The morning cold cut Kael's skin like invisible blades. The stones beneath him held the night's frost, damp and merciless, soaking through the thin rags he dared to call clothing. He curled tighter into himself, trying to preserve what little warmth his body still carried, but the effort was useless. The cold did not care. The city did not care.
He forced himself upright, his joints creaking like old wood, every muscle stiff from the hours spent on the ground. His stomach clawed at him, empty and bitter, and the faint ache in his skull reminded him he had not eaten since yesterday morning. Hunger was no longer a visitor—it had long since moved into his body, a constant companion gnawing at his ribs.
The alley around him was silent, but silence in the slums was never peaceful. It was heavy, filled with things unsaid. The smell of rot and smoke clung to the air, mingling with the stench of urine that seeped from the walls. Broken crates lay scattered in corners, where rats gnawed freely, fatter and healthier than many of the people.
Kael dragged himself forward, bare feet slapping softly on the wet stones. Every step produced a faint echo, as if mocking his presence. He had lived enough years in these streets to know what that echo meant: you are nothing, no one, less than the dirt underfoot. People passed here every day, eyes sliding over him like over refuse. No one truly cared for Kael. Not the merchants who scolded him, not the guards who beat him, not even the beggars who shunned him. He was invisible—except when someone needed something. A trinket stolen, a secret carried, a task done that others were too fearful to attempt. Then, suddenly, his presence mattered.
But once the job was finished, once the need was gone, so was their regard.
He paused before a shallow puddle, rainwater mixed with filth. The weak morning light fractured across its surface, offering him a murky reflection. For a heartbeat, Kael wished he could sink his hand into that water, stir it until the image vanished forever. Yet the face always returned.
He stared at himself.
There it was—the curse.
Beauty.
Not the kind that earned compliments in a marketplace or made a tavern girl blush. His was unnatural, a face too perfect, features sculpted by some cruel artisan. Every line of his jaw was precise, every angle of his cheekbones flawless. His eyes caught and held light in a way that unsettled, gleaming like gemstones even in the dimmest gloom. Even the smallest movements of his lips seemed to carry a softness that stirred something in anyone who looked too long.
It was beauty sharpened into a weapon—and one Kael never asked for.
He hated it.
The reflection looking back was not a friend. It was an enemy that made life harder at every turn. When he tried to steal, people noticed, even when their eyes should have been on their coin purses. When he ran, guards shouted, not because of what he took but because his face had burned itself into their memories. When he begged, pity turned quickly to obsession, hands reaching not to give but to touch, to claim.
There had been nights when men followed him into alleys, their voices heavy with desire they barely understood. Nights when women clutched his hand too long, their gazes distant, fevered, as if they were seeing something more than him. Kael had escaped each time, by luck or by speed, but the memory of those looks burned like hot iron in his chest.
He clenched his fists, nails digging into his palms. How am I supposed to survive this?
Once, beauty had shielded him. The distracted gaze of a guard let him slip away with bread. The hesitation of a gang leader kept a knife from his throat. But those small mercies had a cost. For every escape, more eyes remembered him. More whispers spread. More danger crept close.
His beauty was not protection. It was bait. A flame for moths, except the moths were people, and their hunger was endless.
Kael pulled his hood lower, hiding his features as best he could. The fabric was thin, frayed at the edges, but even a shadow was better than nothing. He knew, however, it was only a delay. The hood could not erase the curse. The curse lived on his skin, in his bones. It was him.
A faint breeze stirred through the alley, carrying the smell of baking bread from the marketplace beyond. His stomach groaned at the scent. For a brief moment, Kael closed his eyes and remembered—his mother's hand breaking bread in half, slipping the larger piece into his tiny fingers. She had always given him more, even when she needed it more than he did. He had been too young then to see the ribs pressing against her skin, too young to understand that every bite she gave him was stolen from herself.
She had taught him how to survive, how to slip coins from distracted hands, how to run when caught. But no lesson had prepared him for this. For being trapped in a body that betrayed him every time someone looked too long.
He opened his eyes and looked again into the puddle. The reflection stared back, mocking. Perfect. Untouched by hardship, though his real body ached, though scars dotted his skin, though hunger hollowed his cheeks. His face betrayed none of it. His beauty was constant, relentless, eternal—while the rest of him crumbled.
He spat into the water, distorting the image for a fleeting instant. But even then, the ripples smoothed, and the beautiful stranger returned.
Kael turned away, heart heavy.
Maybe today, he thought bitterly, the streets will finally swallow me whole
Kael's hood shadowed his face as he walked deeper into the alley. The streets were waking now; he could hear the distant cries of merchants raising their stalls, the sharp whistle of a baker's apprentice calling for fresh flour, the rough laughter of guards at their morning post. Life carried on around him, as it always had, without him. He was a ghost drifting between bodies of the living, unwanted and unseen.
But then—light.
At first, Kael thought it was dawn breaking over the rooftops. The pale gray sky had been stubborn, refusing to yield to the sun, yet suddenly the darkness seemed to thin. A soft radiance spilled across the stones, not golden, not silver, but something between, shimmering with colors his eyes could barely name. The walls glowed faintly. His shadow lengthened, though no sun hung above.
Kael froze.
The glow brightened, pooling in the air before him. It shimmered like mist caught in sunlight, drifting at first, then condensing, tightening, becoming a figure.
His heart pounded. No. No, this isn't real. Hunger's making me see things.
But the light sharpened. Curves and lines formed. A hand, delicate as marble, extended from the glow. Then a face—flawless, radiant, devastating in its perfection.
A goddess.
Aphrodite.
Her presence swallowed the alley whole. She did not simply arrive; she erased the world and replaced it with herself. The grime on the walls seemed less filthy, the puddles less murky, the very air perfumed with a fragrance so soft and intoxicating that Kael felt dizzy. Her beauty was unbearable, not because it was pleasant, but because it pressed against the soul, demanding surrender.
Kael's knees nearly buckled. He wanted to run, to hide, but the air thickened, holding him in place. His lungs worked frantically, but even breathing felt like worship.
"Rise, Kael."
Her voice was not just sound. It entered him, vibrating through his bones, echoing in his chest. It was the kind of voice one would obey without question, the kind that could start wars or end them with a whisper.
Kael swallowed hard, throat dry. "You… you know my name."
"I know all who walk beneath my gaze," Aphrodite said. She stepped closer, and the alley widened as if unwilling to confine her. "And I have watched you more closely than most. You have lived on misery and scraps. You have stolen, fought, bled, and endured. In a world that would have killed you a dozen times over, you persisted. That persistence deserves recognition."
Recognition. From a goddess.
The words struck Kael harder than any blow. He staggered back, pressing against the wall as if the stone could protect him. "Recognition? From you? I—I'm nothing. I'm filth. A street rat. Why me?"
Her lips curved into a faint smile, but her eyes—those infinite, radiant eyes—remained solemn. "Because in filth, in suffering, truth is revealed. Determination is not forged in palaces, Kael, but in gutters. You have been tested more harshly than nobles ever will be, and still you remain. That makes you dangerous. That makes you necessary."
The air before her shimmered again, and symbols appeared—glyphs of light, floating, alive. They twisted and shifted like ribbons caught in a current, weaving into patterns that changed faster than thought. They pulsed in rhythm, like a second heartbeat hanging in the air.
Kael stared, wide-eyed, unable to look away.
"This is the Affection System," Aphrodite said. "A divine mechanism I grant only to you. It detects emotions directed toward you: longing, desire, love, obsession. Any strong feeling of affection will resonate here. The greater the emotion, the greater the strength you can draw from it. It will be your tool—and your burden."
Kael's breath caught. His head swam. "So… if someone feels for me, I can… use that? Turn it into power?"
"Yes." Her answer came without hesitation, but her smile dimmed, touched with sadness. "But hear me well: nothing comes without cost. You will have power without effort—but you will bear the weight of what it costs others. Their hearts will not belong to themselves anymore. They will be pulled, twisted, reshaped by the force of your beauty. They will ache for you, Kael, even when they do not wish to. Even when it destroys them."
The words struck deeper than he wanted them to. Kael's chest tightened until he could hardly breathe. His mind flashed with memories: the merchant's wife who stared too long, the soldier who trembled before grabbing his wrist, the boy in the alleys who followed him for days without reason. He had always thought it coincidence, misfortune. But no—it had been the beginning of this curse.
He shook his head violently. "I never asked for this!"
"No mortal ever asks for their fate," Aphrodite said softly. "But you carry it nonetheless. Your face is not yours to keep hidden, Kael. It is a gift, and a curse. And with it comes a path that no one else can walk."
Her voice carried no cruelty, yet no comfort either. She spoke as one who simply named the truth.
Kael felt sick. He pulled his hood lower, as if the threadbare cloth could hide him from her divine gaze. "So… what am I supposed to do with this? Just let the world lose itself around me? Let people… break, because of me?"
The goddess tilted her head, eyes deep and infinite, as though seeing not just Kael but every possible version of him stretched across time.
"You will see soon enough," she murmured.
The light that surrounded Aphrodite shifted, dimming to a softer glow, as though she were lowering her voice not only in sound but in radiance itself. The stones beneath Kael's feet seemed to still, the distant clamor of the city fading into silence. For one moment, it was as though only the two of them existed—mortal and goddess, bound by a thread neither could cut.
"There is a mission," Aphrodite said, her voice calm as the still sea. "A task no other soul could hope to achieve. And it falls to you, Kael."
Kael's stomach tightened. He wanted to speak, to demand why, but the weight of her presence pinned his voice in his throat.
"You must seek the Zombie Emperor," she continued, "and within three years' time, you must bear him a child."
The words struck like thunder. Kael blinked, his mind refusing to accept them. "What?" His voice cracked. "No—you can't mean—"
Her gaze did not waver. "I do."
Kael staggered backward, pressing against the damp wall as though it could swallow him. "Bear him a child? The Emperor? He's—he's a monster. He—"
"He is immortal," Aphrodite interrupted, her tone soft but firm. "The corruption spreading through his body has not destroyed him. It has only changed him. His flesh is twisted by zombification, yet his form grows increasingly feminine, voluptuous, alluring in its own terrible way. He is not bound by mortal divisions of gender. He is both king and queen, predator and prey, beautiful and grotesque. And you, Kael… you must reach him. You must win him. You must give him an heir."
Kael's head spun. He remembered the whispers in the alleys, the drunken stories told by beggars with cracked lips. Tales of the Emperor who could not die, whose armies of the decayed marched in silence across ruined fields, whose kiss turned soldiers into thralls. Children spoke his name to scare one another in the dark: the Zombie Emperor, the Rot Sovereign, the King of Endless Hunger.
And this was his mission? To get close enough to such a creature—not just to speak, not just to survive—but to… to…
He gagged, bile rising in his throat. "This is madness."
"Madness," Aphrodite said, "is what defines gods. And what defines fate."
Kael pressed his fists to his temples, shaking his head. "Why me? Why not some warrior, some prince, some priest? I have nothing. I'm just—just a beggar."
"No," she said, and her voice carried an edge of command. "You are not nothing. You are beauty made flesh. You are the flame that bends hearts and enslaves wills. A warrior's blade cannot pierce the Zombie Emperor. A priest's prayers cannot sway him. But you—your curse is his weakness. His heart will stir for you as it stirs for no other."
Her words clawed into him. He wanted to deny them, to scream at her, to fall to his knees and beg for release. But the glowing glyphs of the Affection System pulsed again, brighter now, as if reacting to the very mention of the Emperor. The symbols seemed hungry, as though they already reached across leagues of land toward the throne of rot.
Kael shivered violently. "And if I fail?" he whispered. His voice trembled like a child's.
"Then you will die."
The goddess said it simply, with no cruelty, no hesitation. Death was not punishment—it was fact.
Kael felt his chest cave in. He thought of all the times he had brushed against death already: blades at his throat, nights when hunger had made him too weak to move, winters when the cold had pressed its icy teeth against his skin. But this… this was different. This was not survival. This was a mission designed to be impossible.
His hands clenched, nails biting into his palms until blood welled. He lifted his head, meeting her gaze with eyes that burned—not with courage, but with a cornered animal's desperation. "So I can't turn back."
"No," Aphrodite said.
He exhaled, long and shaky, like releasing the last of his innocence. His hood slipped slightly as he nodded once. "Then… if this is what the gods want of me…" His lips trembled. "…I will try."
Something in her face softened then. A small smile, tinged not with victory but with sorrow. "That is all I needed to hear."
The light around her began to fade, pulling away from the stones, from the walls, from Kael himself. For a moment, he reached out a hand, instinctively, as if to keep her there. But the goddess was already retreating, her radiance dissolving into the mist, leaving only the stench of the alley and the cold that gnawed at him.
Kael sagged against the wall, alone once more. But he was not the same.
The Affection System pulsed in his chest like a second heartbeat. The air felt thicker, the shadows heavier, his very skin tingling as though destiny had been branded onto him. He was no longer only Kael the thief, Kael the beggar. He was Kael the chosen. Kael the cursed.
Kael, whose beauty would decide the fate of empires.