she knows."
He narrowed his eyes. "And what if she refuses to speak?"
"She won't."
"And what makes you so sure?"
Your voice came quiet.
Certain.
"I have my way around people."
He studied you for a long second, then glanced down at the golden coin you had placed in his palm. Sprite's parting gift—you remembered her words: For luck, or for bribe. Whichever comes first.
Then he stepped back.
"Let the scribes record success," he said aloud to no one in particular. "And no mention of deviations."
He walked off before the silence could settle.
But the officers had already seen it.
How you didn't fold.How power shifted in the space between words.
And that was enough.
You found her seated beneath the column at the camp's outer ring—where the sacred line met the mortal one. She hadn't eaten. Hadn't spoken. Just watched.
When you approached, she didn't rise. She didn't flee.
She just looked up, and those frost-ringed eyes met yours like she was taking a final measurement before drawing her own map.
You sat.
No guards. No scribes.
Just breath and fire and the weight of unspoken names between you.
She spoke first.
"You know what they'll want from me."
Not bitter.
Not afraid.
Just a fact.
You said nothing.
"But you stopped them."
Still, you didn't reply.
She tilted her head slightly, like hearing something beyond the camp's quiet.
"You think I'll thank you?"
"No," you said. "I think you'll remember it."
A pause.
Long enough to test your steadiness.
Then she leaned forward.
"Not Median," she murmured. "Not by tongue. Not by silence either. You hold your words like they were forged."
You didn't answer.
"A witness," you offered.
She gave a short breath of a laugh. "To what? The erosion of conscience?"
"To what men become when they forget what they were."
That stopped her.
Her voice, when it returned, had changed.
"And what are you, Parsa?"
You didn't blink at the name.
You didn't ask who told her.
You simply met her gaze.
And said:
"Trying."
She looked at you like that word had more teeth than it should've. Like it hadn't meant mercy—but warning.
Then slowly, her arms folded over her knees, and she drew her legs close beneath her.
"I don't know if I should trust you," she said.
"Or warn the others."
You nodded, just once.
"Then maybe do both."
She didn't smile.
But she didn't rise to leave either.