Moonlight streamed in through the high, slatted roof of the longhouse, casting shifting patterns across the carved beams above. The scent of smoked root-vegetables, hot broth, and spiced meat lingered in the air, thick and comforting. Laughter drifted from all corners, soft and sincere, as the Menari feasted together. At the center of it all, around one of the low tables near the firepit, Noah sat flanked by Cassian and Abel, each of them with a shallow wooden bowl in hand and a smear of broth already on their sleeves.
"I'm telling you," Cassian said between bites, pointing his spoon at Abel, "if you scowl at the soup any harder, it's going to curdle."
Abel didn't glance up. "I'm scowling at you."
"That explains the warmth." Cassian winked and leaned into Noah's shoulder, stage-whispering, "You know, I think he's finally warming up to me. He only threatened to break my nose once today."
Noah snorted into his bowl, nearly choking. "That's because you spent the whole morning teasing the kids into climbing the bone racks."
Cassian held up both hands in mock offense. "I was inspiring them. That's mentorship."
Abel shook his head, but the smallest flicker of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Around them, the village buzzed with low music—flutes carved from hollow reeds, the soft rhythmic tapping of fingers on stretched hide drums. A few of the older Menari had gathered near the fire, singing a slow melody that rose and fell like wind weaving through trees. Children darted between tables, chased by dogs and their own shadows. The longhouse glowed, warm and alive.
For a moment, Noah allowed himself to relax. The weight in his chest didn't vanish, but it loosened. He was mid-laugh, hand still resting on the rim of his bowl, when the world cracked open.
The door slammed against the wall with a shuddering crash.
Everyone froze.
A scout stumbled through the threshold, panting hard, his leathers smeared with mud and blood. One of his braids had come loose and stuck to the sweat on his cheek.
"The altar!" he gasped. "The Altar of the Rising Moon—they're desecrating it! The soldiers of Helios, they—"
The longhouse erupted into motion. Bowls clattered to the floor. Mothers clutched their children close. The music died in a sharp intake of breath.
At the far end of the hall, the priestess stood.
She didn't shout. She didn't need to. Her presence cut through the panic like a blade.
"Tell me what you saw," she said.
The scout dropped to one knee, fist over his heart. "I followed them from the southern slope. Twelve—maybe more now. I saw them enter the sacred ridge, the old path. They had torches. They were laughing. I couldn't—"
"Enough," she said, voice cold now, sharp as stone. "Get water. Sit. You've done well."
The scout hesitated, then nodded and stumbled back.
The priestess turned, robes trailing like moonlight behind her. Her face was unreadable.
"Prepare the warriors," she said. "All of them."
Movement surged. Men and women leapt from benches, grabbing cloaks, blades, bows. The children were shepherded out, still quiet, still wide-eyed.
Then she turned again, slowly—toward the three strangers at the central table.
But before she could speak, Abel had already risen, his hand resting near the hilt of his sword. "We'll go."
Cassian stood beside him, brushing crumbs from his shirt. "Let's give them a proper hello."
Noah remained seated, stiff. The eyes on him—Menari eyes, fearful and full of hope—made his stomach twist.
He didn't want this.
He wanted to help, yes. But he didn't want to be seen as their salvation. Not again. Not ever.
Still...
Abel looked at him, just once. Not asking. Just trusting he'd follow.
Cassian nudged him with an elbow. "You coming, o' masked messiah?"
Noah groaned. "Don't call me that."
He stood.
The priestess met his gaze across the flickering fire.
"We thank you," she said. Not as a priestess. Just as someone whose people were being hurt.
Noah said nothing. He only nodded.
And so they moved.
Out of the longhouse. Into the cold bite of the night. Toward the desecrated altar, and the soldiers waiting there.
Moonlight draped the woods in violet shadow.
They marched in silence, boots brushing against moss-damp roots and soft, silver-tinged leaves. The Menari moved with purpose—spears in hand, bone armor clinking softly, faces painted in muted greys and ash-whites. A dozen warriors had answered the priestess's call. Not many. Maybe not enough. But they marched anyway, a sliver of steel and faith threading through the deepening forest.
The trees thinned here, but not in the way of dying things. They shimmered faintly in the gloom, their bark touched by some old magic, or maybe just memory. Noah walked with Abel on one side and Cassian on the other, the three of them slightly behind the priestess, who led the column without ever glancing back.
The woods felt different the deeper they went. Colder. Not dangerous—yet—but old. Too old to name.
Noah glanced sideways at one of the Menari warriors, a young woman with long braids wrapped around a crescent-shaped bone clasp. Her grip on the spear was too tight. Her jaw too tense. It wasn't just fear. It was mourning. Premature mourning.
He frowned.
"Why is this place so important?" he asked, voice low, pitched only for the priestess.
She didn't respond at first. Her steps didn't slow. Her gaze didn't waver.
Then, in a voice as brittle and quiet as frost, she said:
"Because it is his grave."
Noah blinked. "Whose?"
"The god of the moon. Our father. The altar of the rising moon marks where we gave his body back to the earth. It is the place where his spirit waits to rise again. If it is defiled…"
She paused. Her next words were harder.
"Then he cannot return. And if he cannot return, neither will we."
Cassian frowned. "You mean as a people?"
She nodded. "Hope dies when it has no altar to kneel before."
Noah swallowed hard.
The priestess added, more quietly: "The Lady of the Zenith sent one of her Pillars here not long ago. She claims to offer peace, but peace from a flame is only ash."
Abel muttered something under his breath. None of them asked him to repeat it.
They moved on. The woods thinned further.
Ahead, the trees opened like curtains to reveal the ruins of what had once been a sacred glade—and now wasn't.
Tents. Fires. Armored figures. Rows upon rows of gold-trimmed soldiers with sunburst shields and long spears. Over fifty, maybe more. Noah stopped walking. His stomach curled.
He spotted them easily: the Helios mages. Long robes, gold embroidery, sun sigils like branded heat along their sleeves. They stood to the side, overseeing something. Ritual, maybe. Desecration, definitely.
And in their center, a girl.
Young. Fifteen, sixteen at most. Her robes shimmered like water under firelight, every thread soaked in gold. A small sun circlet crowned her head. Her expression was serene, detached, cruel in its calm.
Noah exhaled through his teeth. "Let me guess," he muttered to Cassian. "That's a Pillar."
Cassian nodded slowly. "And we probably don't want to fight her."
Noah added, grim: "We probably don't get to choose."
The priestess didn't respond to their whispers. She stepped to the front, turning to face her warriors. Her voice carried, sharp as obsidian.
"Circle the encampment. Use the rocks and brush as cover. When I raise the moon-mark, you strike. Fast. Clean. Break their lines."
Murmurs of assent.
Abel stepped forward, eyes narrowed. "You're outnumbered. You know that."
"Yes," she said.
"You won't win with strength alone."
Her eyes flicked to him. "We don't fight for strength. We fight because if we don't, we die standing still. If they take the altar, our god dies a second death. We do not return from that."
The warriors behind her shifted, not uncertain—but aware.
The priestess turned to the three outsiders.
"You." Her voice held no command, only expectation. "The mages are yours. The Pillar is mine."
Noah stiffened.
Cassian stepped forward without waiting. "I'll go."
Abel nodded beside him. "Same."
All eyes turned to Noah.
He hesitated. The memory of the whispers. Of the fate lines, of pain, of blood.
Then he exhaled. Bitter.
"Fine."
The priestess bowed once. Not to them. To the moonlight.
Then she raised her hand—and the Menari scattered like mist into the dark.
Noah crouched beside Abel and Cassian behind a thicket of tall-leafed shrubs, the dozen Menari warriors spread out in a wide arc through the forest. The priestess moved ahead with slow, deliberate steps, guiding them with moonlight tattoos that pulsed faintly beneath her robes.
They had looped around the encampment, moving down the old river path, now dry and cracked, its bed thick with undergrowth. Now they waited, breath held, the enemy in sight just beyond the brush. Dozens of Helios soldiers milled around the campfires, their armor faintly golden even under moonlight. Mages stood near the mouth of the temple—guards to the grave they'd come to defile.
The priestess raised her hand. The signal.
The Menari surged.
Screams followed. Steel sang. Magic cracked the air.
The clearing became chaos. Burning tents lit the sky in flickering orange. Shadows lunged from all sides.
Abel charged into the fray with brutal efficiency, cutting down one legionnaire after another. His blade moved like a storm, steady and unrelenting. Cassian flanked him, wild and grinning, fighting like someone with nothing to prove and everything to protect.
Noah hung back at first, fingers trembling over the fate grimoire strapped to his waist. Then a mage raised a hand—sigils burning gold—and cast a barrier.
Noah didn't flinch. He drew a kinetic card between his fingers, whispered the shape of velocity, and hurled it forward. The card sliced through the shield like it was paper and buried itself in the mage's throat.
Gasps followed. Then more mages turned, forming shields of light.
Another card. Another kill. Another shield shattered.
They began to fear him.
But in the next moment, the night lit up—brighter than fire, purer than the moon. Noah turned just in time to see the floating girl raise both hands, her voice a perfect monotone.
"Burn away."
A beam of sunlight crashed toward him.
Before it could reach him, silver lances of lunar magic struck the girl from the side—forcing her to erect her own barrier. The priestess emerged from the trees like a storm of starlight, staff raised, eyes glowing with power.
"You will not desecrate him."
The girl said nothing. She floated higher, summoning radiant shields and golden constructs to defend herself.
Their clash broke the night. Moonlight against sunlight. Cold serenity against unblinking order.
Noah watched, stunned—until he saw mages slip past the fight, heading for the temple stairs.
He didn't hesitate.
"Noah!" Cassian yelled. "Wait!"
But he was already running, feet pounding against stone and moss, heart thundering. He passed the great stone arch, ducked into the yawning mouth of the temple, and descended into shadow.
It was quiet here. Too quiet.
Zorya floated in the air—golden echoes of dying souls. Noah flinched at the first one, his breath hitching, the taste of that power flooding memory and mouth. But he steadied himself. He couldn't absorb more. Not yet.
Ahead, the mages ran deeper.
He raised a card. Threw.
One dropped, choking. Another fled. He followed.
They reached a wide door, already opened. Beyond it: a chamber lit in blue fire, the floor etched with silver lines, and at the center—on a raised platform—stood a black stone sarcophagus.
The last mage rushed forward.
Noah snarled. Summoned a glowing whip of fate.
It cracked through the air, wrapped around the mage's ankle, and yanked. The man screamed, tumbled down the stairs, and landed with a sickening snap.
Silence.
Noah stood there, chest heaving, sweat on his brow.
Aboveground, the battle still raged. The priestess and the pillar clashed like myths reborn.
He turned toward the exit, ready to rejoin the fight—
Then he heard it.
A child's voice.
"You're here. Finally. Let's play."
His breath caught. He turned back toward the altar. A soft light shimmered atop the sarcophagus—pale and opalescent, like moonlight concentrated into a single shard. A stone, small and brilliant, pulsed slowly with a glow that wasn't there before.
Drawn like a moth to flame, Noah stepped forward. The air thickened, became heavier with each step. It shimmered, not just with magic, but with memory. Like the walls themselves remembered what had been laid to rest here.
The light pulsed. The voice giggled.
He climbed the stairs. Every motion slower now, his limbs weighed with something he couldn't name.
The stone called to him. He reached out—hesitant, fingers trembling.
The moment his skin brushed the surface, everything exploded.
A burst of lunar light swallowed the room. The floor shook. Cracks formed in the stone. Noah staggered back—but the world had already changed.
He turned—just in time to see the temple doors groan and begin to close.
"No—wait! Fuck, fuck, fuck!"
He dashed down the steps, but it was too late. The heavy stone gates slammed shut, sealing him inside.
Panic rose in his throat, but then—
The light surged again. Blinding. Beautiful. Terrible.
It filled the chamber. Flooded his vision.
And then—
Nothing but white.