The doors to the Citadel opened with the reluctant groan of stone disturbed from sleep. Cold air poured out like it didn't want them there either.
Inside, the hall stretched long and high, pillars biting into the ceiling like the ribs of some dead titan. No fire. No sound. Just the cold echo of steps on polished obsidian tile.
James sat at the far end, hunched slightly over a stone slab that pretended to be a desk. Paperwork towered beside him—laws to pass, problems to solve, cities to stabilize. One hand clenched his temple like he could hold his headache in place by force of will.
Then came the sound.
Boots. A slow stroll.
Followed by the not-sound: an idiot's grin made manifest in footstep form.
James didn't look up.
He didn't have to.
He felt them.
Noah, calm and collected, peeled off toward the side of the chamber like a man who didn't want to be hit with collateral damage but was deeply invested in the show. His coat trailed behind him, settling against one of the cold side-pillars with all the dignity of a disapproving uncle.
He folded his arms. "Go on, then."
Evodil stopped dead center in the hall, the grin on his face sharp enough to file gods down to size.
"James~," he called out sweetly, like a cat meowing after knocking over your last heirloom.
James inhaled through his nose. Slowly.
He still didn't look up.
There were rules here. Not real ones, not divine edicts—just quiet, bitter truths.
If you acknowledge him, he wins.
If you ignore him, he escalates.
If you engage him directly, you lose something precious.
Evodil walked closer.
One footstep.
Another.
He extended a hand toward the papers on the desk—hovering inches above them.
James raised his head just enough to glare.
"Don't."
Evodil froze, hand in place. Then slowly turned it palm-up.
"What, this? No touching. Promise."
He made a vague gesture with his other hand and a shadow finger poked the top document.
James's eye twitched. Just slightly.
From the side, Noah leaned casually against the stone, watching like someone at a play he's seen seventeen times but still enjoys for the explosions.
"Technically," Noah offered, "he didn't touch it."
James closed his eyes. "You came here for a reason. Speak it. Then leave."
Evodil walked around the desk in a slow circle, shadow tendrils dragging faint trails across the floor like lazy brushstrokes.
"Reason? Oh no, no no. See, he came for a reason." He thumbed toward Noah. "I came for joy. Enlightenment. Civil service sabotage."
Noah gave a small shrug like, He's not wrong.
James placed the stylus down with a very deliberate movement, like each second it took was a rope pulling his patience tighter.
"Civil Control has three active wars to stop, four trade routes collapsing, and two territories threatening secession because of something you said last month about time being fake and taxes being optional."
Evodil beamed. "Ah yes. My TED Talk."
James didn't answer.
He stood up instead.
Seven feet of divine authority wrapped in pressed black, eyes burning like solar flares behind thin-lensed glasses.
"You have thirty seconds to un-exist yourself from my office," James said quietly.
From the side, Noah raised a hand. "Bet he makes it to twenty."
Evodil took that as a challenge.
He leaned forward, palms flat on the stone desk. "Tell me, oh radiant sunbeam of bureaucracy… how many trees died so you could ignore their corpses all day long?"
He gestured dramatically at the paperwork. "A graveyard of wasted effort."
James cracked his neck once to the left. Once to the right.
Noah, from the sidelines, coughed politely. "Fifteen seconds."
James inhaled again. Deeper this time. His aura started to shift—less light, more heat. Not flames, just pressure. The kind that breaks glass.
Evodil backed off slightly, raising his hands like a man accused of arson during the fire.
"Alright, alright. No desk jokes. Let's talk about your fashion sense then."
James didn't blink. "You wear a blindfold and carry yourself like irony incarnate."
"I carry myself with confidence," Evodil shot back. "Which is more than I can say for those funeral director shoes."
From the shadows, Noah gave a soft clap. "Flawless burn."
James exhaled—slow, measured, dangerous.
And just as his hands began to glow with the faint heat of an incoming divine response
James's hands began to glow. The faint golden aura around his knuckles pulsed with mounting heat, the tiles beneath his feet cracking just slightly from the pressure. His words came low, simmering:
"Leave."
Evodil leaned in closer.
"No."
And with that, he reached down—calmly, like it was just another Wednesday—and grabbed the entire stack of carefully ordered, signed, blessed-by-the-sun documents from James's desk.
He made eye contact. Held it.
Then, slowly—deliberately—crushed the stack in his hands.
Paper crumpled, divine ink hissed out, seals broke.
James froze. Something in him went very still.
Evodil turned on his heel, walked toward the nearest window, and—without a flicker of hesitation—threw the entire mess out.
The documents soared through the air, like a tiny doomed planet of bureaucracy, then vanished into the endless crater below the Citadel.
For a moment, no one moved.
Noah blinked. "...Well. That's one way to handle a backlog."
James didn't speak.
His fists clenched.
His jaw set.
And the heat in the room rose like the surface of a dying star.
Evodil turned slowly back around, both hands raised, that ever-familiar grin spreading across his face like it belonged there.
"I did us all a favor. Think of the trees. The storage. The sanity."
James stepped forward. His boots cracked the floor beneath each stride, hair flaring with heat like strands of sunfire.
"You absolute cretin."
"Thank you," Evodil said brightly.
That was the last straw.
James lunged, divine heat trailing behind him like a comet. The ground buckled under the force of the charge.
Evodil dove back, sliding across the floor on a summoned tendril, laughing like this was the best part of his week. Maybe month.
"Finally," he shouted, shadows curling around him like a cloak, "some energy in this frozen corpse of a place!"
Noah watched from the sidelines, hands folded neatly, coat fluttering from the shockwave.
"Should I stop them?" he mused aloud to no one.
He didn't move.
Didn't even blink.
Because the glacier had cracked—
And the sun was finally answering.
The Citadel shook.
And then—boom.
A section of the back wall exploded in divine fury, stone and fire shredding into the air as two gods flew out like launched artillery.
James and Evodil crashed into the crater below, the shockwave tearing through the snow-dusted ridges like thunder made flesh.
The dust hadn't even settled before James was already on his feet, volcanic war hammer in hand, molten cracks spidering beneath each step.
Evodil hit the ground hard, rolled, skidded—then bounced back up with a grin like he'd been waiting for this.
But he was slow.
Just enough.
James charged, fast as divine wrath, hammer cocked back like he was ready to crater the planet itself.
Evodil's eyes widened. "Sh—"
Shadow tendrils erupted from the ground, wrapped around his torso, and flung him into the air just in time—James's hammer striking where he'd been a heartbeat before, shattering stone, sending lava-blooded cracks dancing through the basin.
Evodil landed hard on the other side of the crater, skidding to a stop.
"Alright," he muttered, raising a hand. "Now we play for real."
The shadows around him warped, bent, twisted—
And Crypt Blade tore through the veil with a howling shriek, massive, jagged, and hungry.
He pointed it straight at his brother.
James was already mid-leap, hammer glowing white-hot in the dim air, ash curling from his fingertips.
Evodil surged forward, blade raised, the ground fracturing under the force of their clash.
A god of law and a god of chaos, swinging like children.
Screaming like titans.
Fighting like brothers.
Their weapons met mid-air with a sound that didn't belong in this world—like steel wrapped in thunder slamming into reality's jaw.
Evodil grinned through the sparks, Crypt Blade locked against James's hammer.
"You still swinging that thing around like it's compensating for something?"
James pushed back, heat rippling off him like a solar storm. "You threw six months of negotiations into a hole."
"Correction," Evodil shot back, flipping backwards and landing with one hand on the ground, "I freed them."
James didn't wait. Another leap—hammer blazing—coming down like judgment itself.
Evodil twisted away, a tendril dragging him across the crater wall, narrowly avoiding a blast that turned half the floor into a magma pit.
"You fight like you write laws," Evodil called from above. "Slow. Predictable. Obsessed with control."
"And you fight," James snapped, hurling a spear of molten light mid-spin, "like someone who thinks dying is funny."
The spear tore through Evodil's shoulder, dissipating into steam—just a flesh wound. Or whatever counted for flesh in his case.
He hissed, spun mid-air, and hurled the Crypt Blade like a cursed boomerang. It spun wide, shadows screaming as it curved unnaturally toward James's back.
But James didn't flinch—he caught it. With one hand. Flames swallowing the blade's shadowy glow.
Evodil blinked. "...You're not supposed to do that."
James hurled it right back.
Evodil ducked—barely. The blade whirled over his head and embedded itself in the stone behind him, cleaving a floating boulder in half.
Noah, watching from the ruined Citadel balcony above, sipped water from a silver flask.
"They're idiots," he said flatly. "But at least they're consistent."
Down below, the fight raged on—heat, shadow, laughter, curses.
A war.
A tantrum.
A Tuesday.
Evodil stood still.
Crypt Blade gone, arm torn, and breath ragged—but the grin didn't leave his face.
James braced for another shadow strike.
But Evodil didn't move.
He raised both hands slowly. Palms open. Eyes locked not on James—but on the sky.
Shadow coiled unnaturally beneath him. The crater trembled. A low, deep hum vibrated through the stone.
James's eyes widened. "Evodil."
From far above, Noah's voice cut sharp across the wind. "Don't you dare."
But it was already too late.
Evodil's aura snapped into focus, pure gravity clawing outward from his core. The shadows around him didn't stretch—they collapsed. Crushed into a singular, screaming point between his hands.
The air warped.
Light bent.
Stone shattered inward.
A tiny black sphere pulsed at his fingertips, hungry and alive.
"Wanna reset the board?" he whispered to no one. "Let's reset the board."
"Evodil!" James roared, slamming his hammer into the ground, trying to anchor himself as the pull intensified. "Stop it—you'll tear the crater apart!"
But Evodil didn't stop. Didn't blink. Didn't even flinch as the black hole screamed louder, clawing everything nearby into its teeth—light, stone, heat, law, balance.
Noah's voice thundered from above. "You maniac! You're still inside its pull!"
"Yeah," Evodil whispered, smirking faintly as the void pulled even him off the ground, body bending toward it. "I know."
James launched forward, trying to stop it—but the singularity reached its peak.
And it swallowed.
Everything.
A pulse of absolute dark ripped through the crater, sucking the two gods, their shattered battleground, and half the ridge into its core—
And then, just as suddenly—
It spat everything back out.
Like the universe itself said no thanks.
Evodil and James were flung across the sky like divine shrapnel, crashing into separate distant mountains with the sound of rupturing stone echoing for miles.
Silence followed.
Nothing moved.
Noah stood on the Citadel's edge, wind whipping his coat as dust swirled far below.
He exhaled slowly, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
"Idiots," he muttered.
In the distance, two black dots smoked against the snowcapped peaks.
Nearly unconscious.
Barely breathing.
Still alive.
And somehow, not done.
The wind howled across the mountainside.
Ash and dust drifted lazily through the cold air, settling over broken stone and scorched snow. A crater within a crater. Silence, save for the faint hum of dying power.
From the rubble, a figure moved.
James.
Barely.
He groaned as he pushed himself up, leaning hard on his warhammer just to stay vertical. Every breath dragged through clenched teeth. His coat, singed and torn. His skin, glowing faintly with residual heat.
Step by step, he limped forward.
Toward the crater's edge. Toward the second crater inside it.
Toward him.
Evodil.
Flat on his back. Half his skull gone—clean off like someone had erased it with a cosmic eraser. Black fluid leaked from the wound, trailing down into the stone below. One eye flickered faintly under the mess, dim and unfocused.
James stared down at him.
No words.
Then, without ceremony—
He kicked him.
Hard.
Right in the ribs.
The impact echoed.
Evodil lurched, a guttural cough ripping from his chest as more black ichor spilled out of his mouth. He groaned, rolled halfway onto his side, and blinked slowly like someone waking from a century-long nap.
"...Ow."
Another cough. A wheeze. His fingers twitched against the rock as his head began to repair itself—inch by painful inch. Bone knitting together like dragged metal, shadows weaving in the gaps.
"Okay…" he rasped, voice hoarse and ragged. "That was a bit much."
James didn't reply.
He just stared.
Evodil's grin twitched back into place, crooked and stained with ichor.
"On the bright side... I think we bonded."
James didn't offer words.
Just his hand.
Evodil blinked at it, then—grudgingly—took it.
With a heavy tug, James pulled him up. Evodil wobbled, swayed once, then leaned on his brother's shoulder like a drunk god trying to fake composure.
"Don't say anything," he muttered.
"I wasn't going to," James said flatly.
They stood there.
Two broken divine beings. Covered in blood, ash, melted cloth, and regret.
Nothing needed to be said.
But silence was never Evodil's thing.
He squinted toward the horizon. "So… that could've gone worse."
James side-eyed him. "We were almost erased."
"Yeah, but like, together," Evodil grinned.
James exhaled slowly through his nose.
Evodil gave it another beat.
Then leaned slightly. "Hey... what do you call paperwork that jumps into a crater?"
James didn't answer.
Evodil clicked his tongue. "Filing for impact."
A long pause.
James stared at him like that punchline personally violated several universal laws.
But before either could speak, a sound broke the stillness—a faint shifting from behind a massive snowdrift nearby.
Evodil's head snapped toward it, already on edge.
Then—CRACK.
A shadow tendril launched from his back with the force of a cannon, slicing straight through the upper half of the snow pile. Powder exploded into the air in a giant puff, scattering crystals like ash.
Evodil stood frozen.
Then slowly turned his head back to James, eyes wide with childlike awe.
"Woooooah!!" he gasped. "Did you see that? It was like woosh!—and then the snow went foosh!"
He started mimicking the motion with his hands, wobbling slightly on his feet. "I didn't even aim that one!"
James blinked slowly. "…You're unbelievable."
"Thank you," Evodil beamed.
And beneath the swirling snow, the air remained still—too still.
Something had moved.
And it wasn't just the snow.
The snow settled, but the silence it left behind was heavier than before.
Evodil tilted his head. "...Weird."
James narrowed his eyes at the half-destroyed drift. "That was too precise to be random."
The two exchanged a glance.
Curiosity.
Wariness.
And—because they were who they were—neither said anything more before splitting off.
James circled left, boots crunching through frost and rock.
Evodil, still wobbly but energized by chaos, drifted right—tendrils twitching lazily behind him.
They moved slow.
Quiet.
And met at the far side of the snowpile—
Where something very out of place was huddled in the powder.
A boy.
Young. Maybe seventeen at most. Latino. Thin. Shivering.
His skin was raw from cold. His clothes barely more than stitched rags, the kind you'd expect in a labor camp—not anywhere near Menystria. Not this mountain. Not alive.
His eyes flicked up—dark, frightened, human.
And then—
"Let's kill him," Evodil offered immediately.
At the exact same time, James muttered, "Let's keep him."
They turned. Stared at each other.
"What?" Evodil blinked.
"You—you want to kill him?" James asked, incredulous. "You love humans."
"Yeah, entertaining humans," Evodil said, gesturing. "This one's cold, shaking, looks like a kicked dog. He's depressing."
James gestured back, just as aggressively. "You threw government records into a crater but this is where you draw the line?!"
Evodil pointed at the boy. "He hasn't even said anything! What if he explodes?!"
"He's not a bomb," James snapped.
"You don't know that!"
James stepped between them. "I'm not leaving him here."
Evodil crossed his arms. "You gonna name him too?"
James paused.
Didn't answer.
Which said everything.
Evodil squinted.
"…Wait."
"No," James said flatly.
"You are not doing the parental redemption arc."
"I'm not."
"You're doing the thing where you pretend you hate something but secretly care and now you're projecting—"
"I will hit you with my hammer."
"…Noted."
They stepped closer to the boy.
The kid didn't move—just curled tighter into himself, eyes flicking from one god to the other, half-frozen, half-aware, fully terrified.
And then—
The shadows behind Evodil twitched.
Moved.
Acted on their own.
Two tendrils whipped out—graceful, deliberate—and scooped the boy up off the ground like a sack of misfortune.
Evodil blinked, caught off guard for half a second. But when he saw the bruises, the torn wrists, and the scars etched into the boy's face like someone had tried to erase him by force—
He grinned.
"Well damn," he muttered, inspecting the boy like a cracked relic. "Who did your makeup? A lawnmower?"
James didn't hesitate.
SMACK.
His palm lit up with searing heat, and he slapped the side of Evodil's half-healed skull without warning.
Evodil screamed.
"AUGH—MY BRAIN HOLE!"
The tendrils spasmed, dropping the boy instantly into the snow. He groaned but didn't react much—either unconscious or too far gone to care.
Evodil clutched his head with both hands, stumbling in a circle. "You absolute volcano, I needed that hemisphere!"
James ignored the chaos, crouched beside the boy, and reached out carefully—divine aura dimmed. Gentle. Controlled.
"Who are you?" he asked quietly. "Where did you come from?"
The boy stirred.
Barely.
And then—
CRACK.
A rift tore open behind them.
But it didn't sound like magic. It didn't feel like shadow or flame.
It sang—crystal humming like a tuning fork from another dimension.
Both gods turned instantly, eyes narrowing.
The portal wasn't made of shadow, or fire, or sunsteel.
It was made of crystals. Vines. Metal. Light.
Alien.
Unfamiliar.
And through it—standing calm, arms crossed, eyes tired as ever—
Was Noah.
James stepped forward first. "How??"
Noah raised a brow. "Ariela."
Both brothers froze.
"…Who?" Evodil said slowly.
Noah just stared at them like they were idiots. Which, to be fair, wasn't inaccurate.
"She opened the path."
James frowned. "That's not an answer."
"It's the answer," Noah replied flatly, stepping through the portal without another word.
Evodil squinted. "Man, I swear, if this turns into some emotional lore dump, I'm going back to bed."
Evodil didn't wait for a signal.
He grabbed one of the boy's rags, had a tendril wrap around him like luggage, and dragged him behind as they all stepped through the portal.
The sensation was sharp—cold, but not in temperature. Cold in feeling. Like walking through a mirror of a place that shouldn't exist.