Chapter 1.128 [Selene]

Chapter 1.128 [Selene]

Selene

Her father wasn’t a monster.

He wasn’t a good man either, and oh, that had stung the first time she admitted it. But Selene wasn’t naïve. She had seen too much of him reflected in the hearts of those that sought her counsel to remain ignorant of his nature. Some said it was impossible for a cultivator to enter the fourth realm without being tainted by its trappings, and eventually Selene had been forced to acknowledge that her father was no exception to that rule.

That wasn’t all there was to him, though. The man known to some as the First Son to Burn, the kyrios to others, and Old ‘Zalus to others still, was first and foremost her father. He was all of his titles, and he was none of them in their entirety. He had done monstrous things, some she knew of and almost certainly others that she didn’t, but he wasn’t a monster.

The man that had raised her, the portion of Polyzalus that was her father, was someone Selene wouldn’t trade for anyone else. That side of him loved like no monster could ever love, more than any man without a beating heart should have been capable of loving.

“Heartless? Is that what they told you? How could I be heartless when I have you?”

Selene’s father loved her desperately, and no matter what the other oracles or the late kyrios himself had to say on the subject, she knew he loved her mother just as much. In some ways even more.

The daughter of an oracle was destined to live a lavish life. The daughter of a Tyrant was just the same. Growing up, Selene had never wanted for anything that could be wrapped up in a bundle and dropped in her lap. The only things she had ever truly wanted for were those her father could not give her - things that only the kyrios had the power to provide. Freedom. Companions. Her mother. However, while her father couldn’t give her mother back, he could share his memories of her.

Selene knew her father loved her mother more than anything else on this earth, because his memories of his wife were the only gift he refused to give her freely.

Only on her birthday would her father share some of his shining recollections, because sharing made them less - though he never told her how. Some memories he’d never shared at all, no matter how she pestered him, such was his love for them both. It was only because she was his daughter that he gave her any of those moments at all.

Selene loved her father, and she loved the glimpses of her mother she had seen through his eyes as well.

She knew he wasn’t a good man, but in the deepest reaches of her heart she believed that he could be. If only he could be free of this mountain. If only he could see her mother smile again. He was a man in terrible need of an oracle’s counsel, a true oracle’s counsel, and there was finally a path forward for him to receive it.

So when she came rushing into his domain in search of a raging lion and was instead swept up into a worried father’s crushing embrace, she returned it. When her father confined her to his domain and forbade her from any external communication, Selene fought only until it became clear he wouldn’t budge. And though it chafed every day that followed, she resigned herself to doing what she could for those within the sunset domain.

Because Selene trusted him. And because she knew the cure was on its way. With or without her, Sol and Griffon would see it done. The nectar would come.

Days passed. Weeks. All the while she offered up her sacrifices and prayers to the Fates and Muses above. She never lost hope. She never strayed in her purpose. And in time, her patience was rewarded.

The Fates answered.

—-

The first strike split her father’s domain in two.

It happened instantly. Far faster than she could track, let alone react to. As if a giant had driven into the mountain with an ax, the small city of estates was split down the middle like a log.

The sound of it was indescribable, like an earthquake and a rock slide and the shattering of a thousand bones all compressed into a single moment. It happened so quickly that Selene could only observe the aftermath, her vision swimming as she picked herself up from her temple’s marble floor.

A new scar marked Kaukoso Mons. From the base of the mountain all the way up to the sovereign estate her father called his own, a trench had been carved out of the mountain. It was so deep that an elephant could have fallen in and vanished entirely from view. The impossible result of an impossible attack.

Selene was so dazed by the shockwave, so distracted by the torrential rain of falling rubble and the screaming of her fellow mystikos, that she almost didn’t notice the sudden tidal wave of violent struggle flowing in from the rest of the mountain.

She didn’t have Scythas’ ears, but Selene was still a Heroine. The moment the enemy struck and broke her fathers veil against the outside world, Selene heard everything that he had been keeping from her. The Raging Heaven Cult was at war.

Selene didn’t have time to process any of it. In the time it took to raise her head from the floor, her father had answered the unspoken challenge to his authority.

“You dare!?”

The First Son to Burn appeared as a wrathful silhouette against the setting sun, his voice thundering reprimand that made her ears ring and her teeth vibrate. The Tyrant of the Burning Dusk struck out with a lashing hand and gripped the empty air. Cords of writhing flame appeared in his fist, like they’d always been there, and the flames that burned on every rooftop in the sunset city rose up to answer his call. They spiraled one and all up into his clenched fist, like the reins of a horse.

“You dare attack what is mine - my people, in my city?”

The very world around her warped, the distant city of Olympia and the storm crown overhead burning away like leaves cast to the earth. In their place emerged a city Selene had only heard stories of. A city of scarlet wonder.

The Tyrant of the Burning Dusk took the reins of his domain in hand, bolstering every aspect of himself at the expense of every aspect of those within its borders, and the intruder was no exception-

No. That wasn’t right. Selene blinked the stars from her vision and stared up in bewilderment at the burning lights above her head.

“Your city?”

The first attack had split her father’s domain down its center. Somehow, impossibly, the flames burning on the roofs of the estates east of the chasm weren’t rising up to the Tyrant’s fist.

“Even a Tyrant’s greed has limits,” a sonorous voice rang forth from the base of the mountain. Selene remembered it. “Only half of Alikos belongs to Burning Dusk. The setting sun has no place within the eastern sky.”

The silhouette of Polyzalus cracked his reins and pulled a thousand screaming stallions from the flames west of the chasm. As he did, his other hand reached out to the setting sun and pulled from it a kopis sword.

“Turn over every stone on every street, tear from the roofs their shingles!” the Tyrant intoned furiously, and the city had no choice but to tear itself apart. In this place, his word was more than heavenly law. This world was his word. “You won’t find a single rosy finger! Show me a rising son that dares oppose my rule - do it, and I’ll show you half a corpse!”

And yet. somehow, the flames east of the chasm refused to come when he called them. Somehow, they were changing before her eyes. Shifting colors. Becoming...

“As you wish.”

Rosy.

[The dawn breaks]

Several things happened at once.

Like shattering glass, the eastern half of her father‘s world broke apart and scattered, revealing the Raging Heaven Cult and distant Olympia once more. Every member of the Burning Dusk on that side of the fault line lurched up out of the rubble and the broken streets like they had been burned and fled blindly in whichever direction was least obstructed. On the western side of the city, the one within her father’s control, every man, woman, and child arched up until it looked like their backs would break and screamed silently up to heaven. Every amethyst vein in the mountain flashed so bright it seared their lines into her vision.

The Butcher of the Burning Dusk rose up and struck her father like a comet flung from a ballista, and nine bolts of lightning fell from the storm crown above to strike them at their joining.

The triumphant cry of a heavenly chorus rose up to accompany an outpouring of glory and a Hero’s passionate might as the man they called the Butcher advanced to the ninth rank of the Heroic Realm.

Selene ran.

—-

Selene was only sixteen years old, but she knew more of Heroes and Tyrants than most. She was a Heroine herself, and had seen the acts of Tyrants in the hearts of those that sought her out, and in the dreams the late kyrios warned her not to turn away from.

None of it had prepared her for the reality of a Hero and a Tyrant’s clash.

She ran towards the sun, moving faster than a hunting cat, and yet it felt like she was wading through mud in comparison to her father and the Butcher. The impact of their blades striking one another shook the air and made the sun beams waver and distort like a desert mirage. One such impact would have been jarring enough on its own, but they moved so fast that it was less a series of blows, and more a single uninterrupted clash. The mirage effect deepened and spread as the seconds passed, as if the sun was bleeding out across the sky.

Her father’s domain churned like it was made of ocean waves instead of marble and clay. Buildings that had stood for centuries before Selene was born exploded at the touch of a stray attack, or simply shook themselves apart as the mountain rocked and heaved underneath. Stallions of blood-orange flame raced through the air above her head at blistering speed, hundreds of them charging the Butcher head on while hundreds more raced circles around him, seeking to tangle him up in their trailing reins.

Polyzalus was the greater of the two of them and it showed in every exchange. More than that, he was a Tyrant in his own domain, even if half of that domain had somehow been contested. Every lash of his blade trailed an echoing boom, swift enough to outpace the wind and strong enough to cut through anything short of adamant. The fight should have been over in an instant.

Yet, despite the fact that he was as an ant before a lion, the Hero’s pneuma did not once waver. It flooded the world around him, pressing back against her father’s unshakeable authority as it grew, and it didn’t stop.

What did it mean for a Hero to fight a Tyrant? It was a topic that lent itself well to sophistry because it happened so rarely outside of epics, and it was the nature of a thinking man to gnaw at any topic that couldn’t bite them back. Some said a clash between the two was a clash of passion against purpose. Others, especially here, likened it to the kindling of a democratic flame. Once, Selene had heard a poet describe such an event as spring usurping summer.

They were wrong, each and every one of them so laughably wrong. This was no high minded exchange. There was no poetry in this. Selene ran like she had lightning in her heels, and with every step she only grew further away from the unraveling of her home.Ñ00v€l--ß1n hosted the premiere release of this chapter.

She knew she wasn’t slowing down, that the Butcher was instead raising the pace of the violence at an unbelievable rate. But still, she couldn’t shake the illusion. She had dreams like this. Outlandish, abrupt, and always given away by her body’s inability to keep up with her mind’s demands. For a cultivator, that was only ever a concern in one’s nightmares.

Solus sucked in a breath, like he’d been sucker punched. Selene didn’t have a fraction of her attention to split.

With one of his true hands, Griffin cupped the Scarlet Oracle’s jaw, and applied just enough pressure to part her lips. With the other true hand, he pressed the rim of the golden cup to her tongue. He tilted the cup, slowly, torturously, and Selene was certain every moment was going to be the last before she woke up from this terrible and incredible dream.

Finally, after ten eternities, Griffon drew back the empty cup. He didn’t say a word. None of them did. They only watched. And waited.

Waited.

... Waited.

“No,” Griffon said in quiet disbelief.

“More,” Selene said. “Give her the rest.” When neither of them moved, she gripped Solus’ elbow so hard her knuckles turned white. “Where is the rest of it? You had to have made more than one cup.”

Solus laid a hand over hers and gently pried it away. It trembled in his grip.

“That was all of it,” he told her heavily.

Griffon snarled. “All of it but a drop.”

Solus looked sharply at him. “A drop wouldn’t have made the difference.”

No. Not like this.

“It made the difference in that healing house.”

She refused.

“And you just fed her a thousandtimes that portion.”

Selene would not allow it.

Griffon’s retort died in his throat as she appeared by his side and dipped her finger into the cup. His livid glare turned to razor focus as she ran her finger around the inner rim of the cup. She raised that wine-stained finger to her mouth and took for herself the drop that had clung to the sides. The taste was everything she had ever loved, combined and accentuated by perfect harmony. An impossibly good flavor.

Her oracle’s eye opened wide, and Selene looked upon her mother with a higher power’s sight.

And she saw it.

The cord cutting blade had a handle of polished gold, dented and shaped in such a way that the oracle’s hand would sink perfectly into it when she grabbed it. Selena marveled at how natural it felt to hold as she pulled it from her mother’s listless hands. She saw the questions in their eyes as she raised it above her mothers head.

“Growing up,” a stranger murmured in her voice. She felt as if she was a thousand leagues away. “When my father wanted to comfort me or the kyrios wanted to rile me, they would both tell me the same thing.”

You are all the greatest portions of your mother.

“I took something crucial from her the day that I was born.” The nectar burned brighter than a star in her oracular sight, nearly as bright as the golden light pouring out of them, and it coursed through her mother’s body in search of a catalyst that was no longer there to be found. Her majesty.

The adamant blade cut through the skin of her palm like It wasn’t there at all.

“I have to give it back,” she declared, and poured her blood into Calliope’s open mouth.

She watched it tread the same path as the nectar. She watched it join itself to the heavenly elixir, building, burning-

The oracle’s finger twitched.

There was a reaction. Some sound, an exclamation. She didn’t hear it. She was a thousand leagues away, and at the same time she was frozen in this perfect moment. She watched the blood flow. The more of it the nectar found the more that burning wonder was bolstered. Like a seed planted in the hollow of an uprooted cypress, the Oracle’s scarlet majesty steadily bloomed.

Someone said something. She ignored it. A few moments later she was rewarded with the slightest flicker of motion behind the Oracle’s closed eyes.

Almost. Just a bit more, and-

Sol heaved her bodily away from the bed and the Oracle’s eye slammed shut. Selene gasped like she had been drowning, abruptly aware of how cold she felt. The adamant knife slipped from her fingers.

“Enough,” the Roman said firmly, lowering her to the floor when it became clear she wasn’t fighting him. “If the first barrel wasn’t enough, a second won’t help.”

“I saw it,” she told him, standing under her own power and letting warmth slowly return to her body. “It’s working. It’s so close, she’s so close, we just -“ her voice cracked. “We were so close.”

Sol left an arm around her shoulder. She leaned into it, breathing shakily and struggling to see-

Selene froze. “Griffon. What are you doing?”

“Giving back,” he said, and drew the adamant edge across his own scarred palm. He dropped the bloody knife back onto the bed and cupped his palms together. He held them above her mother’ mouth and let the blood pool. He was going to ruin it.

Selene lurched forward in terror, only for Sol to plant his feet and heave her back again. She burned her heart’s blood and called upon a Hero’s strength.

“Watch,” Solus urged her. Her body betrayed her again. She hesitated.

Griffon closed his eyes and mouthed something silently. Then he parted his cut hands a fraction, allowing a strand of blood to fall into the Oracle’s open mouth.

Calliope gasped.

Selene’s entire world shrank down to a single point - her mother’s face. She watched speechlessly as her nose wrinkled, and her eyebrows drew down. She watched the Oracle’s lips purse at what was no doubt an unpleasant taste left behind by human blood. She watched as her golden eyelashes fluttered.

Selene watched her mother’s scarlet eyes open for the first time since she was born.

The full weight of the Scarlet Oracle’s majesty flooded the sovereign suite. Burning heat and scouring rosy light filled every corner of the estate and spilled out over the veranda, reaching out to the false dusk outside. It was like standing in the center of a bonfire. It felt like never being cold again.

Calliope stared up at the man above her, a thousand emotions playing behind scarlet eyes. Then, finally, she spoke. Her voice was brittle from disuse, and soft with wonder.

“Who are you?”

Griffon smiled like the sun, and answered.

“My name is Lio Aetos. I was born eighteen years ago beneath a scarlet sun and swaddled by my mother in an oracle’s veil. I am the first and only heir of Damon Aetos.” With every word, her mother’s wonder deepened. Her lips parted, her eyebrows arched.

Griffon leaned in, and their features were a perfect match.

“I am your son, and I've come all this way to see you.”

A moment and an eternity too late, Selene realized the emotion behind that wonder wasn’t joy or excitement.

“Stop!” Solus roared, lunging past her.

It was grief. It was dismay.

With tears in her eyes, Calliope condemned him.

“Liar.”

And she drove the adamant knife into her throat.