The gates of Elis closed behind them with a deep metallic groan, then slammed shut with a rumble that rolled across the plain like distant thunder. The sound lingered long after the doors sealed, final and unyielding.
It was the sort of noise that marked the end of a life. Macar did not turn back to watch the walls fade behind him. He simply walked, steady and straight, as dust curled around his sandals and the long line of sculptors followed in silence.
They moved like shadows—tired men carrying chipped tools, frayed ropes, and crates filled with discarded fragments of the gods they once shaped. No banners waved in farewell. No horns sounded grief. Only the wind kept them company, brushing through their ragged column as if trying to gather the pieces of their broken dignity.
The sun sagged toward the horizon, washing the open fields in gold. Grass bowed under the weight of the light, but the road ahead seemed to stretch forever—bleak, pale, and without mercy. It did not lead to any town, nor to fields where olives and barley grew. It led south, toward the line where the world darkened and the map ended. Ahead, half-buried in the haze of heat, rose the shape of a mountain. It looked wrong, like a tooth broken from the jaw of the earth.
"Mount Erebus," Macar said at last. His voice was low, scraped raw by dust and sorrow. "The only place King Roderic does not watch."
Pyrros, young and broad-shouldered, wiped his brow with the back of his hand. Sweat left a streak through the marble dust on his skin. "You would take us there? The mountain burns from inside. Nothing grows. There are no villages, no springs."
"And no demons either," Macar replied. He stopped atop a ridge where the land dipped toward the wilderness. The dying sun spilled its last light across Erebus's jagged flanks. Smoke curled lazily from the peak, painting dark streaks against the sky. The mountain looked like a black spear, thrust upward by something buried far below. "No temples. No kings. No gods."
"It's cursed," another sculptor whispered, clutching a charm he wore around his neck. "A place of the dead."
Macar turned to the men, his silhouette sharp against the red sky. "Yes. A place of the dead. And the only refuge left for us. You saw what the king became. Pride devours men faster than fire. Roderic would have thrown us into the abyss if he knew where it lay. But Erebus?" He shook his head. "He cannot touch it."
Pyrros frowned. "Because of the fires?"
"No." Macar's eyes darkened with a quiet certainty. "Because the mountain belongs to another."
The wind stilled as if listening.
"Hades," he said finally. The name itself seemed to cool the air. "He rules there, though no altar is built in his honor. Erebus is not a temple but a wound in the world. Too old for Olympus to mend. The dead pass near it. And the living… avoid it unless they carry nothing left to lose."
A hush fell over the group. Even the young ones did not speak. Finally, old Diodoros stepped forward, his back bent, hands still steady despite his years. "You mean for us to live there? To carve again? For whom? The dead do not ask for statues."
Macar's lips curved—not into joy, but into something resolute and grave. "We do not carve for the living. We carve because memory deserves shape. Even if no one sees it." He turned once more toward the smoldering peak. "If the world of light casts us out, then let us work in shadow. Let stone remember what men forget. Even the dead deserve beauty."
The sculptors exchanged weary looks. Their dreams had been broken, but their hands still knew their craft. Pyrros lifted his hammer, gripping it with renewed strength. "Then Erebus will be our anvil."
One by one, every man nodded.
Far away, within the palace of Elis, the world was quieter—but no less cruel.
The courtyard chosen for Thea's punishment sat tucked between low marble columns and shallow, cracked fountains. Once, philosophers debated under its shade. Now it was a prison made not of chains but of labor. Oak leaves—tens of thousands of them—covered the stone floors. Dry, brittle, thin as paper, they rustled in the faintest wind like whispers from another life. Thea sat at a bare stone table in the center, surrounded by crates packed with more leaves. Each carried the same inked word, written by her aching hand: Zeus.
Again. And again. And again.
Her fingers were stained black, her knuckles scraped red. Ink bowls sat beside her like small shadowed pools. She bent over another leaf, careful not to tear it. Careful not to press too hard. One mistake meant starting over. The repetition wore her down until her thoughts felt thin, her breath slow. Eventually, her head drooped forward, resting on the cold stone. Leaves rustled around her as her eyes closed.
Sleep carried her back to the same dream. The one that clung to her like a curse.
She stood beside a sea black as obsidian. No moon lit the sky. No stars offered comfort. The waves barely moved, thick and sluggish, as if the water itself feared to breathe. The shore beneath her feet was made of broken glass and scattered bones. Fog curled like a living thing, shifting with every imagined heartbeat.
Something moved within it.
A tall figure emerged, one step at a time, and the sea pulled away from him as though it wanted no part of his passing. He wore a robe dark as the void between worlds. A helmet of iron hid his face, featureless except for the ring of coiled black serpents resting above the brow. In his hand he held a bident—jagged, sharp, darker than night.
Thea's lungs froze.
He stopped only a few paces away. Though he did not speak, she felt his gaze pierce straight through her skin and into whatever lay beneath.
"Who… who are you…?" Her voice cracked, swallowed by the lifeless wind.
He lifted the bident.
The sea split open behind him, not like water but like a wound, raw and silent. Something screamed inside it—soundless yet enormous.
Thea collapsed to her knees.
The figure pointed the bident at her.
And then a voice—not spoken, but felt—pressed into her bones:
Don't think of me, Thea. Don't remember me, Thea. Do not seek me, Thea. Only death waits in my abode.
She woke with a choked cry.
The courtyard lay quiet. The ink bowl had tipped over. Leaves skittered across the stone like frightened insects. She rushed to collect them, heart pounding, breath shallow. Her hands shook so badly she could hardly hold the next leaf.
She clutched one to her chest, whispering the words from her dream.
"Don't think of me… don't remember me… don't try to find me…"
Her voice trembled.
But after a long, unsteady breath, she picked up her brush again.
And with ink-stained fingers, she wrote the name of Zeus once more.