It had been three weeks since the shrine.
Enough days for the blood to dry. Not enough for it to be forgotten.
In that time, you had led four more missions. None of them ceremonial. None of them clean. They came without fanfare—just folded scrolls pressed into your hand, and eyes that no longer questioned your silence.
The targets varied—watchposts, storehouses, communication shrines—but the pattern didn't.
Each one successful.
Each one uncomfortably close to something that shouldn't have been there.
You hadn't spoken of it—not to Arian, not to yourself. Not even when the scent returned, not even when the scent hit your lungs again on the third raid: copper turned rotten, the air bent just wrong. The presence of something not human—not anymore.
You had to end that fight with a blade. No elements. No fire, no stone, no storm.
A clean sword through the neck. A flick of Thena's dagger to finish what steel alone couldn't.
No one saw.
But the wound the Deviant left across your ribs had torn deeper than you'd let them notice.
Now, as you walked back into the perimeter of the forward outpost—boots caked in scorched dirt, blood still stiff under your tunic—you saw the shift.
A minor commander at the watch post straightened his stance as you passed. Not to salute. To assess.
Another officer, arms folded beside the map pavilion, tilted his head slightly. His lips pressed tight. He didn't ask for a report.
You handed it over anyway.
Mission accomplished. Minimal losses. Target neutralized.
He nodded once, slowly, and turned without a word. You caught it then—in the twitch of his mouth, in the way his fingers lingered too long over the vellum: satisfaction.
The kind that didn't look at a man.
The kind that looked at a tool and saw it still working.
You breathed deep—not to recover, but to keep from throwing that breath back in his face.
Because you knew.
There would be a next mission. Another sealed scroll. Another "impossible target" passed down in the silence between meals.
They wouldn't name it.
But it would find you.
And when it did, you'd answer.
Because you always did.
You stepped out of the tent just as the sun broke through the dust-heavy clouds—amber and raw, washing your face in light that didn't feel like light.
Your hand moved unconsciously to your chest.
The cord was still there.
Worn leather, knotted around the small, darkened charm Prince Nabu had once pressed into your palm as a boy.
You remembered the dream he'd spoken of—how he'd seen you, older, weary, standing in firelight with your shoulders low and your gaze distant.
You hadn't believed it then.
You believed it now.
Because you'd seen that look in your own reflection.
Not in mirrors. In water. In steel.
And beneath it all, Ajak's voice still moved—quiet, steady, the way wind moves through temple cloth when no one else is listening.
"You do not carry this because it makes sense," she had told you once, the night after your first kill. "You carry it because someone must."
Your fingers closed around the charm.
And when you released it, you didn't feel lighter.
But you did feel steady.
And for now, that was enough.
**********
The cloth he gave you was rough—dyed a muted russet, its stitching plain but precise.
It was the color worn by most soldiers along the ridge. Not enough to pass as one of them. But enough to confuse a scout in the dark. Enough to make you harder to target when blood ran faster than orders.
He didn't explain when he handed it to you.
Just pressed the folded garment into your arms and nodded toward the back partition of his tent.
"Put it on," he said. "They won't question your presence. Not if you look like one of ours."
One of ours.
You didn't ask which "ours" he meant.
His voice remained even, but his hands had twitched as he spoke—just slightly, at the seam where his bracer met his wrist.
You disappeared behind the curtain, and when you emerged, the robe clung awkwardly against your shoulders. The fabric itched where it touched your neck. You hadn't worn wool in months.
He didn't look at you.
Only gestured toward the threshold.
"You can move about the camp. Just don't go too far."
Then, after a pause—his eyes never fully meeting yours:
"Stay close to my side of the quarter. If anything happens, someone will come for me first."
It wasn't kindness.
It was precaution.
But somehow, it settled heavier than protection. As though you had been… folded in. Not welcomed. Not claimed. But kept.
And still—you nodded.
You walked through the rows of soldiers without being stopped. No one questioned the robe. A few glanced your way, quickly, then looked elsewhere. Some bowed their heads slightly. You weren't sure if they mistook you for a healer. Or simply chose not to see you at all.
In either case, it suited you.
You didn't speak. You only walked. Slow, measured. Until the path bent into quieter soil and your breath could settle without interruption.
That's when the memory returned.
Not loudly. Not all at once.
But like breath pressing through a half-healed rib.
You remembered the first morning after they brought you into the Median camp—dirt still crusted in your hair, blood drying under your fingernails. You hadn't spoken then, either.
He had.
Only once.
"This won't feel like mercy," he'd said, handing you a skin of watered wine.
It hadn't.
But he hadn't watched you drink it. He'd turned and gone, as if the gesture was never meant to be seen.
In the weeks that followed, it had continued that way.
The quiet offerings. The careful distance.
A spare blanket tossed toward you before nightfall. Bread, torn in half and set beside your stone. A dagger, once, left unsheathed on a flat rock within your reach—never explained, never touched again.
He never asked you to thank him.
He never asked you to trust him.
But he never once treated you like something broken.
Only… hesitated. As though afraid of breaking something by naming it.
As though he, too, was afraid of what might break if either of you moved too fast.
He didn't ask questions about the gods you had named. The oaths you had sworn. The blood you had watched run down your temple steps in Kleisthenes.
But once, you caught him watching your hands. Not your face. Not your mouth.
Your hands.
The way they traced the shape of a scar near your collarbone when you thought no one was looking.
He had said nothing.
Just turned, and left an oil lamp burning nearer to your side than his.
Tonight, the lamp still flickered—just outside the tent's flap. The night felt colder than usual. The stars hung lower. Closer. You sat near the edge of the camp, feet tucked beneath the robe, watching the dark swell like a lung too slow to exhale.
And that's when the first horn didn't come.
That's when you realized the wind had changed.
And no one had noticed yet.
You noticed it in the silence.
Not its presence—but its change.
The fire near the armory had just begun to burn low, reduced to a soft amber glow licking the edge of the brazier. You had been walking the narrow corridor between tents, arms folded, cloak loose, moving without reason except that your body hadn't known how to rest for days.
That's when it shifted.
The air didn't stir. The camp didn't tremble. But your body remembered something older than reason—how the skin tightens when the storm begins before the sky catches up. The hush before horses scream. The breath before the earth forgets mercy.
Then the shouting began.
Far at first. Then everywhere at once.
A cry—Persian, panicked. The scrape of metal drawn too late. The shunk of blades through flesh.
You didn't freeze.
You ran.
Not away. Not toward safety.
You turned toward the eastern column—the one Seidon told you never to stray far from. You ran past the half-sleeping sentries, past the supply cart, past the row of spears leaned against the laundry line.
Toward the records tent.
It made no sense, not in the moment.
Only that inside that tent were the old inscriptions. Clay tablets. Vellum scrolls written in Elamite, in Median, in tongues that were dying faster than the men who guarded them.
They mattered. Or maybe they didn't.
But they were all you could think to protect.
The fabric of your robe whipped against your calves as you turned the corner. You could hear the fighting now. See it—shadows moving like wolves through firelight. Someone screamed behind you. Someone else was already choking on blood.
You reached the entrance.
The flap had already been cut open.
You stepped through, heart hammering.
And saw them.
Two men. Greek armor, but untidy. Raiders. Their swords still wet.
They turned.
And they didn't hesitate.
One looked at the robe you wore—the color Parsa had given you. The same dye that marked you not as a Greek, but as a target.
You ducked the first blade.
But the second—
You felt it before you heard it.
The stab didn't burn. Not at first.
Only breath left you, like someone had pulled it from your lungs with a thread.
Your knees gave out. You caught yourself on the post.
Then another pain—hot, sharp—beneath the ribs.
You staggered backward. Fell.
You didn't scream.
You couldn't.
The canvas above you swayed. The fire beyond it flared. And then—
Movement.
Not the soldiers. Not more attackers.
Him.
He didn't call your name.
He didn't make a sound.
He just was—all at once—between you and them.
The first attacker didn't finish turning. The second didn't get to swing again.
There was no style to his movement. No grace.
Only the raw fact of force. A blade through armor. A body struck aside like kindling.
Then the dust lifted.
And he was beside you.
You tried to speak, but the blood reached your throat first.
His hands were warm. One pressed against your side, not gently, but not cruelly either. The other—hovered. As if listening to something in the air. Something inside him.
And then you felt it.
The change.
Not in the world—but under it. In it.
The dust rose. The air bent.
Something ancient stirred—not like thunder, but like breath drawn in a place where gods used to walk.
You felt the warmth first.
Then the quiet.
Then your ribs no longer burned.
You gasped. You could. The pain dulled. Your body began to return to itself. The darkness that had been pulling at your spine let go.
You turned your head.
And saw him—his skin greyed, his jaw clenched too tight. His eyes already going far away.
His lips parted—not for breath, but for something heavier. You saw it before he did: the twitch in his jaw, the sudden clench in his throat—a pressure rising too fast to be swallowed.
And then he coughed.
Once.
Twice.
And blood bloomed against his mouth like ink spilled on stone.
Not from the wound. From within.
It wasn't a wound you could see.
It was the cost.
It came again—thicker this time. His shoulder jerked forward. His hand twitched like it had tried to catch the blood before it fell.
It didn't.
You watched it hit the ground. Dark. Dense. Alive in its silence. The blood struck the dirt with a sound too soft for what it meant.
"Parsa—"
He didn't hear you.
You reached for his shoulder. You tried to anchor him. But the light in him—whatever it was—flickered too violently now. His body rocked once. Then again.
And then—
He collapsed.
Not like a man collapsing. Like a thread snapped by the hand of something unseen.
You caught him—or tried to. His weight pulled from you.
You lowered him to the ground as gently as your shaking arms allowed.
His body was warm. But not steady.
His breath came in shallow gasps.
You pressed your palm to his chest. Not to wake him. Just to remind yourself he was still here.
And somewhere, deep beneath the rhythm of his heart, you could feel it.
Not divinity.
Not magic.
Just a choice.
One you didn't understand yet.
But one he had made—for you.
And somehow, that made it heavier than any miracle your gods had ever promised.
**********
You felt it before the camp did.
Not sound. Not shadow. Just the pressure—too still, too expectant. The kind that meant air was holding its breath, and the earth was listening for something it didn't want to hear.
You were near the eastern column, torchlight dim behind your shoulder, when the silence cracked.
Not with a horn.
With a scream.
Then steel.
Then fire.
You moved before the second voice followed. Before command could catch up to consequence. Your blade left its sheath with the sound of teeth clenched in prayer.
The Greeks had broken through.
They came not as soldiers, but as shadows with edges—slipping between tents, slashing indiscriminately. No banners. No warnings. Only ruin.
You didn't run toward orders.
You ran toward instinct.
And instinct pulled you east.
Something twisted inside you before you saw it—before the blood, before the scream caught in her throat. A fracture beneath your ribs that hadn't belonged to you.
You turned the last row and saw her fall.
Her robe was streaked in maroon. The color you gave her. The one that should've kept her safe.
The spear struck just beneath her ribs.
She didn't scream.
She folded—slowly, like someone trying not to spill something sacred.
You didn't remember drawing your blade again.
You only remembered the way the first attacker's jaw snapped when you struck.
The second never made it past a half-step.
The air around you split with motion, not sound.
And then—you were on your knees.
She was breathing.
Barely.
Your hand pressed against her side. Warmth surged beneath your palm. Too fast. Too red. You didn't wait.
You didn't think.
The other hand lifted—fingers spreading as if parting a veil no one else could see.
And the earth responded.
The dust rose.
Heat shimmered from your chest, down your arms, into her body, and past it. The force spread like breath through a sealed room—touching not just her, but everyone around. A ring of recovery radiated outward. Men who had lain gasping drew breath. Limbs steadied. Wounds closed without ceremony.
But it didn't stop.
It never stopped.
Not until it took something from you.
First, your balance.
Then your breath.
Then your pulse—still present, but no longer yours.
You tried to slow the draw. Tried to hold the well closed.
But it pulled.
Hard.
Your hands shook. Your vision edged into grey. You heard her gasp—soft, sharp—but couldn't look up. Not yet.
Your throat clenched. A sharp tug in your gut, like something inside you had torn open too fast.
Then—your body jerked forward.
And blood hit your tongue.
You coughed.
Once.
Then again.
And this time—it wasn't a warning. It was a verdict.
You felt it spill out. Thick. Hot. From your mouth. Onto your sleeve. Onto the dirt.
Not from injury.
From the price.
You tried to speak.
Nothing came.
You blinked—and caught her face, just for a second.
She saw it. All of it.
The pain. The flicker. The end curling at the edges of what should've been your strength.
She called your name. You heard it—like light trying to get through fog.
Then darkness cracked your knees.
Your body folded.
Not like a man collapsing.
Like something unmade.
You didn't feel the ground catch you.
But you felt her hand.
Right above your heart.
Not pulling.
Just staying.
And that was the last thing you knew.
Not divinity.
Not legacy.
Just… someone who stayed.