A few hours had passed since Eldrigan and Peroncerea had left the inner sanctum. The silence in the Temple of Secrets returned. And at its heart stood Nelayas, no longer floating, no longer grinning.
He stood still.
The center of the temple floor beneath his bare feet began to shimmer. Thin lines, invisible until now, glowed with divine script. Then, with the mechanical elegance of a lock, the floor split apart, parting horizontally in four smooth sections like the petals of a divine lotus.
From the darkness below, a slow, humming lift began to rise. And upon it was her.
The one sealed beneath the temple, lost to all but myth and to one soul alone.
She towered at three meters tall, her form both ethereal and sorrow-touched. She had long brown hair, coiled messily around her shoulders and down her back. Her eyes were hidden behind a sleek black metal visor, old and cracked, but still holding the divine bindings upon her mind. Her once-elegant red dress hung in tatters around her.
And around her wrists, ankles and neck were red chains, anchoring her arms together just beneath her chest. Yet even in such degradation, she was unspeakably beautiful.
As she reached eye level with Nelayas, she did not speak at first. He stared at her.
And then, slowly, he moved forward.
His hand rose and brushed his fingertips across her cheek.
"It's been three hundred years."
She trembled.
"…Nelayas?"
He smiled.
"It's me."
He then wrapped his arms around her neck as he floated, not caring for her chains or for the rugged dress she wore.
She couldn't lift her arms to return the embrace but her head tilted forward. Her chin met his hair. And her eyes wept. Tears slipped beneath the visor and spilled down her cheeks.
"I thought I forgot your warmth. But I didn't. Even now, I remember…"
His grip on her tightened.
"I never stopped waiting," he whispered. "Not once."
And the silence that followed needed no words.
°°°°°°°
Later…
In a quiet chamber deep within the temple, Nelayas sat on the rim of a shallow basin, a large bowl of lukewarm water placed beside him. Steam gently curled up from the surface. A clean cloth, folded with divine embroidery, lay in his palm. A fresh, silk robe rested on the polished stone behind him.
Across from him, she sat with her wrists and ankles unchained but still had cuffs. She could move her limbs well but the cuffs never left her neck, write or ankles. The floor beneath her was warm, blessed by some ancient system still working in this timeless place.
He knelt beside her, holding the bowl carefully.
"…I'm going to clean you now."
She lowered her head, cheeks already glowing a soft blush, barely visible beneath the dirt and time that clung to her skin.
"You don't have to..."
He smiled, dipping the cloth into the bowl, wringing it once.
"I want to. You don't mind, do you?"
"But… like this? I'm not who I was. I'm a mess. Ugly, chained, forgotten. You deserve—"
"I deserve you," he said simply, cutting through the shame with truth. "Even like this. Especially like this. And we have nowhere to go, remember?"
She said nothing more.
He started at her shoulders, pulling gently at the tattered dress until it gave way in fragile threads. The cloth peeled apart easily, no longer held together by time or pride. She closed her eyes and let it fall.
Beneath the ruined red silk was a body marked by age, not in wrinkles or lines, but in energy. Faint cracks of glowing script curled along her skin like scars from divine lashes. Her skin was soft, yet pockmarked in places by the strain of three centuries of binding.
He washed her slowly.
He started with her neck, brushing away the grime that clung like shame. She tilted her head, her breath slightly heavy as the warmth soaked in. He spoke as he cleaned, voice soft, eyes never leaving hers.
"Do you remember the garden we built together in the Silver Desert?"
Her lips curved faintly.
"With the tree? Yes."
"You used to nap under it while pretending to read those dumb war scrolls."
"I wasn't pretending…" she protested weakly.
"You snored."
She laughed.
His hands moved lower, cleaning her arms, her back and legs with care. He didn't stare. He didn't gawk. He just washed. She shivered when he touched her side. Her ribs still bore the bruises of a punishment that had never healed.
He frowned at that.
"They kept you below… all this time?"
She nodded. "And you?"
He paused, soaking the cloth again before cupping water gently into his hand and pouring it over her thigh.
"I was kept above in silence, forced to watch the world through eyes that weren't mine. I became part of the temple. My thoughts… weren't always my own."
She reached toward him, awkwardly brushing his jaw with her fingertips.
"I thought you were dead."
"I thought you'd forgotten me."
They sat in silence again.
Eventually, he dried her off with a warm towel, then helped slide the silk robe over her shoulders, tying it gently at her waist with a beautiful thread. She looked down at it, running her fingers over the fabric. It felt like memory.
"…Nelayas?"
"Yes?"
"Will we be separated again?"
He cupped her face, pulling her close.
"Not if I have anything to say about it."
And for the first time in three hundred years, her smile returned.
And Nelayas, young in face but older than most stars, leaned forward and kissed her brow, resting his head against hers.
The goddess in red chains was no longer alone.
°°°°°°
If time meant anything in the Temple of Secrets, then this was "morning" only because Eldrigan decided it was. He had a hair strand sticking straight up, his shirt unbuttoned halfway down and his face still creased from the stone slab he'd called a bed.
Peroncerea, on the other hand, looked way too fresh, like someone who definitely did use Eldrigan's vitality just a few hours ago as a morning snack and was now pretending to have not enjoyed it that much.
"...You're glowing," Eldrigan grumbled, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
Peroncerea grinned, stretching her arms behind her back.
"I told you it would work, didn't I? No Divine Energy sensitivity whatsoever. I feel like I could punch an Archangel in the throat and walk away with a smile."
Eldrigan gave her a half-lidded stare.
They stood before the sealed door, the one that once held Nelayas and apparently, secrets deep enough to get them all vaporized last night. But this time, something felt different.
"Hey… do you feel that?"
"Yeah. That pressure from yesterday… It's gone."
"Completely gone," she whispered, lowering her hand toward the black stone. "Like the whole temple exhaled."
But what neither of them expected what shut down every part of their well-honed survival instincts was the presence they now felt behind the sealed door.
There were two now.
One was clearly Nelayas. That weird, unbothered calm chaos was still him. But the other one…
"…it feels massive," Peroncerea whispered.
"More than massive. She feels like... a living divine verdict. Ready?"
They both bit their thumbs again and pressed their blood against the ancient script embedded on the floor. Golden script flared once more, recognizing the pact from the day before.
And with a sound like a breath being released from the throat of the world, the door began to part.
What they expected was a looming god-sphere, an explosion of light, maybe a massive throne of divine madness.
But they got breakfast instead.
Specifically, a picnic breakfast on the floor, with mismatched stone cups and a steaming pot of tea and toast made from black wheat bread. Even fruit glimmering in silver dishes existed.
And in the middle of it all sat Nelayas, sitting cross-legged, biting into what looked suspiciously like a fruit from the island. He waved with his free hand, completely casual.
"Morning."
Sitting across from him, however… was a woman.
She was three meters tall draped in a new robe, her long brown hair neatly cascading around her shoulders like it had been brushed by moonlight itself. Her wrists and ankles had glowing red cuffs. Her black visor was sleek, but not oppressive.
Peroncerea actually choked.
"...Who—who the—what—?"
Eldrigan just stood there blinking. He hadn't blinked in thirty seconds. And she turned to them, gently lowering her teacup and bowing her head slightly.
"Thank you. For bringing me back to my husband after three centuries."
They both froze.
"...Husband?"
Eldrigan blinked again, his eyes slowly moving from this towering, radiant celestial being to Nelayas, who was currently licking fruit sap off his thumb.
A six-year-old-sized boy was sitting in front of A LITERAL GIANTESS, casually chewing on bread and not even trying to act like anything was weird.
Nelayas looked up at them, then leaned sideways into her towering form.
"She's always been beautiful, hasn't she?"
"I…"
Eldrigan couldn't breathe.
Peroncerea, meanwhile, stepped forward in a daze.
"W-wait, wait, wait, wait. Time out. What's your name, Miss..."
The woman chuckled softly, folding her hands on her lap.
"I am called Aeloria Elarinidas, the High priestess of Nelayas, the God of Secrets and Truths."
She placed her hand on Nelayas's head, brushing back a lock of his hair with immense gentleness, like she were cradling something made of clouds and stars.
"Aeloria..."
Eldrigan repeated slowly, the syllables falling off his tongue like her name itself threatened to cleanse him.
"Wait. You're saying that you… and that…" she pointed at Nelayas with a jerky thumb, "...are married?"
Aeloria smiled, a touch of nostalgia blooming in her expression.
"Since the Pantheon Age. Though our forms differ now, our bond has not withered."
Nelayas shrugged, casually taking a sip from his ridiculously tiny teacup.
"She was sealed below. I was sealed above. Godly politics are very boring. Anyway, now we're unsealed and we're having toast."
"She's THREE METERS TALL."
"Does it matter? I'm more than two thousand years old you know."
Aeloria chuckled as Peroncerea physically recoiled and Eldrigan came back to reality.
"Okay, okay," Eldrigan coughed, finally managing to compose himself, "so just so we're crystal, you uh… married a Divine titaness three meters tall who's been sealed for three hundred years because you both pissed off the First Generation—"
"He started it," Aeloria said with complete calm.
"No, you started it," Nelayas muttered.
"You helped the First Generation."
"You threatened the next heiress of Skyrover."
"Ugh don't remind me..."
"I—" Eldrigan blinked again. "Why do you sound like a married couple from a romantic novel and not war criminals?!"
"We were both," Aeloria said proudly. "He made very good love comments while toppling empires."
"…I think I need to lie down."
"You're already lying down," Peroncerea said, noticing his slow collapse.
Nelayas, meanwhile, poured tea into a new cup.
"You two want some breakfast?"