"Love is the greatest illusion ever created—not because it hides the truth, but because it makes us willing to die for a lie." — Friedrich Nietzsche (adapted)
Berzilus had always been different.
While others trained with swords or read sacred scriptures, he sat beneath the old tree near the cliffside—watching the clouds drift over a broken world. He believed in questions. In doubt. In the kind of love that bloomed even in places where God's name was forgotten.
And then… he met her.
She was warmth in winter, a voice softer than prayer. Not from his world—not from his beliefs—but from something purer. Something human. They talked about stars, about pain, about a world without walls built by gods or men.
"If love exists," he once whispered to her, "then maybe belief is not about gods... but about the way we choose to hold someone when everything else is burning."
But truth, Berzilus learned, is a blade. And love, when twisted by fear, cuts deeper than betrayal.
One night, the village priest dragged him into the square. Chained. Bloodied.
His lover had told them everything.
"He blasphemes," they shouted. "He questions God! He dares to say love is above religion!"
The people he had protected. The ones he had smiled at every morning. They lit the pyre beneath his feet with shaking hands.
"In the eyes of faith," the priest declared, "he is a disease. Fire shall cleanse him."
And Berzilus said nothing.
Because in the front row, beneath a trembling moon, she stood—eyes filled with guilt. With sorrow. With fear. But not love.
As the flames licked the edges of his robe, something in him shattered—but not hate. Not vengeance.
Love still remained.
With chains loosening from scorched wood, he stepped forward—flesh burning, vision dim—and walked to her. Not to harm. Not to curse.
Just a hug.
The crowd gasped as he embraced her. And in that moment—beyond judgment, beyond betrayal—his searing skin touched hers.
They both fell.
Her lifeless body collapsed first. Then he smiled.
"The world burned me for loving wrong. But she... she was the only thing that ever felt right."
Ashes rose to the stars that night.
They say Amon appeared after. Took Berzilus's body before it turned to dust. He called him The Keeper of the Forgotten Flame—a man who had loved in defiance of gods.
Quote to close the chapter:
"In the end, it wasn't hell that burned him. It was the hands of those who believed they were holy." — Unknown