No one in Argetinis agreed on how many gods existed.
They argued about symbols, histories, doctrines, miracles—but never numbers. Numbers implied certainty. And certainty was dangerous when it came to gods.
Kael learned this on his third day inside Ivory Circle territory.
The archives weren't grand. No towering shelves, no glowing runes etched into marble. Just narrow stone corridors, wooden desks worn smooth by generations of hands, and lamps that burned with a steady white flame that didn't flicker no matter how hard the wind pressed against the windows.
"Gods don't need temples anymore," Archivist Merrow said without looking up. "They need relevance."
Kael stood across from him, arms folded, eyes scanning the room. The man spoke like someone reciting a truth he'd grown tired of defending.
"You're saying belief fuels them?" Kael asked.
Merrow's quill paused.
"I'm saying belief shapes them." He finally looked up. "Power is inevitable. Interpretation is not."
That sentence stuck.
The Three Structures
The Ivory Circle didn't teach gods as beings.
They taught them as systems.
Three of them.
Not paths. Not abilities. Structures—frameworks older than paths themselves.
Authority
Domain
Witness
Authority defined why a god could act.
Domain defined where their power applied.
Witness defined how that power manifested in the world.
No god possessed all three equally. None ever had.
"Paths," Merrow explained, "are human attempts to imitate fragments of Authority. Gods don't walk paths. Paths are what remain after gods fracture."
That was when Kael realized something unsettling.
If paths were fragments…Then gods were incomplete wholes, not perfect beings.
The God Without a Statue
Kael didn't ask for a name.
Merrow offered one anyway.
"There is a god," he said quietly, lowering his voice despite the empty room, "that the Royal Family of Argetinis forbade statues of."
Kael raised an eyebrow. "Because they feared worship?"
"No," Merrow replied. "Because statues imply stability."
He stood and walked to a locked cabinet. From it, he removed a thin, unmarked ledger—old enough that the pages smelled like dust and iron.
"We don't know its true name," Merrow continued. "Only titles. Epithets. Reputations."
He placed the ledger down but didn't open it.
"They call it The Unseeing Judge."
The lamp flame dimmed slightly.
Kael felt it immediately—not pressure, not presence—but a subtle tightening, like reality itself had noticed the conversation.
"What does it judge?" Kael asked.
Merrow smiled thinly.
"Outcomes."
Reputation, Not Revelation
The Unseeing Judge never appeared in visions. Never spoke through prophets. Never granted miracles on command.
It didn't answer prayers.
Yet every major catastrophe in Argetinis history had one thing in common:
Afterward, its name surfaced.
A kingdom collapsed under its own laws?The Judge.
A tyrant executed by their own court?The Judge.
A saint declared heretical centuries after death?The Judge.
"It doesn't punish sins," Merrow said. "It evaluates conclusions."
"Then why fear it?" Kael asked.
"Because it doesn't care about intent."
That was worse.
The Crimson Veil's Interpretation
Kael heard about the Crimson Veil's view of gods later that night.
Not from Ivory Circle texts—but from a captured pamphlet, written in uneven ink, confiscated during a raid.
The writing was erratic. Passionate. Almost joyous.
Gods are not judges. They are scars.
They are what reality does when it breaks and refuses to heal.
The Crimson Veil rejected Authority entirely.
They believed gods had no right to rule, no inherent hierarchy. To them, gods were emergent phenomena—manifestations of accumulated chaos, fear, obsession, and belief collapsing inward.
According to their doctrine:
A god wasn't born.
A god formed.
And once formed, it sought continuity at any cost.
"The Crimson Veil doesn't worship gods," Kael muttered as he read. "They provoke them."
One passage stood out.
The Unseeing Judge is not a god of law.
It is the echo left when law fails.
That interpretation terrified him more than Ivory Circle's.
Because it implied something else.
Gods weren't above paths.
They were what happened when paths lost control.
Witness Without Eyes
Kael returned the pamphlet the next morning, unsettled.
He began noticing small things.
The way people avoided speaking certain names aloud.The way contracts were sealed with blood and silence.The way even Order Path users hesitated when reconstructing damaged courtrooms or execution grounds.
"Places matter," Merrow told him when Kael asked. "The Judge's Witness isn't sight. It's memory."
That aligned too closely with Kael's Control Path.
Awareness. Attention. Pressure.
"You think the Judge notices everything?" Kael asked.
"No," Merrow said. "Only what concludes."
That night, Kael dreamed of threads—not his own.
They weren't taut or precise.
They were frayed. Tangled. Knotted around moments instead of people.
Endings.
Why Only Reputation
Kael finally understood why the Ivory Circle refused to describe the god directly.
Because defining it would give it Authority.
Because belief didn't empower gods—it clarified them.
And clarity was dangerous.
The Crimson Veil, on the other hand, sought to distort gods beyond recognition. To flood them with conflicting narratives until they fractured or collapsed.
Two methods.
One goal.
Survival.
A Choice That Isn't Yet Made
As Kael stood on the balcony overlooking Argetinis, the city lights flickering below, one thought kept returning.
If paths were fragments of gods…
Then advancing his Control Path meant aligning—whether he wanted to or not—with something larger.
Something watching conclusions.
Something that didn't need eyes.
Somewhere deep in the city, a bell rang—not for time, not for prayer, but for judgment already passed.
And no one knew who—or what—had decided.