The first thing I felt was cold.
After a thousand years in the grey emptiness of the Forgotten Realm, the air of the mortal world was shockingly cold against my skin. I gasped as I pushed through the tear in the seal, pulling myself up from below like a drowning man breaking the surface of water.
The sky above Aethermere had turned black. Thunder rolled across the clouds, and lightning flickered at the edges. I could feel my siblings' power pressing down, trying to force me back, but it was too late. I was through.
I manifested above the central square, my form still not completely solid but visible enough. I looked down and saw Lyra and her followers staring up at me with awe on their faces. I saw the crowd of regular people, some afraid, some curious. I saw the temple priests, their faces white with terror.
"Eryndor," one of the priests breathed. "The sealed god."
I descended slowly, letting my feet touch the ground. The sensation was strange after so long. Solid earth beneath me instead of dead grey nothing. I looked at my hands and saw they were pale but no longer grey. I was still weak, still not at full power, but I was here. I was real.
"People of Aethermere," I said. My voice carried across the square, and everyone fell silent. "I am Eryndor, the god your rulers tried to erase. I was cast out because I believed you deserved freedom. Because I believed you were more than tools to be controlled and shaped according to someone else's plan."
The crowd murmured. Some people were already backing away, but others moved closer.
"Your high gods have built you a cage and called it paradise," I continued. "They have taken every choice from you and told you it was for your own good. They have made you safe, yes. But they have also made you empty. Because a life without choice, without struggle, without the chance to grow and fail and try again, is not really a life at all."
"Lies," one of the priests shouted. "The high gods protect us. They guide us. Without them, we would destroy ourselves."
I turned to look at him. "And would that not be your right? To succeed or fail on your own terms?"
"No one has that right," the priest said. "Life is a gift from the gods. We must use it as they instruct."
"Life is not a gift if it comes with chains attached," I said.
Behind me, I felt something. The forgotten ones were rising too, following me through the tear in the seal. They manifested one by one, their grey forms becoming more solid as they drew power from the growing crowd. Kael appeared first, his animal head causing several people to scream. Then Nira, Orin, Thorn, and dozens of others.
The priests looked at them with horror. "Abominations," one whispered. "Forgotten things that should have stayed forgotten."
"They are gods who were cast aside," I said. "Just like your desires, your dreams, your individuality. Everything that did not fit into the perfect world my siblings wanted has been thrown away. But we have returned. And we offer you a choice."
I spread my arms, addressing the entire crowd. "You can stay as you are. Safe, comfortable, controlled. Living the life that was chosen for you before you were born. Or you can join us. Take back your freedom. Make your own choices, even if those choices lead to mistakes. Live a life that is truly yours."
The crowd was silent. I could feel them struggling with the decision, torn between the safety they had always known and the promise of something more.
Then Lyra stepped forward. "I choose freedom," she said clearly. "I choose to live my own life, whatever that means."
One by one, the fifty followers stepped forward, saying the same thing. And slowly, others from the crowd joined them. Not everyone. Maybe only fifty more. But it was enough. A hundred people, standing together, choosing something different.
The priests looked at each other, unsure what to do. This had never happened before. No one had ever openly defied the temples like this.
And then the sky tore open.
Light poured down, blinding and pure. I looked up and saw them. My siblings, descending from their divine realm. Celestara led them, her face hard and cold. Behind her came six others, each one radiating power that made the air itself tremble.
They landed in the square, and everyone except my followers fell to their knees. Even some of my followers wavered, the divine pressure overwhelming them.
"Eryndor," Celestara said. Her voice was like ice. "You have broken the seal. You have returned despite our warnings. And you have brought the forgotten things with you."
"I have returned to free these people from your cage," I said.
"There is no cage. There is only order. Peace. Protection."
"At what cost?" I asked. "Look at them, sister. Really look at them. They kneel before you not out of love but out of fear and habit. You have made them so weak they cannot even imagine standing on their own."
Celestara's eyes flickered toward the crowd, then back to me. "They are happy."
"They are empty."
"And you think chaos will fill them? You think giving them unlimited freedom will lead to anything except destruction?" Her voice rose. "Have you already forgotten what happened before? Have you forgotten what you did?"
"I defended their right to choose."
"You gave them weapons and watched them burn." Celestara stepped closer, her power pushing against mine. "You called it freedom, but it was cruel. You wanted to prove that mortals would destroy themselves if given the chance, so you gave them every chance to do exactly that. And when they did, when civilizations fell and millions died, you smiled and said it was their choice."
The words hit me like physical blows. Images flashed through my mind, memories breaking through the fog that had hidden them. I saw myself standing on a mountain, watching cities burn below. I saw mortals killing each other with weapons I had given them, weapons no mortal should have possessed. I saw children dying, families torn apart, entire cultures collapsing.
And I saw myself smiling.
"No," I whispered. "That is not true. I would not..."
But even as I said it, I knew it was true. The memories were there now, clear and terrible. I had not been defending mortal freedom. I had been conducting an experiment. I had wanted to prove my siblings wrong so badly that I had given mortals the power to destroy themselves, just to show that their careful control was necessary.
I had been in a catastrophe. The thing that needed to be sealed away.
"You remember now," Celestara said softly. "Good. Then you understand why you cannot be allowed to do this again."
She raised her hand, and the other gods moved forward. They were going to seal me. They were going to drag me back to the Forgotten Realm and lock me away forever.
But then Lyra stepped between us.
"Wait," she said. Her voice was small compared to the divine powers around her, but it was steady. "Wait."
Celestara looked down at her. "Child, you do not understand what you are dealing with."
"Maybe not," Lyra said. "But I understand what I feel. And I feel empty. We all do." She gestured to the people standing with her. "You have given us everything except purpose. Everything except the chance to make something of ourselves. Yes, freedom is dangerous. Yes, we might make mistakes. But at least they would be our mistakes. At least we would be truly alive."
"You are alive now," Celestara said.
"No," Lyra said. "We exist. There is a difference."
I stared at her, at this small mortal woman standing up to beings who could unmake her with a thought. She believed in the idea I had offered, even if I had offered it for the wrong reasons.
And looking at her, at her courage and her hunger for something more, I realized something.
Maybe it did not matter why I had broken the seal. Maybe what mattered was what I chose to do now.
I could let my siblings seal me again. I could accept that I was the catastrophe they said I was and return to the grey nothing I deserved.
Or I could try to be something different. Something better than what I had been before.
I stepped forward, placing myself beside Lyra. "Sister," I said to Celestara. "You are right. I was cruel. I was wrong. I hurt these people to prove a point, and for that, I deserve punishment."
Celestara's expression did not change. "Then you will come willingly."
"No," I said. "Because punishing me does not help them." I looked at the mortals gathered in the square. "They are right to feel empty. Your perfect world has protected them from pain, but it has also protected them from growth. From meaning. From becoming more than what you decided they should be."
"And you think you can give them that?" Celestara asked. "After what you did?"
"I think I can try," I said. "Not by giving them weapons. Not by setting them up to fail. But by actually respecting their choices. By letting them struggle and grow and make their own mistakes without interfering, for good or ill."
The other gods were silent, watching this exchange.
Finally, Celestara spoke. "If we let you stay, if we do not seal you, what will you do?"
"I will be what I should have been the first time," I said. "A god who believes in mortals. Who trusts them to find their own path. I will not guide them. I will not control them. I will simply be here, reminding them that they have choices."
Celestara studied my face for a long moment. Then she looked at Lyra and the others standing with her. "Is this what you want? Truly? You would give up safety for freedom?"
"Yes," Lyra said. Several others echoed her.
Celestara sighed. It was a tired sound, full of centuries of burden. "Very well," she said. "Eryndor, you may stay. But know this. If you harm these mortals, if you manipulate them as you did before, we will seal you again. And this time, there will be no crack to slip through."
"I understand," I said.
The gods withdrew, rising back into the sky. Celestara was the last to leave. She looked at me one final time, and I saw something in her eyes I had not expected.
Hope.
Then she was gone, and I was alone with the forgotten ones and the mortals who had chosen to follow me.
Lyra looked up at me. "What now?"
I looked at her, at all of them, and I felt the weight of responsibility settle on my shoulders.
"Now," I said, "we figure out what freedom actually means."