In the Square of Indulgence, beneath the stairs leading to the Temple of Temperance, the crowd gathered. Their weak hearts and broken spirits made them slaves to fear and faith, chanting in unison the priest's prayers.
Covered in an old, worn cloak, Ekleos, king of New Idephos, crossed the crowd without being recognized. He walked with a steady gait, without fear. At his age, he had little left to fear.
There, in front of the golden stone doors, the priests of temperance recited their prayers with theatrical devotion. Their voices echoed off the columns and walls of the temple as they entered.
Heretics.
Ekleos gritted his teeth. He had promised himself never to set foot in this place, the same place where his sister had been murdered. Secretly sentenced and defamed to this day.
The eldest of the priests standing behind the altar was adored and revered, called the Guardian of Pure Light. They did not know that this man had sealed the end of peace with the blood of an innocent.
"The gods hear us, the gods observe us. But they have ceased to protect us." The priest's voice thundered with rage. "Those humans kissed by their Grace subjugate us, disturb our peace and break the parity."
"Oh, pray fervently, that they may hear us." The faithful obeyed promptly, but Ekleos had not come to pray.
Breaking ranks from the line behind the mosaic on the floor, he stepped forward and spoke harshly.
"May their Grace be with me."
He used all the energy left in his body, battered by countless battles, to march towards the old priest without being stopped by either faithful followers or guards. The priest's body collapsed at the foot of the altar, pierced by Ekleos' sword, which he no longer held.
Blood quickly spread across the floor. The commotion died down instantly.
He turned to face the crowd, his face now uncovered. His grey hair and wrinkled face could not hide the essence of the indomitable conquering king who had once subjugated kingdoms and brought peace to many of them. And there he stood, old but never defeated.
"He deserved no more dignified death."
Some of the faithful fell to their knees, praying incessantly. Others cried or lamented, but none dared to confront him.
"The man you pray to murdered my sister."
The temple doors burst open and soldiers in shining armour entered. They were not his own, but he knew whom they obeyed.
Among the faces hidden by helmets, he glimpsed a very familiar one.
"You have committed a crime before the eyes of the gods, Ekleos," said the man in a solemn voice. "And for that you will be judged."
Ekleos looked at him with contempt.
"The crime was committed three decades ago, when they murdered the only good one among us. You did not speak then, for you were the one who betrayed her," Ekleos said resentfully. "You never miss an opportunity to try to usurp my throne... Uncle."
Silence. A cowardly confession without words.
His uncle looked away and the soldiers surrounded him.
"It has taken you thirty years to discover the truth. You have been a great conqueror, but nothing more."
Ekleos did not resist. He kept his face raised, his gaze fixed on his uncle's eyes, not on the weapons raised against him.
"I have no regrets."
The blade of a sword pierced his back. He turned to see the face of the one who would end his life, but when he met those familiar eyes, there was no courage left in him to claim such treachery.
A spear pierced his side.
Then others followed.
As he fell to his knees, his vision clouded with prayers, cries, and the distant echo of bells ringing the double toll.
…
The gates of justice rose imposingly before the now old and frail figure: a shadow of what he had been in his best days. Without sorrow or glory, he advanced to his final judgement.
All the anger, sadness, and betrayal he had felt at the moment of his death had left his heart, which was now restless about what had happened before the end.
The image of what he had only been able to imagine finding after death now stood before him, powerful and impenetrable.
Justice itself — or rather, justice as a deity — looked at him with empty eyes, devoid of pupils and irises, consisting of an intense white on the right and a deep black on the left.
If he had had the strength to laugh, he would have done so, but he would have laughed at no one but himself. If in life he had been wiser than he was foolish, perhaps he would have passed through the gates of eternal rest without divine judgement or punishment.
He had to stretch his neck upwards to look at the female face of the enormous figure. Her head was adorned with a golden crown, and her forehead with a platinum tiara that held in perfect balance a set of scales whose pans hung on either side of her face.
The doors closed behind him without a sound.
"You never offered prayers. You never gave your faith."
The deity's voice flooded his head, devoid of criticism or accusation.
"And you bring no offering either."
The man replied in a low voice. "Will an offering allow me to rest in paradise?"
"You will not enter paradise. Your soul will enter the path of eternal rest, where there is no pain, no memories, no suffering. Where the past is forgotten and you wander eternally, awaiting the promise of a new dawn in the infinite cycle of life and death."
The old man nodded reluctantly. "Then grant me eternal rest."
"To which of the two?"
The man frowned at the question. He looked around, but there was no one else there.
"Idle and vain gods! Even in death, you continue to play with the life of mortals!"
The flickering light of metal behind the deity silenced him. An immense sword rose up behind her. The man touched his chest. If the sword that had pierced him in life had brought him to death, he could not imagine what that weapon was capable of.
"Calm down. You carry a fragment of a soul that does not belong to you."
His hands searched among the folds of his cloak to find the source of the warmth that beat softly in one of the inside pockets. His fingers caught hold of something small that he had kept for decades. It had lost its intense color and softness, but it was impossible not to recognize the hair that he had once taken the trouble to braid with a blue ribbon.
"My sister."
He whispered, almost ashamed that he had forgotten.
"Her death was the beginning of the imbalance. A noble soul sacrificed without lamentation and for the greed of many."
The voice of the deity did not accuse him, but her words hurt.
"Have I not already avenged her death?"
One of the scales swayed slightly, weighing Ekleos's assumptions in an assessment reserved for the deity.
"Revenge, not justice. Even if they are similar, they do not carry the same weight."
He looked down at the hair he held in his hands. At that moment, he realized something absurd.
"If there is a fragment of her soul here... does that mean she has not crossed over into the path of eternal rest?"
"A negligible remnant, smaller than the one you hold in your hands."
From the black eye of the deity, a thin thread of liquid began to flow, dense as the abyss. The drop rose, forming a sphere that floated in front of Ekleos.
In it, he could see an imperceptible white-pink dot that had the same essence as the lock of hair.
The sphere vanished like mist the moment he tried to touch it.
"It will not be given to you."
His fingers trembled as he clenched his fist.
"Why?"
"No god, neither divine nor dark, has been able to claim it. We will protect it until the time comes... if it ever does."
Ekleos twisted his mouth, dissatisfied with her words.
"What kind of power can prevent a soul from reaching its rest? That not even the gods themselves can claim it?"
The deity remained silent. It seemed to have no answer, or simply refused to give one.
"We do not know."
The answer left him disturbed.
"If there is some will that holds it back, that will is not ours. Perhaps it is not human either."
Ekleos lowered his gaze, defeated by his powerlessness. "What could I do that a god cannot?"
"Every life, however brief or insignificant it may seem, shapes the earthly plane. It transforms it. Some even destroy its initial course. And your sister, her life and death, altered the balance."
Ekleos did not understand what she meant by altering the balance. How could a single person change the course of the world?
"You are not special, Ekleos, but rather timely. A decisive piece, if it makes you feel better."
In his mind, he weighed endless options, numerous possibilities, potential opportunities, but the life he had led, everything he had learned about cruelty, evil and war, left him unable to envisage any other outcome than one as bitter as the one he had already experienced.
"What if I wish not to bear this burden?" This time his voice, broken and weak, did not sound like that of a king.
"No one wants it. Restore the balance."
"How do you expect me to do such a thing?"
"If I gave you the answer, then you would not be choosing. Balance is not imposed, it is revealed in conflict, discovered in chaos."
Ekleos closed his eyes, the lock of hair in his hands seemed heavier than before. He did not understand what was expected of him, but what he did know was that this was a punishment, a sentence, a debt. A purpose disguised as a choice, because the truth was that he had none.
"What else will you take from me?" he spoke in a powerful tone, full of anger.
"What blinded you all your life, your strength. The next time we meet, I hope you will have surrendered your faith."
He gritted his teeth, calming his fury beneath his despair. Once again, he was just a pawn. First for his family, then for his kingdom, then for the people, the war... and now for the gods.
"I swear by my blood and my soul, let the heavens hear me and curse me if they will, that I will never bow down before the gods. There will be no prayer on my lips nor faith in my soul. My strength will not be taken from me!"
The ground shook beneath his feet. The deity's sword rose, its blade pointed at him with determination.
"We shall see about that."
A loud noise broke the silence. The sword pierced his body.
Ekleos fell into unfathomable darkness. His insides burned, he felt as if he were being torn apart from within.
He screamed, but could not hear himself. He fell for a long time.
But he did not fall into eternal rest.
He awoke, once again, to a world at war.