The priestesses lowered the women tied to wooden posts and carefully laid them on the ground. They said not to worry. That they were merely asleep due to sleeping herbs.
They also went out through the outer door and brought back a soft, thick blanket from somewhere. Then they quietly spread it out before a pile of dry firewood. Though crude, it seemed as if they were asking the Almighty Supreme to please rest here.
Kallian sat upon it, holding Asteril in his arms.
Having confirmed that Penelope was safe, Asteril gradually showed signs of calming down. She muttered weakly,
“I had hoped, just maybe... that you might become my Anteros.”
But she could sense nothing of his. Only the breath reaching her ear was all she felt. She realized anew that divine authority could only be stirred by divine authority.
Kallian pulled the back of her neck and kissed her. The inside of her mouth was cold. Having swallowed the blood imbued with the primordial darkness, she had been robbed of all the warmth a mortal should possess. Yet it was fine. Even if she became a cold darkness, it would be enough if they went to a place where no light reached and lived embracing each other.
“I had a dream. My whole body seemed to be engulfed in flames, and my heart felt as though someone had frozen it and was hammering nails into it. It hurt so much that I screamed, but I was trapped where no one could hear, feeling as though my entire body was being torn apart. Blood flowed backward, and flashing madness rushed through my whole body... Then, the moment I realized it was your power, the pain began to subside.”
“....”
“Soon, a quiet darkness came. My body floated within the darkness, lying comfortably. Strangely, I felt as though I already knew where I was. The cold, lonely cradle—the womb of Erebus. In the depths of that darkness, She was waiting. Upon seeing me, She called my name tenderly as if She had been waiting, and gently combed my sweat-drenched hair.”
Kallian caressed her damp cheek. Her small face was covered by his long, beautiful hand, casting a shadow over it.
“You met Gaia...”
She had lost consciousness for only a brief moment, less than half a quarter of an hour. But Asteril spoke as though she had spent several days and nights in the womb of Erebus.
“She praised me. Said I did very well. Said I endured well. Said I carried out my duty excellently. Said She was far prouder than She had expected.”
She burst into tears, unable to hold them back.
“She said She came to my dreams countless times. Said She endlessly tried to speak with me. But each time, I failed to recognize Her and simply left. Even when I heard Her, I couldn't remember. She said She visited and spoke to me countless times, but I would wake from sleep and foolishly forget everything.”
It may have been an illusion. As she learned more facts about Gaia, an image unconsciously concretized may have simply appeared in her dreams. Or it may have been something like a legacy left within the soul and inner being by the mysterious power of bloodline.
Even so, her heart swelled. Even so, regardless of all that.
Asteril wrapped her arms around Kallian's neck. Her hand touching his nape was cold. Only the tears soaking her chest were hot.
“Your blood connected me to Her. Just that is enough for me to...”
Kallian hugged her tightly, as if to say she need not speak anymore. Her body was as frail and rustling as parchment, seeming as though it would be absorbed into Erebus and vanish at any moment.
“Mother told me what I must do.”
What she must do. It was not at all a pleasant thing to hear.
“What is it?”
He asked in a subdued voice. In truth, he did not want to hear it, but he had no choice.
Asteril lowered her eyes. She opened her mouth, imitating Gaia's tone.
“A body of mortality with blood of immortality is discord...”
“Yet what can be done, for it is the inheritance of fate contested by order and chaos? You have a mortal body, so you shall live a mortal life. You have immortal blood, so you shall love immortally. Therefore, feel the beginning and end of life. Understand the emptiness and lamentation of death. Become the light for them all. Become the darkness for them all. And thus receive the affection of both humans and Keton. Become the comfort for both humans and Keton.”
Beneath her thumbnail, Hestia crackled and sparked.
Asteril turned her gaze and looked somewhere. Suddenly, the outside grew tumultuous. Screams and shouts erupted from here and there.
The sun god, who had just flown up pulling his chariot, hid himself completely. A black aurora was spreading across the city's blue sky.
Ψ
Disaster struck Delphi without warning, which had been bustling with the festive atmosphere of the Daphne festival.
Behind the citizens fleeing in panic, women dressed in black with bulging eyes could be seen running like corpses with gaping mouths.
The narrow streets became an inferno of chaos in an instant. Stalls crashed down with a clatter, and decorative banners were torn. Adults ran carrying wailing children under their arms or lifting them onto their backs. Elderly people out of breath rushed into any house they could find, closing doors and bolting them.
“O Goddess, O Ananke who protects fate and family...”
Those who had prostrated themselves hurriedly before looms begged for forgiveness, seeking divine authority. But the doors they had locked gave way quickly to the pounding kicks.
Asteril climbed onto the temple roof and looked down upon the city in a daze.
Maenads. Pale complexions, pupils as red as charcoal. Purple lips shrieking.
Asteril gazed toward the city entrance. Between the two pillars upon which sat a butterfly and an owl, a cave-like black space was hollowed out.
It was Nyx's barrier. The gate to this other space, connected elsewhere, stood wide open, continuously sending out Maenads.
—Gaaaaiiiiiaaaa!
Asteril wrapped her arms around herself. She was sick of it. His obsession, deep as a swamp and tenacious as a spider web.
—I know you're here, Gaia! Show yourself at once, Gaia! Hurry...!
Asteril's face contorted. She seemed to cover her face in pain. Kallian rode the wind and approached her side.
“Rest, you. You must take it easy now.”
“No, I must save them.”
“Them?”
He looked down at the rampaging Maenads. What was she going to do by saving them?
“Isn't that right, Hestia?”
At her calm question, Hestia beneath her nail crackled again. Hestia, who seemed a little excited, popped out from beneath her nail and hovered above the bridge of her nose.
“I know. I now know too.”
Asteril spoke while gazing at the spark. A smile formed at her lips.
Kallian looked at her strangely, as if she were unfamiliar.
He grew anxious. Her complexion was paler than the Maenads shrieking, and her wrists were more gaunt than their limbs tearing people's bodies apart.
Even so, she looked at him and smiled faintly as if to say she was fine. Do not smile like that, you. Kallian pulled her close and embraced her. Please. He spoke earnestly while holding her.
“If there is something to be done, I will do it in your stead. Just say the word. I will do anything as you wish.”
“No, I must do it. Only I can do it.”
He stared blankly at Asteril, who pushed him away as if shaking off his arms. The back of his neck stung. He had a bad premonition. He had to stop her. His instincts were screaming. Stop her. Prevent her from doing it. You must stop her.
“It will be alright.”
Asteril spoke as though she could see right through his inner thoughts. Her jet-black eyes looked straight at him. He knew that look of hers.
My Persephone, who steals hearts like the lingering night. Like that day when, burying her anxieties deep, she fearlessly grabbed his hand and led him.
“There is something you can do for me.”
“....”
“Please block Nyx for me.”
“Nyx?”
“Because I don't want to be interrupted.”
She smiled again. With her pale face, she stretched her pallid lips.
“Is it not I who should be preventing you?”
Asteril's smile stopped short. Kallian gazed at her. Silent gazes crossed, binding each other like ropes.
“Your ability originates from the power of Erebus. The reason you lost consciousness for days after using your ability is because of that. Your body has already been repeatedly overstrained.”
“It must be done.”
“....”
“It is what I must do. Only I...”
“You do not have multiple lives. Only one. Even that one has nearly burned away like a melted candle!”
Kallian raised his voice. Asteril looked at him in surprise. The veins in his neck stood out. It was the first time. She had never seen him so agitated.
Kallian approached and bent down. He grabbed her arm and spoke, taking a deep breath.
“The Keton blood inside your body will absorb the power of Erebus. Think of it as a massive whirlwind forming inside your body. It is different from before, Asteril. If you use your ability, the strain on your body will multiply several times over, even more than that.”
He had explained at length, but it amounted to one thing. That she could die at any moment. That a ball of fire with no telling when it might explode was wandering inside her body.
“I know. I feel it too.”
Asteril slipped her hand into Kallian's waist and burrowed in. When she pressed her cheek against his chest, she heard his heart beating at regular intervals. It was reassuring. Regardless of his emotions, his body always maintained consistency. Even if something were to happen... his heart would surely continue to beat, unwavering like this.
“But now I know. What the hole deep inside my body was. As I accepted your blood, it was filled. I think I can finally become complete.”
“I am tired of hearing your sophistry.”
He spoke, burying his nose in her shoulder. Asteril patted his broad back.
“The West Wind said so, didn't he? That if you find the four legacies in the four chambers, Gaia will appear again.”
“....”
“We found the four legacies in the four chambers. So now it is time for Gaia to appear. The reason She came to me in the dream must be because of that. To become the Gaia they desire.”
“They?”
“They are both humans and Keton... Because Gaia has always been a being like a bridge connecting the two worlds.”
Kallian exhaled a held breath. She was smiling again. To the point of looking mischievous, with the dimples he always found lovely sunk deep.
“Do not smile, you.”
“If I don't smile like this... you'll have a hard time, won't you?”
Asteril now spoke in a manner as though she had truly become Gaia. As though she knew everything. As though the crevices of Erebus were plainly visible to her.
“What on earth are you trying to do?”
“The Maenads.”
She whispered softly. A voice that made one want to lean in and listen.
“You used to burn the Maenads at Lethe, didn't you? May I ask why?”
“It was custom.”
Asteril made an expression as if she had known as much. He likely hadn't even given it thought. It must have been Nyx's order, who had handed Hades over to him, and Nyx must have claimed that Gaia used to do so.
Hades was the land to punish those who lived in hiding, and the punishment was likely public burning, a tradition handed down from ancient times.
“But something important was missing from that ritual. It was also the element Eleusis had been seeking.”
“So?”
“Now that I know what it is, I can create the Asphodel.”
An expression asking what that was followed. But Asteril did not seem willing to explain. She pushed his back. Hurry, Nyx first. At her urging, he moved his feet as though he couldn't refuse.
“Ah, but what about that person?”
Kallian looked at Eleusis, who was lying prostrate on the floor as if playing dead alongside the priestesses. Right, there was still something he hadn't dealt with.
When he held out his hand, Hanpung brought a sword in its mouth from somewhere. His lord had developed a new hobby. He had come to enjoy the sensation of slaughter conveyed from the blade.
Eleusis, feeling the piercing gaze, raised his head.
Kallian was looking at him, fiddling with a sword that seemed newly sharpened. His slightly lowered gaze gleamed emotionlessly like cold glass marbles.
The god repeatedly gripped and released the hilt with a clack. His expression was like that of a butcher before cutting the throat of a sacrificial beast.
Eleusis thought of the odds of his survival. None whatsoever. They would never let him live. The punishment would be merciless as well. Whatever pain it entailed, the end would certainly be nothing but death.
“I have a request.”
Kallian approached, ignoring him. He did not appear willing to listen to any request. As Kallian took a stance to bring down the sword, Eleusis quickly changed direction and crawled toward Asteril.
“There must be children at the Grand Temple! Please, at least let me bring them back safely.”
He grabbed the hem of Asteril's clothing and pleaded. She had even seen the children's faces. Her heart could not help but be shaken.
“...Very well.”
Eleusis's face brightened. A faint hope was born. If he went to the Grand Temple and found Lord Nyx to ask for help...
“Because the children are innocent. But I have a condition.”
Asteril continued, grabbing him by the scruff of his neck as though snatching him.
“Is what you said before still valid—that you wanted to try killing a god?”
“What?”
“I asked if you still want to kill a god.”
She deliberately spoke slowly. So that he could not ask again this time. Eyes blazing like torches were visible. She hissed like an enraged goddess.
“There is a god who must pay for his sins. My companions and I have prepared his end, but the plan is not yet perfect. If you join us, it seems the last weakness could be patched up; of course, it could fail and become a sin. But you said you wanted to kill a god.”
Eleusis looked at Kallian. He was only throwing a silent gaze.
Eleusis looked at his own shadow. The god of darkness would not even know if his darkness were being swallowed. Here, the darkness within the shadow that could become his weakness was caught in a net.
He thought he knew which god they were targeting. That god was also one marked on his target.
“...I shall do it.”
Was there anyone who could resist being persuaded by her? A woman who could melt even a Keton's mind like cheese. Briefly marveling, Kallian bent down. He opened his mouth to Eleusis's ear, who was waiting on his knees.
“His wariness will be heightened, so make him let his guard down and deceive him well. Make it so he cannot concentrate.”
At the low whisper, Eleusis gulped down his nervous breath.
Ψ
Flash. A light flared. The bowels of Erebus were always like this. Darkness devouring smaller darkness, annihilation pushing back further annihilation. Struggle was incessantly followed by light and scattering explosions. But this was not inside Erebus.
Nyx spread his hand and looked. A substantial amount of torn golden hair was there. Once again, a flash. He spread his other hand and looked. A handful of black hair had been plucked out.
Someone was watching that eccentric act. It was Kallian, waiting with a black tribon wrapped around his shoulder. In the end, having been pushed here by Asteril, he made a bored expression.
“How about you stop deciding whether to become blonde or black-haired now? It's getting painful to watch.”
Nyx lowered the hand that had been tearing at his hair and looked at Kallian.
“Have you come to block me again?”
“....”
“You really are going out of your way to interfere. Could it be that you, too, love Gaia? Have you harbored her in your heart?”
“Gaia is not here.”
“You speak only sly words, like Ananke.”
Nyx spoke, exhaling ragged breath. His complexion was not good. His delirium seemed to have worsened.
Kallian suddenly recalled the first time he had seen Nyx. It was an era when Oceanus had teemed with everyone's laughter, like ripe grains in a granary.
A blond boy who seemed somewhat too young to be called an adult. He had loved wine and enjoyed clutching Gaia's red hair and rubbing it against his cheek.
He had held out his hand and said.
“This is wine I brewed myself. It is about time you, too, drank now. Come, Kallian. I shall pour your first glass.”
At first, he had mistaken him for a peer of his own. Was he Gaia's child? He remembered the tales humans had made up. That the goddess of abundance and beauty had children who remained forever in the form of children. He had thought they were likened to them.
“I have come to punish you on behalf of the Ojwa.”
“Punishment?”
Nyx scoffed. But soon, seeing Kallian's hand glowing yellow, he stopped laughing.
“You mean to kill me after all? Me, Nyx of Harmony?”
Nyx read Kallian's serene gaze. This was one who had already taken the lives of countless kin before Tartarus.
Light flashed again. Beams of light rushing in as if someone were roaring cut his memories away in chunks as if with a knife.
When he came to his senses, he was beneath Kallian's feet. Nyx thrashed, his chest stepped on. The sky churned black, then turned deep red like Kallian's pupils.
“Will you find peace by my hand? Or will you continue to be a madman and gnaw away at yourself?”
Nyx lay beneath his foot, silently staring at him. An emotion flashed like lightning in Kallian's eyes. This was the last respect he would show. Was he telling him to accept an elegant demise befitting the Ojwa?
Nyx clenched his fist. He pushed Kallian's foot away with his hand. Kallian readily stepped aside. Nyx rose, dusting off dirt and muttering.
“Fine. I acknowledge that you are stronger than me. Do as you will.”
Kallian looked at the blond Nyx, who waited with lowered eyes. For a very brief moment, he thought of the past, but it was not a reason to hesitate.
Then it happened.
A crow appeared suddenly, cawing “Caw!” and flapping its large wings as it lunged at Kallian's face.
Kallian raised his arm to defend himself, then snatched the crow's neck pecking at the back of his hand. When he put strength into his hand, the crow's neck bone was crushed. The struggling crow hung limp, lost its form, and crumbled.
In that time, Nyx quickly moved into a black barrier he had spread open. Feeling Kallian's gaze, he glanced back. Nyx's lips twisted. The barrier closed its gate as if taunting him, and Nyx once again succeeded in fleeing.
—Chase him. Do not lose him until the end, and confirm.
At Kallian's command, Hanpung soared nimbly. The wind crossing the sky drew a parabola as if following a predetermined trajectory and disappeared.
Nyx looked back over his shoulder anxiously. The intervals of checking his rear gradually shortened.
He had to find Gaia before Kallian discovered his position. She was definitely somewhere in Delphi.
Below the hill, flames were shooting up. The city was a scene of chaos, with groans and shrieks rampant. Children who had lost their parents wept, and the elderly and sick gave up on life and offered only prayers.
Even so, Gaia had not yet shown herself. She was not one to merely watch the pain of those weaklings. She was one who would rather tear off her own flesh than turn away.
Hurry and come out, Gaia. Hurry. She always held out like that, only to come out crying in the end.
He climbed a narrow, steep slope to evade pursuit. It was the path leading to the Oracle of Pythia at the city's summit. Moving by barrier from the midpoint might attract attention, so he walked from midway up. It was absurd how he had ended up in such a predicament.
“Lord Nyx.”
Then, someone called his name from between the bushes.
“It's me.”
It was a familiar voice. Eleusis appeared together with the priestesses, somehow. Nyx surveyed the surroundings and then asked in a lowered voice.
“I am searching for Demeter's princess. Have you seen her?”
“Yes, I have her with me.”
At his answer, Nyx's face brightened. As expected, he was a useful one. Today was the most commendable he had seen him so far. Promising to bestow a great reward next time, he gestured for him to lead the way quickly.
They changed direction and headed down the slope. Turning onto a side path, the Sanctuary of Daphne was soon visible. From afar, a priestess raised and lowered a torch as if signaling. Eleusis raised his hand and signaled back as if answering.
Less than a hundred paces remained now. Eleusis wet his lips with his tongue. Nyx followed him, matching his stride.
“Did you know?”
When he suddenly asked, Nyx looked up from behind.
“That you are my father.”
“....”
“My mother came to become a devotee of Nysa, and one day you violated her, and as a result, a child like me was born.”
“I am your father?”
“Yes.”
“I?”
Nyx muttered and stopped walking. Eleusis turned around as well. Nyx stared intently at his face.
“Are you certain?”
Eleusis nodded. Nyx let out a hollow laugh of unknown meaning.
Eleusis waited for his answer. But Nyx remained silent, seemingly lost in thought.
It was not a situation he was experiencing for the first time. Mortals were all animals of delusion. They often thought themselves special. Sometimes they considered themselves greater than gods. It was astounding.
“Why do you say nothing? Do you not remember?”
“How could that be? Ketons remember every minute detail for all eternity. Without exception.”
“Then...”
“I remember your mother. She came to Nysa while pregnant with you and became a Maenad. I did give that woman my blood, but that was all. You seem to be gravely mistaken, Eleusis. You are not my child. You are not a child of the Keton either. You are merely the offspring of a mortal. I do not know what effect my drop of blood had on you in the womb, but it was close to a miracle. Women who become Maenads usually miscarry or die in childbirth. You were lucky. That is all. You are merely a lucky Eleusis.”
It was close to a miracle. Merely the offspring of a mortal. Eleusis wore a devastated expression.
“Did you truly think I was your father? A lowly mortal? And one that is a mass of blemishes at that?”
It felt as though his breath were burning his lungs like flames and spurting out. Eleusis bit his lip. If he did not, nonsense would burst out.
Nyx waved his hand as if to say enough, with a tired expression.
“Let us speak no more of this. It is so absurd I can listen no longer.”
“Ah, is that so? The tales of a mere mortal must all be pathetic. The mouth of a mere mortal flapping its gums is naught but a breathing hole like a carp's gills. Then to whom should I vent this rage, this despair? To whom... to whom!”
“I spoke out of turn. Please forget it.”
Nyx glanced sideways. Eleusis had his head lowered as if ashamed. Nyx sighed and shook his head. Mortals, truly.
They had arrived at the Sanctuary of Daphne before they knew it. Eleusis guided him to the back of the altar in the dirt courtyard.
“This way. It is a place that even the almighty Keton could never find. Please wait inside, and I will send the princess in shortly.”
Nyx made a suspicious expression upon arriving at the hidden cave entrance. The olive leaves fallen on the floor were wilted dry, as if hinting at something about to come.
But he did not want to think about it. Nyx walked into the cave. Eleusis bowed deeply at the entrance where the light cut off.
Nyx followed the phosphorescent light, looking up at the statue of Cronus holding a sickle and muttering.
“Yes, I do feel the power of Erebus. And very strongly at that...”
The flashing lights in his head disappeared. Now that he had entered the darkness, his vision finally cleared. There was no particular explanation, but Nyx knew where he had to go. It must be that rock crevice into which the darkness was being sucked.
Nyx entered the inner sanctum and walked thoughtlessly along the golden path. Before a towering cliff, a simple altar was set up. He, who had roughly scanned the murals with a bleary gaze, stared at the achromatic flowers decorating the altar.
Flowers that did not wither. It was not Phyra's taste. She did not like lilies. Especially such pale ones.
Poppies and myrrh were burning around him. He felt a headache and tilted his head back, then pressed his eyelids with his hand.
That Kallian fellow really has a troublesome ability. A Keton annihilating another Keton like a mere human? Has the Sub-god truly gone mad?
Nyx sat with one knee up on the floor and blankly looked up at the ceiling. It was quiet. Silence flowed in the vast, dim space. It was comfortable. Like the time of primordial beginnings.
“Nyx...”
Someone called his name gently. He turned his head and cast a hazy gaze.
A woman with red hair in a pure white chiton dress was approaching, drifting along the golden path.
Nyx rose as if driven by something. His eyes grew wide with grief and madness.
“G-Gaia...?”
She, with her face painted white and lips rouged red, smiled faintly. Nyx rubbed his eyes, unable to believe it. A clay jar was tucked in the crook of her arm against her slender waist.
From inside the slightly open jar leaked the fragrant scent of honey and cheese from the flocks of Oceanus.
“Gaia!”
He ran sobbing, overcome by surging emotion. Throwing himself into her ample bosom, Nyx wept bitterly. Gaia set down the jar and slowly patted his back.
Upon seeing the twisted gold bracelet fastened around her wrist, Nyx’s face filled with rapture. He took the back of her hand and kissed it again and again as though in worship. The red gem crafted into the center of the bracelet was made from his own solidified blood. It was a token of the love and promise he had given her.
“I missed you, I truly missed you. Where on earth did you go, only to return now? No, no matter. You’re here now. I knew you would come. I knew you would return to me. Gaia… Gaia, Gaia, Gaia! My lovely Gaia….”
As his sobbing stretched on, the smoke from the burning myrrh grew thicker as well. The inside of the temple became increasingly hazy, as if filled with steam, just like his mind….
Nyx removed his clothes, and Gaia too became naked, wrapping herself between his legs. White breath rose from their entwined bodies.
“It’s like a dream. I’m afraid because all of this feels like a dream…. I’ve only ever had nightmares, so surely something this sweet and happy cannot be a dream?”
Gaia laughed airily.
“As if it could be.”
“Gaia… my Gaia. You are my one and only, my eternal breath. Now don’t go anywhere. Don’t leave me. Promise me, Gaia….”
“I promise.”
“Then will you become my Anteros now?”
Nyx looked into her eyes as she stared back silently, urging, “Hmm?” After a moment of thought, she nodded.
“Yes, let’s do that.”
“Really?”
Seeing Nyx spring to his feet, Gaia smiled. “Yes, really.” Nyx let out a cheer. He lifted her high and spun round and round.
Even if this body were to turn to primordial dust and vanish tomorrow, he could not be happier than this.
With no suitable ritual cup at hand, he took up a bronze bowl that had been placed on the altar. A snake with its tongue sticking out was delicately carved upon it.
Nyx smiled, pleased. So this is my totem. Gaia said nothing.
Nyx used his pinky nail to cut her palm and draw blood, then bit his own wrist and let it drip.
Their blood mixed completely in the bowl. He drank first. Watching him, she too brought the remaining drops to her lips and drank.
Nyx grinned widely. Gaia had become his Anteros. Now she truly belonged to him. Wholly his. His Gaia alone. No one could take her away.
“Why is blood still flowing from your palm?”
Nyx snatched Gaia’s hand and examined it with a frown. His own wrist, which had been wounded more deeply, had already healed cleanly.
“Surely you haven’t clad yourself in a clay doll again?”
When Nyx asked, feigning anger, Gaia, who had been staring intently at him, made an expression as if to ask what he meant.
Silence fell between them.
Red blood still dripped heavily from her hand. Far from healing, more blood poured out. There was no sign of it stopping. Only then did Nyx sense that something was wrong.
“Kuk… kukkuk!”
Gaia, who had been holding back laughter, began to cackle, clutching her stomach. Nyx wore a bewildered expression. She picked up the clothes thrown on the floor and dressed hurriedly, casting him a sidelong glance.
“Pfft….”
Then she covered her mouth again and laughed, bending forward.
What was so funny? Why was she making such a scornful expression? What was that unpleasant laughter?
Nyx’s expression gradually hardened.
“You love me? Me? You foolish god!”
She shrieked, then scratched the skin below her ear and peeled it away. The human-face skin that had covered her face like dough began to peel away thinly, like a shell.
Nyx flinched, his eyes widening. His mouth fell open blankly. What grotesque spectacle was this?
She walked to the altar and poured the water from the vessel over her head from the crown down. Her hair, which had been dyed red, washed out, revealing white from the roots.
Psyche tidied the hair clinging to her face with a liver-spotted hand and smoothed her lips. She raised her head and smiled with wide eyes.
“You… you, you…!”
Snapping to his senses, Nyx stuck his fingers down his throat and retched. But the blood of the two already flowing through his veins was engraved upon his soul like an absolute spell.
Nyx raised his head, wiped his mouth, and glared at Psyche.
Her anger and joy, boiling with trembling and ecstasy, were vividly felt. Like some kind of wave, they transmitted to his pounding heart.
The woman before him was now eternally connected to his heart. By the power of Erebus. By the oath of the vow.
Psyche stared intently at his manhood, which had entered her body and reached climax moments before, then furrowed her brows.
“But you… weren’t you neither male nor female?”
“Shut up.”
“Your voice is truly impossible to distinguish…. Well, that thing below isn’t particularly masculine, either.”
“I said shut up! Do you want to die?”
“If you kill me, you die too. Isn’t that how it works?”
Nyx ground his teeth. He was so furious he could barely breathe.
What in the world had just happened? What had he done with that thing? What had he done with such a vile, lowly creature….
“You can’t even remember Gaia’s face, voice, or gaze, yet you claim to love her so much. Did you think anyone with red hair was Gaia? What kind of god are you? You’re just a madman.”
What? Nyx stared at Psyche, frozen.
“You drank the waters of oblivion or something and lost your mind? Your memory wavers this way and that? How pitiful—a madman who doesn’t even know he’s mad… lashing out at random things.”
He drank the waters of oblivion? Him?
“Ah, you can’t even remember drinking the waters of oblivion, can you? Truly weak. So weak you couldn’t even swallow your own grief. Was her death that much of a shock? Then why did you kill her in the first place….”
Kill? What did he kill?
“Gaia, of course. You killed her. Killed her with your own hands, then guzzled down the waters of oblivion out of guilt. That’s why your head became such a mess….”
Psyche’s voice, clicking her tongue, gradually buzzed and faded from his ears.
Nyx sat down with a thud and stared blankly into the air. It was as if flames danced before his eyes.
Ψ
Gaia held her swollen belly and shouted toward the dark heavens.
“Chaos! My mother and my father!”
- I hear you, my daughter.
“Do you remember? How I protected your children and helped them be born safely.”
- Of course. You did splendidly.
“Then must you not also protect my child and help it be born safely?”
- ….
“For the first and last time, I implore you. Please protect my daughter. Cherish my child as I do, take her as your own daughter, and guard her!”
Chaos said nothing. But Gaia did not give up and wailed.
“O Chaos! My mother! My father….”
Thus she appealed every night with screams toward the blackened heavens.
It was the season when the sky rose high, as if in the likeness of Uranus.
Everything was clear and bright. The clouds were like feathers yet unbroken, birds soared occasionally but did not cry loudly, and the stream flowed without obstruction, clear and cheerful.
It was a day when the things she had earnestly wished for seemed likely to appear as sparkling gifts, like the spray of the Pontus Sea.
But Ampita could not hide her anxiety. It had already been a month since word from Kakaethos, who had gone to Sidero, had ceased.
Her premonition was not good. Could Hades’s army have already marched on Sidero, the capital? Cocytus was a remote region even among the frontiers, and since it was not on the path to Sidero, perhaps they had fortunately escaped notice. If so, should that be considered a blessing of the gods?
“Mmm….”
Gaia frowned and clutched her belly. Ampita jerked her head up like a beast with ears pricked and opened her eyes wide.
She grabbed Gaia’s hand tightly and checked her complexion first. Gaia’s eyes, which had been furrowing her brow in pain after exhaling a long breath, met hers.
“A midwife….”
“Yes?”
“Call a midwife, Ampita.”
Ampita gasped and covered her mouth, holding her breath as she nodded. She moved quickly. Heavens! Heavens! The exclamations bursting from her lips were a mixture of joy and worry.
But whimsical fate sometimes overturned a great tapestry to present a picture no one could have anticipated, and as if warning of that ominous premonition, Rhea lay with her nose to the ground, groaning and whimpering.
That night, Cocytus became a battlefield.
Nyx had finally found this place. Thanatos had stormed in. Ampita, seeing flames rising everywhere in the city, tried to hurriedly flee the manor, but soldiers blocked her way.
“You mustn’t. Outside is dangerous. You must remain here.”
“Let me go! I must go to the Great Temple. Right now, Pandora—anyway, I must get there!”
“Absolutely not!”
The midwife brought from the village was also hiding behind her, looking terrified.
Ampita stomped her feet. The temple atop the hill looked precarious, as if floating upon the flames.
Right about now, Lady Pandora would be writhing in the throes of childbirth….
Day and night crossed. Gaia lay in her room with several layers of blankets spread out. Ampita would not be able to come. The entire city was screaming.
She suddenly recalled Ananke telling the story of her own childbirth like a tall tale. Uranus had held her hand and whimpered pathetically beside her. That man, who had seemed like unbreakable stone.
Kakaethos would surprisingly not cry.
Gaia wrapped the cloth hung long from the ceiling around her wrist and stared at the back of her hand. Her unfocused eyes smiled weakly.
Thus she waged battle alone. A full day and half a day more.
A thunderous roar that seemed to tear the sky apart resounded. The bellow of enraged Uranus? A deluge like a waterspout poured over the burning city.
The citizens of Cocytus finally breathed a sigh of relief.
The flames that had been consuming the city for two days were finally showing signs of dying down.
Thanatos, who had been setting fires and slaughtering people here and there, also looked at the ominous sky and began to withdraw stealthily.
“Lady Pandora! Where are you, Lady Pandora!”
It was then that Ampita returned to the temple. The midwife had fled somewhere in the chaos, and Ampita had slipped out of the manor alone while the guards’ vigilance was lax. By now, the manor was probably in an uproar searching for her.
It was a reckless act unbefitting the next Anasa, but she could not bear it, so worried was she about Pandora.
Wandering the empty temple with a torch, Ampita was startled when she opened the secret door leading to Pandora’s bedchamber.
Gaia lay upon the bed, covered in blood, gasping for breath. Beneath her legs, a newborn baby with wrinkled skin was flailing its arms and legs, its umbilical cord still uncut.
Snapping to her senses, Ampita ripped the hem of her dress. She hurriedly wrapped the baby in cloth.
“Here, with this….”
Gaia held out a dagger that had been sterilized by heating in advance. Ampita took a deep breath and cut the umbilical cord in one go.
Only then did the baby begin to cry loudly, “Waaah!” Gaia, who had been watching anxiously, finally smiled.
Gaia tried to raise her upper body but cried “Ah!” and clutched her stomach. Ampita, holding the baby, kicked away the blanket covering Gaia to check.
A gasp escaped her. Ampita stepped back and looked at Gaia. How could she, after losing so much blood….
“Is Kakaethos not here yet?”
“M-my brother….”
There had been no word for a month. It turned out he had never even gone to Sidero. According to the guard captain she had interrogated yesterday, he had been fighting Thanatos, who was advancing on Cocytus all this time. He had strictly ordered that she not be informed. He had probably been worried it would reach Lady Pandora’s ears.
She could not say that. She could not pour out such words to her face as she held the baby to her bosom, happy.
“Asteril, my daughter… Even if I gathered all the flowers and winds in the world and brushed them against your cheek, nothing could be softer or more lovely than you.”
The baby opened her eyes slightly and looked at the face of the mother holding her. A child with black hair and black pupils.
Gaia laughed, then burst into tears from joy.
Ah, she resembles Kakaethos, she looks exactly like Kakaethos. Our pretty daughter, our most precious daughter….
“Kakaethos will be pleased. He secretly wanted a daughter….”
For a moment, Gaia faltered, trailing off, and stared blankly into the air. She stiffened her shoulders as if startled, then made an expression filled with terror.
“K-Kakaethos…?”
The voice that emerged like a groan trembled and scattered. Something was happening. Her pupils flickered like candlelight trembling in the wind.
“Ah… no….”
Tears pooled in her vacantly open eyes. A sob formed on her trembling lips. It can’t be. Soon she began shedding tears in large drops.
“Kakaethos! Aah! Kakaethos… Kakaethos!”
Gaia waved her arms at the sky and wailed. Ampita watched blankly as she called her brother’s name like a madwoman.
Gaia screamed, tearing at her chest. “U-uh… uheuheuk…” She collapsed into a sitting position and wept as if she had lost everything. Her hoarse voice could now only say, “No… no!”
Gaia dragged her blackened, shriveled legs, skeletal as bare bones, and climbed down from the bed.
Ampita held the baby Gaia had set down. Gaia, trembling with both hands on the floor, barely managed to stand.
“Lady Pandora… you mustn’t. Where are you going in that condition? Outside is still dangerous. The city has become ashes and the streets are full of corpses. When the rain stops, they will come again. No one can stop them now. No one….”
“I must go. To stop him, I must go….”
“Who is he?”
Ampita asked, following behind her. Gaia, looking at the ground as she walked, said nothing. Her shadow flickered like flames and seeped into the long, dark corridor.
After a moment, she reached the temple entrance and raised her head with unfocused eyes. She did not even realize her manner of speaking had changed.
“Asteril.”
“Yes?”
“I entrust Asteril to you.”
“Lady Pandora… where are you going?”
“Do not come this way.”
Gaia said so and went out, closing the temple door. Ampita stared at the door, which closed with a hollow sound, for a long while.
Ampita wrapped the sleeping baby’s body in soft cloth, covering even her forehead and nose bridge.
She stepped carefully. A trail of blood left by Gaia remained on the slippery temple floor.
Before the door closed… if she had not seen wrong, someone had been standing outside.
He of a slender build stood with an unnaturally straight posture, watching Gaia. An eerie, burning, piercing emotion dwelled therein.
Ampita grabbed the door handle with trembling hands. She felt she should not open it, but she could not bear the worry.
Cold sweat trickled down from her neck to her spine. She bit her blue-tinged lips firmly, then seemed to resolve herself and pushed the heavy wooden door forward.
Creeeak. Crimson embers floated about like seeds. Gaia stood there, drenched in blood and wearing a torn dress, looking so frail she might collapse at any moment.
The man standing before her had skin white and pale as marble. Striking in contrast were his ink-black pupils and black hair falling straight like a velvet carpet.
In the man’s hand was clutched the hair of a helmeted soldier. The soldier seemed to have been dragged the whole way up the long hill; his knees and the backs of his hands, touching the ground, were all scraped and skinned. Even through the glimpsed helmet, it was full of dark red bloodstains.
Gaia made a sobbing sound and ran with both arms outstretched. She snatched the helmeted soldier from the pale man’s grasp and embraced him tightly.
“Kakaethos!”
Ampita shuddered and took a deep, gasping breath. Her breathing became so rapid her chest convulsed.
Looking closely, a red cape was wrapped around the helmeted soldier’s shoulders. The protective guards around his arms and legs were engraved with Demeter’s emblem in gold thread.
“Brother….”
Ampita bit her trembling lips and swallowed her tears. At that moment, Gaia turned toward Ampita, opened her eyes wide, and sent forth a startling, fierce wind.
Ampita shut her eyes tight, clutching the baby to her breast as if to protect her. The whirlwind lifted her body and flew rapidly away through the crumbling walls.
The man standing behind Gaia watched the back of the west wind disappearing into the distance. His eyes with empty pupils were endlessly deep, dense, and dark. They were like a bottomless swamp.
“What was that child just now?”
“None of your concern.”
“How cold, Phyra. Are you angry?”
“Then should I treat you kindly now? To you who killed my lover?”
“He is not yet completely dead.”
“Then will you let me heal him?”
Nyx grinned widely, as if to say what nonsense was that.
Gaia made a sad expression. Are you that happy? That you killed the one I love?
It was too late to turn back. Kakaethos’s heart had already stopped. His soul had left his body, his brain had whitened and hardened, and the blood remaining in his veins had cooled.
“Nyx… there is something you do not know.”
“There is nothing I do not know about you, my precious Phyra.”
Gaia let out a hollow laugh. She gazed at her hands and feet disappearing like sand blown away by the wind.
The flesh that until moments ago had held a tiny, warm, soft, precious baby was losing its form and melting away.
“Kakaethos was my Anteros.”
Nyx’s eyes widened. He could not speak. His lips parted, he swallowed his breath, gulped, and parted again.
“Do not lie.”
“….”
“Don’t lie, Phyra.”
“….”
“You said you would make me your Anteros.”
“….”
“You promised to become my Anteros.”
“Promise? You simply assumed on your own. I am a being who fundamentally cannot be joined with a child of Chaos. You are also my children.”
“What does that mean? Gaia, I cannot understand what you are saying at all. A mortal and Anteros? What kind of madness is that! Nonsense! A mortal and Anteros?”
“There is nothing in this world that cannot be. Nothing.”
Just as with the child of Kakaethos and me. She murmured toward the heavens with her fading lips.
- Chaos, will you grant my final request?
A gentle breeze blew. The wind that seemed to caress her wet eyes sorrowfully whispered.
- Rest, my daughter.
Darkness patted her shoulder. A smile finally flitted across Gaia’s lips.
Swoosh. She vanished like fine sand scattered by a fierce wind. The annihilation was instantaneous. Like a shadow disappearing under sudden sunlight.
Onto the empty ground, a twisted gold bracelet set with a red gem fell abruptly with a clink.
Nyx, who had been glaring fiercely at that spot, wheezed and paced in place, not knowing what to do.
“No, no….”
In his confused eyes, only a flock of black crows crying raucously as they surveyed their surroundings was reflected.
“Don’t jest with me, Gaia! Come out!”
The earth was silent. Below the hill, flames churned like waves.
“I said come out! Come out and explain to me! Otherwise, I’ll kill this one. I’ll kill him!”
Nyx grabbed the already dead Kakaethos by the neck and shook him. His eyes were bloodshot, tinged with madness.
“Come out, Gaia….”
He sat down with a thud, his face uneasy. Nyx, who had been gnawing his fingernails and looking around, suddenly fumbled at the dirt with his hands. The skeptical touch of his hands grew frantic.
As if her flesh, vanished like sand, had left something somewhere here.
Without even realizing tears were falling, he clawed at the ground like a madman.
“Please… please, Gaia….”
Tell me I didn’t kill you.
Nyx lay prostrate on the ground and wailed, sobbing. Please come out and say something. Please, please, please….
“Gaaaaaia!”
He screamed and tore at his hair.
The shrieks and screams that seemed to tear the darkness apart mixed with the crows’ cries and echoed thunderously through the temple.
The weather was bleak and overcast. Everyone thought that even the gods could not hide their gloomy hearts.
Soldiers sighed occasionally as they raised fallen altars and toppled stone statues. Below the hill, a walnut coffin bearing the regent king’s body moved unsteadily along with an honor guard bearing flags.
The wailing of citizens who had come to see them off continued. Their faces were full of sorrow as they scattered white flowers.
Crowned, Ampita donned his breastplate to honor Kakaethos’s achievements as a valiant warrior.
She walked alone before the temple scattered with ashes, taking a moment of mourning.
Clink. Something caught her foot and rolled, hitting a pillar with a metallic scrape. Ampita picked up the ornament and examined it closely. It was a twisted gold bracelet set with a teardrop-shaped red gem. It was the one Lady Pandora had always worn on her left wrist.
She gestured to the middle-aged priestess standing behind the pillar. The priestess walked carefully, holding a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes. The baby’s body was enveloped in a pale yellow light, her eyes closed as if asleep.
Ampita’s eyelids turned red. She held Asteril to her bosom and sobbed.
My child, why do you sleep so? Is it because Lady Pandora is gone? What should I do with you? I am afraid I will lose you too.
The baby who neither ate nor cried but only slept deeply. It felt as if she were protected by some mysterious power.
“The hand of the wave rocks the current….”
The lullaby that Pandora, leaning against the couch, had hummed while caressing her full belly came to mind.
She too had leaned her cheek on Pandora’s knee, closed her eyes, and sought sleep to her beautiful voice. A feeling that calmed and steadied the heart.
Ampita held the baby in her arms and gently rocked her like a cradle floating on the current. As if imitating Pandora, imagining this was how she would have done it.
“The stars sing, so you will not be lost….”
The lullaby flowed out in a choked voice. She would never see Lady Pandora again. Her brother too had departed forever. The mystery of that day would not be solved until her death.
“Lovely Ampita, did you know? The fact that our meeting today was destined, as if engraved in the constellations.”
Ampita wept, choking back sobs. Kind and warm Lady Pandora, my priestess whom I shall never meet again.
She looked down at the baby sleeping peacefully with swollen eyes. The divinity enveloping the young child’s body was warm and cozy. Like Pandora’s last embrace.
Ampita kissed the baby’s soft, downy forehead and whispered, “Don’t worry. Just as they were to me, I shall become your parent.”
Ψ
Lethe had a desolation that seemed indifferent to the passage of time. Thus it was also a land beyond the sight of mortals. Around it were only sand and piles of stones that occasionally tumbled about, nodding to the stale wind.
Cypresses were planted in two straight rows in the brittle soil. Nyx looked at them with empty eyes.
“Grieve endlessly in my stead.”
The moment he commanded, the cypresses began to squeeze out mournful wails. Groooo. As their sobs caught the wind blowing from the ravine, the golden reeds that had been chattering and playing in the distance could be seen flinching in shock.
Nyx took out the Cup of Oblivion he kept in his bosom. Gaia had suddenly given it to him one day. All the ingredients were inside the cup. She had prepared everything.
The final trace that she had existed in this world. The bloodstain pressed into the crystallized Himeros petal remained like a black-red dot.
It was doubtful whether the waters of oblivion would truly work properly. She had perished, and her bloodstain merely maintained its form within the crystal, oxidized.
It was standard to use only fresh blood drawn from a living keton for the Water of Oblivion. Perhaps there would be side effects. Nevertheless, this alone was now the hope that would save him. He did not have the strength to live on bearing the fact that he had killed her with his own hands. Truly pathetic and weak.
“Ha… Haha….”
Nyx pressed his palm to his forehead and let out a hollow laugh. Fluid trickled in streams from his sunken eye sockets. Would he now forget everything? Gaia, she who had been the entirety of his breath and the reason for his existence… my Phyra….
He unfolded his specialized barrier. Hiding within the dark space, he repelled even the messenger birds. No one could know. It was a truth to be swallowed in utter secrecy.
The Water of Oblivion that slid down his throat with a gulp consumed his entire body as though burning him alive. Nyx let out a sharp scream.
The space where light and darkness flashed and crossed mixed and tangled once more in a flash. Depleted breath escaped from his lips that had been twitching in agony. His black-ringed pupils loosened powerlessly into thin air.
After that day, Thanatos vanished from sight. Nyx gave up guardianship of the Cup of Oblivion alongside Hades and passed the duty on to Oza. Oza then transferred that responsibility to Callian.
From then on, Nyx shut himself away on Mount Nysa and never again appeared in Demeter.
As if nothing had ever happened.
Ψ
The Hecate members, including Leuce and Ischys, evacuated the citizens to the Great Temple at the city’s peak. They blocked the slope leading to the Great Temple with boulders and deployed skilled archers in preparation for possible Maenad attacks.
As soon as Nyx disappeared, the tide of battle reversed in an instant.
The Maenads were not immortal. When struck by thrown spears and shot arrows, they bled and fell into a state unable to fight. Their behavior was so grotesque that at first the defenders had been terrified prematurely, but if close combat was avoided, they proved to be relatively manageable opponents.
The sound of military horns rang out in succession from afar. Leuce—as befitting a daughter of Circe, who had keen eyes—went outside the temple. She shouted with a face full of joy.
“It’s the Poseidonia and Demeter armies!”
They were reinforcements sent by Tethys. In addition, elite troops urgently dispatched by Chione, who had received Asteril’s letter, arrived without delay.
The Delphi militia were bewildered. Eleusis was away from his post, and now even the defense commander had vanished without a trace.
They could not determine at all whether they should lower their spears and blades against the Maenads, the Hecate clan, the armies outside the city, all three, or some other foe entirely.
Then a group of women walked toward them. Dressed in short tunics and wielding bows and daggers, they broke through the soldiers’ ranks with agile movements.
“It’s over. Surrender willingly.”
The woman who appeared to be their leader set a severed head on the ground as a threat. The militia, seeing the dead defense commander’s head, dropped their weapons in shock.
A second horn sounded from outside the city. The reinforcements were drawing near. The militia who had been exchanging glances declared their surrender one by one and fell to their knees with a heavy thud.
Meanwhile, the interior of Delphi’s Great Temple was packed full with no room to step. The clamor bouncing off the walls carried a restless, anxious air, like wandering footsteps.
The injured lay on blankets spread along the torch-bearing walls, groaning, while children gathered around the central brazier, clutching meager food and wearing uneasy expressions.
Not those children. Eleusis shifted his gaze and clutched the robe on his head, covering his face more deeply.
“Are you looking for the Midong?”
A cold voice spoke from behind him. A hand rested on his shoulder, holding a sharp dagger aimed at his throat as if to pierce it.
“Do not worry. They are all safe under my protection.”
“That voice… is it Lady Melinoë?”
Eleusis removed his robe and turned around. Behind her, trial candidates surrounded him, sending murderous gazes.
It was something that would turn the Elder Council upside down if they learned of it—that people born of different tribes could unite in a single purpose like this. Eleusis marveled anew at Melinoë’s leadership.
“Have you come to kill me?”
“Yes.”
He had harbored a certain expectation toward her. From the first time he had met her at the final gateway of the trials, he had sensed something like goodwill toward him. So he had believed she would take his extended hand.
“I thought you were the same as me. I believed you hated them as I do.”
“Them? You mean the Elder Council?”
“Were you not also ultimately used by their desires and then abandoned?”
“….”
“I despise humans. Whether the Elder Council or anyone else. If we are the fruit of misfortune, are they not the rotten root?”
“Misfortune… Yes, I was more unfortunate than you.”
Eleusis raised an eyebrow, as if such a thing were impossible.
“A hundredfold, a thousandfold more unfortunate. I hear you were born in Nysa?”
“Yes.”
“And yet you emerged alive and whole. How could that be?”
“….”
“If the Maenads were truly beasts of madness who had lost all reason, consumed solely by their own desires, would they not have devoured and killed even their own children? And yet you grew up safe and whole, walking out of that place on your own two feet. Not just you, but many other Midong as well.”
It was a question he had never once considered. How could it be? Because he had suffered to the brink of death, walked the Aethos mountains through the night, picked up fallen tree fruits and drunk from streams, evaded the eyes of wild beasts….
“Your mother became a Maenad, yet even in those extreme circumstances she gave birth to you. She must have nursed you, protected you as the candle of her life guttered out, and entrusted you to her companions before she died. Can you truly be confident that your mother’s love and protection did not exist at all?”
Eleusis wore the expression of a man struck by a sudden ambush. In his memory, nothing remained but their terrible atrocities. In truth, though he was blind and could not see their conduct, could all of it have been mere imagination born of disgust?
“The very fact that you live—that your existence itself—must be the fingerprint of love your mother left behind. I, who know neither my parents’ faces nor their names, envy that terribly.”
Eleusis recalled an old memory. One day, when he suddenly could no longer feel his mother’s presence, he had crawled about, feeling the ground, digging at the dirt with his bare hands.
Around the time blood gushed from his fingernails caked with stone fragments and sand, a hand cold as marble was suddenly touched.
Holding his mother’s corpse awkwardly in his arms, he had sat vacantly for a long time facing the morning cold. Until he realized that this was death.
Throughout that time, pale women had surrounded him and remained. Throwing blatant stares. Back then, he had thought they were simply waiting to devour him, but now….
“I was… protected? By them?”
Melinoë said nothing more. Instead, she took his arm and began to bind it with rope. Eleusis complied obediently, then let out a hollow laugh.
“The oracle priestess is a fraud!”
Then, from one corner of the Great Temple, a shout erupted. Many people were arguing amidst screams and shouts.
“What on earth is that?”
“Good heavens, mind your tongue! What if the God grows further enraged….”
The Hecate members disguised as ordinary citizens sighed and shook their heads. Among them, a bearded man clapped his hands. “Now, now!” He focused everyone’s attention.
“Take a look at these. They all came from a secret warehouse beneath the Great Temple.”
He laid out the Pythia’s cosmetics in a row on an old blanket. The citizens crowded around curiously. One man, out of curiosity, picked up a jar with a questioning look.
“That is a clay jar imbued with an evil, terrible curse. It clouds the human mind, and in the end destroys body and soul, reducing one to a monster.”
“Wh-what… Uwack!”
The man threw the jar he was holding in shock. He wiped his hands on his clothes, his face uneasy.
“Do not worry. As long as you do not open the lid or touch the contents, nothing will happen.”
Only then did sighs of relief emerge.
The people scrutinized the cosmetic jars with skeptical faces. The seal of Pythia stamped on the bottom seemed to seep into their pupils.
“Come to think of it, I think I’ve seen this before.”
“Me too… My wife used something similar? She was fond of it, calling it cosmetics blessed by Pythia. And then she disappeared not long after.”
Outside the Great Temple, a different commotion raged. It was the wailing of families whose women had gone missing. They had recognized their wives and mothers turned into Maenads and were devastated. They had been anxious all along, wondering what misfortune had befallen them… only to learn it was all Delphi’s doing.
When the evil deeds of Pythia and the Sibyls were exposed, the enraged citizens’ faces turned red. Was not the very act the people of Delphi hated most the treacherous sorcery and curses that defiled the divine name?
“There’s a priest over there!”
Someone recognized Eleusis and shouted. Brilliant blond hair, a young blind man with his eyes gently lowered—he could not help but stand out. Though it was unclear why he was without his robe.
Eleusis calmly watched the citizens approaching, stomping like enraged rhinos.
Melinoë had already left him behind and was walking toward the temple doors. With the young trial candidates following her.
As she pushed the heavy door, Melinoë glanced sideways at Eleusis, who stood transcendentally as if gladly greeting the murderous mob.
“Eleusis, you….”
The boy who had once shone dazzlingly, like a child of the sun god. She would probably never forget the fluttering of her heart on the day she first saw him.
“You could have become both light and darkness.”
At her lament, he raised his head as if answering. *I know. I know, but sometimes there are things that cannot be helped.* It seemed as if his voice could be heard, murmuring through the movement of his lips.
With a heavy thud, a club struck down. Eleusis collapsed without even being able to resist. The men began to kick his fallen body and pelt him with stones.
Melinoë walked out beyond the door and blocked the entrance. Then she opened and closed the sacred wooden door tightly so that the miserable sight could not be seen.
Ψ
The chaotic Oracle City unraveled, its frenzy subsiding. Red threads flew across the sky, drawing lines. They were Hestia’s fire tails.
The Maenads, engulfed in flames, crumbled into ash one by one. Each time Hestia burned them, her crimson body flared larger, and by the time they had blackened into ash, the flames turned dark red, softening their force.
The people in the Great Temple buzzed as they looked down the hill. Watching the Maenads suddenly burn to death as if struck by lightning, they swallowed dryly.
Something was being done. Had the gods raged? Some wept in horror seeing a familiar face trapped in the flames. Others prostrated toward the sky in terror.
Then someone pointed at the roof of the Great Temple. Asteril was looking down at them with tilted eyes.
Those who saw her red pupils sat down aghast. They ran into the Great Temple as if fleeing.
*Why are they doing that?* As she made such an expression, the North Wind whispered something in her ear. Asteril stroked her eyelids and formed a hollow smile.
*Yes. At last, I have become a fearsome being.*
The Maenads, reduced to handfuls of ash, each left behind a pile the size of a toad’s burrow, like graves. Asteril reached out and gathered Hestia’s embers floating in the air.
Instantly, dark clouds gathered as if a door were closing in the sky. Short lightning struck, and large raindrops began to fall. Asteril looked up at the sky as if grateful for the timely downpour.
The flames that had rippled like embroidery receded like an ebbing tide, and only warm heat and moist air remained in the city.
Then, from the ash piled like a tomb mound, young sprouts emerged and shot up. The warm steam Hestia had breathed in enveloped their souls like a mother’s womb, and the rainwater that seeped in became nourishment, awakening the consciousness turned to seed.
It was a sight bizarre if bizarre, and wondrous if wondrous.
*—Despoena… they are waiting.*
At Hestia’s whisper, Asteril descended from the roof and began walking the ruined stairs. The North Wind clung to her shoulder like a mantle.
Pain flickered across Callian’s face as he watched the scene. Her body looked like it would collapse at any moment, yet for some reason it was more emaciated than when he had seen her earlier. It had been but half a shichen.
Above the dispersing dark clouds, Uranus and Ananke looked down upon Delphi. Ananke’s complexion was dark, as if foreboding the future.
Having descended the last step, Asteril bent down and began stroking the newly sprouted seedlings one by one.
Blood dripped from her palm. It was a self-inflicted wound she had made before coming down the stairs. She dropped the blood pooled in the wound onto the sprouting leaves, drop by drop. Then the sprouts, waiting like parched land, emitted brilliant light and began to stretch their stems vigorously.
“Asphodels….”
Looking at the young sapling growing before her, Asteril smiled with moist eyes. In the end, they had met again.
For the Maenads to become Asphodels, Hestia, the flame of purification, was necessary. Nyx, who had drunk the Water of Oblivion, could not remember this fact; thus, in Lethe, only meaningless cremations had been carried out in succession.
Lush saplings grew throughout the city. A fresh fragrance emanated from the leaves flowing with vitality.
It was now the forty-fifth sapling. As she stroked the tender leaf, Asteril flinched at a sensation as if her wrist were snapping. From her forearm to the back of her hand, her skin bore long cracks like shattered pottery.
Asteril glanced over her shoulder. Callian was watching with his lips chewed raw. His narrowed eyes were red and bloodshot, as if they had not blinked once while watching her, as if something would happen to her the moment he looked away.
He had looked like he wanted to say something since earlier. She knew what it was. She intended to pretend otherwise. Yet she saw his lips twist under the weight of emotion.
Asteril quickly hid her hand. And smiled as dimpled and carefree as she could. *I’m fine.*
At the shape of her lips, he who had stood like a statue turned his head away as if unable to bear the sight, then barely managed to look back at her. His gaze, as if pierced through the night sky, wavered.
Asteril turned around, crouching down. She lightly shook her wrist. Then powder fell from her rough skin with a rustling sound.
“An immortal blood in a mortal body is disharmony….”
It was as if Gaia’s sorrowful whisper could be heard in her ears. Asteril looked down at her own trembling hand. It looked like it would snap off at any moment, like a clumsily patched rag doll.
Callian swallowed a dry breath and clenched his fist. He could see plainly what she was doing as she crouched there. Did she truly believe he would not notice if she only showed him her back?
He looked up at the sky. Uranus and Ananke had already disappeared. In any case, the clan needed ambrosia. Even if it meant the inevitable sacrifice of someone. Oza’s decision was already settled.
Asteril eventually gave her blood to nearly one hundred saplings. Watching the branches grow lush in an instant, she smiled widely with a pale face. Without ever noticing the heart of her lover burning up inside.
Only then did Callian approach her. He drew her narrow shoulders into a deep embrace.
“Did I do well?”
“Yes.”
It felt as if the inside of his ribs were being crushed. He inwardly cursed the name of the Wind God several times over.
“Truly… you were like Gaia’s daughter….”
His voice, unable to help but praise, was choked as though his throat were seized. Asteril burrowed into his embrace.
Her arm around his waist rustled. Above their tangled shadow as one, powder like fine sand fell. With each movement she made, a rustling sound followed.
Asteril leaned her exhausted body against him like cotton soaked in water.
“Can you… not heal yourself?”
“My body heals on its own even if I don’t do anything.”
“On its own?”
“On its own.”
“Then….”
He could not ask further and stopped. What just fell? Something, with a tap… Callian glanced down, moving only his eyes.
Her pinky finger had fallen to the ground and was crumbling like salt dissolving in water. It felt like his breath had stopped. He first checked Asteril’s reaction. She seemed to feel no pain. No blood flowed from the truncated finger. Her body was hardening like the Maenads. Only, it was happening far too fast.
Asteril raised her head and looked up at Callian. His rose-colored lips were tightly closed, trembling minutely.
“Callian?”
Callian flinched as he looked at her, then loosened his frozen expression. His eyes gazed at his lover as if carving her into memory.
He slowly stroked Asteril’s brow bone. So small and frail. My Anteros.
He traced her nose bridge, passed her philtrum, and caressed her lips. Breath exhaled and inhaled. He lowered his head and mixed his breath with her lips.
Sucking her lower lip, he inserted his tongue and thoroughly swept through the inside of her mouth. A smacking sound arose, and the sucked tongue mixed moans into her breathing. The hand cupping her breast traced evenly over the soft mound and nipple. Twisting the peak and pulling, she tilted her head back and withdrew her lips. He listened to her whimpering moans as if savoring them.
He tilted his head and sucked her lips again. Using the tongue he had inserted, he thoroughly wetted her lower lip, then opened his mouth and devoured around her lips as if lunging. Violent emotions were embedded in his rough, ravenous kiss.
She would not be healed. She knew this. He, too, had guessed. But they did not speak of it to each other.
The deep kiss continued until they panted and were out of breath. Callian buried his face in her heaving chest and closed his eyes. He heard her rapidly beating heart. His mind calmed, if only a little.
A mortal life was but an instant to him, yet even that was precious time—even that was so.
“Let’s… go now.”
“Where to?”
Callian asked, stroking her hair where it touched his cheek. The once-glossy locks were now as dry and brittle as straw. Unable to touch them further, he only looked on.
“To a place where only the two of us can be.”
Asteril smiled, caressing the back of his hand. His body temperature, which she had always felt was cold, was now pleasantly warm. Like the inside of his mouth that had licked every corner of her tender flesh.
He raised his body and called the North Wind. Her body was cold, so it would be better to cover her with an outer garment. The loyal vassal acknowledged and flew off.
Asteril looked at the western sky with a drowsy face. Her homeland must be in harvest season. Golden fields seemed to unfold before her eyes. It was truly the season when Demeter was most beautiful.
“On the way there….”
She murmured with sleepy eyes.
“May I sleep a little? I’ve been so strangely sleepy since earlier….”
Before she could finish her words, she nodded off and leaned against his chest, slowly closing her eyelids.
Shortly after, the North Wind brought a black tribon. Callian took the wrist she had hidden inside her outer garment and stared at it. The ring finger had also fallen off, following the pinky. It felt as if his breath were stuck in his throat, freezing.
He exhaled a depleted breath. Unable to bear the sight, he lowered his head, then pressed his lips to her forehead. The corners of her sleeping lips looked almost peaceful.
“To Lethe…. Let us go to Lethe.”