Chapter 8: The One Who Breaks

The wind carried soot like snowfall. Black flakes spiraled down from a sky painted in bruised violets and smudged crimson. Celestria's once-pristine banners lay torn, half-buried in ash. Every breath Cael took tasted like fire that no longer burned but still haunted the lungs.

He stood atop the scorched hill, armor stained and blade dragging at his side. The silence was too loud.

Below him, the ruins of what had been a village flickered with the last remnants of flame. Structures reduced to bones. Lives turned to smoke. He could still see the silhouette of a mother curled over her child, both long gone.

Veylan arrived behind him. Quiet. No longer the ghost. Now, only the man.

"We did this," Cael murmured.

Veylan didn't respond. He merely stared down at the carnage with eyes that refused to blink. "She said it was necessary."

"She lied."

Their words hung in the ash like unburied corpses.

For a long moment, neither of them moved. Then Cael walked forward, steps slow, dragging the edge of his boot across the ruined soil as if retracing every scream he heard when the fires began. His grip tightened on his sword—not out of threat, but to stop his hand from shaking.

"She made us believe we were saving this place," he said, eyes vacant. "That it would die without us."

Veylan closed his eyes. "And maybe it would've. But not like this."

They reached what was once a courtyard. The fountain in the center still gurgled, but now its water was tainted red. A child's toy—a wooden horse—floated in lazy circles in the shallow pool.

Cael crouched, reaching into the water. He retrieved the toy, held it in his hand. Its eye was painted with care. It looked too innocent for this world now.

He turned it over, brushing grime from the underside. There were initials carved into the belly. "K.R."

"Her name was Kira," a voice said.

Both men turned.

It was an old man, hunched and bleeding from the shoulder, standing in the archway of a collapsed building. One eye was milky-white, the other full of flame.

"She used to pretend that horse was her steed," the old man said. "Galloped around the well every evening while her mother cooked bread."

Cael swallowed hard. "I'm sorry."

"I don't want your sorry." The old man coughed violently. Blood. "I want her back."

No one spoke. Veylan knelt beside him and lowered his head.

"What was her last moment like?" the old man asked, voice cracking.

Cael didn't lie. "She screamed."

The old man nodded, as if that was the only answer he expected.

"She screamed for her mother."

The silence returned, heavy.

After the old man passed out—exhaustion or grief or both—Veylan picked him up, laying him gently beneath what remained of a roof beam. Cael stood guard, not for enemies, but for truth. It stalked him worse than anything Diana's legions ever sent.

Cael turned to Veylan. "When did we become monsters?"

Veylan didn't answer right away. "We didn't. We just forgot to look at ourselves."

"Do you still believe in her?"

Veylan hesitated. "I believe in the woman we followed. I do not know who this goddess in a woman's skin is anymore."

The air thickened. Lightning cracked somewhere far off.

Cael tossed the wooden horse into the flames.

---

That night, they made camp in a collapsed chapel. Moonlight passed through shattered stained-glass windows, projecting fractured saints across the ruined walls.

Veylan sat cleaning his blade. Cael stared at the ceiling.

"I saw something when I touched the glyph," Cael whispered.

Veylan paused.

"It wasn't a memory. It was like... a warning."

"A vision?"

Cael nodded slowly. "A chained figure. Golden hair. Screaming. But not from pain—from rage."

Veylan looked up, his expression grim. "That's her."

Cael turned his head. "Diana?"

"No. The real goddess. The one she stole power from."

Cael sat up. "Then she's still alive?"

Veylan's jaw tightened. "If you call that living."

The air trembled. Somewhere in the world, another city likely burned.

---

They traveled the next day without speaking.

The path twisted through blackened fields and overgrown thickets. Wildlife no longer sang. The land itself had gone mute.

A broken statue emerged from the weeds—a woman with outstretched arms, face eroded by time and weather. At her feet, flowers bloomed. Untouched by fire. Cael stopped.

He knelt and brushed ash from the statue's feet. "This land isn't dead yet."

Veylan joined him. "No. But she wants it to be. If it can't love her, it will fear her."

Thunder groaned in the distance.

A rider appeared on the horizon, galloping hard.

Both men reached for their blades. The rider didn't slow.

He arrived—bloodied, breathless, desperate. "You have to help us. The city of Veltheim is under siege. By her."

Cael and Veylan exchanged glances.

"Lead us," Cael said.

---

Veltheim was a city of spires, walls carved with old prayers, gates built by generations who never imagined the divine would be their executioner.

When they arrived, smoke already coiled through the sky. But it was not fire—it was dark magic. Diana's symbol burned into the clouds.

The gates were half-closed. Soldiers struggled to rally. Civilians screamed.

A young girl stood in front of the gate, arms out, defiant. A single figure descended from the clouds—Diana's champion, cloaked in silver flame.

Cael stepped forward.

Not this time.

He walked to the girl's side.

The champion raised his sword.

Veylan appeared beside Cael, blade ready.

Three against one.

The odds were still unfair—for him.

---

The clash was thunder.

Magic tore through the air. Steel screamed.

The girl ran. Cael ducked, parried, twisted. His blade met the champion's in a blaze of sparks.

Veylan flanked, fast and ruthless. The champion split into illusions—five of him now.

Cael closed his eyes.

The glyph memory whispered again.

One flame flickers. The other watches.

He opened his eyes.

"Soulcut," he whispered.

His blade surged with light and sliced through the illusion.

Only one left.

He drove forward.

The champion fell, not dead—but stripped of his glamour. A boy. No older than sixteen.

Cael's hand trembled.

"Who sent you?" he asked.

The boy bled from the mouth. "She... she speaks inside our dreams. You either follow or you burn."

He collapsed.

---

Cael stood over the battlefield.

Veltheim survived. Barely.

But this was only a warning.

"She's accelerating," Veylan said. "This was supposed to happen a month from now. She's losing control."

Cael looked west. Toward the throne-city.

"No," he said. "She's not losing control. She's baiting us."

"Why?"

"Because she knows we've seen the chains. And soon, we'll find the lock."

The wind howled.

Somewhere deep beneath the throne of Celestria, the goddess in chains opened one eye—and smiled.

Cael's breathing was barely there. A flicker, shallow and stuttering like a match refusing to catch flame. Veylan held him tighter, gripping his brother's broken body as if sheer will alone could glue the pieces back together. The blood soaking Cael's side was thicker now, darker, and Veylan hated how familiar it all felt. Like déjà vu from a nightmare that never ended.

The room was quiet, too quiet. No more shouts outside. Just the low groan of the wind and the whisper of dripping blood. Veylan swallowed back the taste of iron in his mouth, not sure if it was Cael's or his own.

"Stay with me, damn you," he hissed through clenched teeth, brushing back Cael's matted hair. "You're not going to die here. Not like this. Not now."

But Cael didn't answer. His eyelids fluttered like something was trying to drag him down into the dark.

Veylan pressed a hand to the wound again. The warmth was fading.

"Remember the river?" Veylan whispered, desperate. "When we were kids? You almost drowned trying to catch that stupid silver fish. And I—" He choked. "I jumped in after you, and you said it was the first time you thought someone actually wanted you to live."

Still no answer.

"You owe me for that, Cael," Veylan said, voice cracking. "You don't get to leave until you pay me back."

For a moment, the silence was unbearable.

Then Cael's lips moved—barely a twitch, barely a breath.

"I... remember..."

Veylan stiffened. "What did you say?"

"I remember... the river."

His voice was paper-thin. A breath caught between worlds.

"I remember everything."

---

It began as a trickle—one thought bleeding into the next. Memory like ink spilled over glass.

Cael wasn't here. Not really.

He was in a field of snow. A cold wind across his cheeks. A bell tolling in the far distance.

The first time he'd killed someone. A boy no older than he'd been—twelve, maybe thirteen. Swinging wildly with a stolen sword, teeth clenched, tears burning in his eyes.

He remembered the face. The blood. The disbelief as life left the boy's eyes. He remembered throwing up afterward, hands shaking so hard he couldn't grip the hilt.

Then the war. The marches. The endless nights of silence. The times he begged God to let him die and was met with more dawns.

He remembered Veylan holding him down once during a fever—when Cael had started screaming about fire and wolves.

"I'm right here," Veylan had said. "You're not alone."

But then came the moment that split the world in two.

The betrayal.

He remembered standing before the gates of Armathia, soaked in blood, watching the pyres burn. And Veylan—his brother, his soul—wasn't there.

He'd been gone. Left Cael to carry the weight alone.

That memory was heavier than the rest.

---

Back in the room, Cael's body jerked.

Veylan pulled back slightly, eyes wide. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Cael's voice cracked out. "Why did you leave me?"

"What?"

"You left me," Cael said again. "At the gates. You never came back."

Veylan froze. The guilt hit him like a blade to the gut.

"I couldn't," he said. "They had me surrounded. I tried, Cael. I swear to God, I tried."

Cael's eyes—clouded, half-shut—focused on him with a clarity that stabbed deeper than any blade.

"You said we'd die together."

Veylan's lip trembled. "I know. I know what I said."

"And you didn't come."

Veylan looked away, choking down the tears. He'd buried that moment for years. Buried it beneath medals, orders, and duty. But now it sat between them like a corpse.

"I failed you," he whispered. "I failed us both."

The silence that followed was thunderous. But then...

Cael lifted a weak hand and touched Veylan's cheek.

"You didn't fail me," he said. "You remembered."

---

Hours passed. Or maybe minutes. Time stretched and twisted inside that dim, bleeding room.

Veylan stayed beside Cael, whispering stories, reciting old jokes, sometimes laughing through the tears.

Outside, the storm returned—wind howling like wolves.

But within the room, something else stirred.

A faint pulse in the floorboards. A hum in the air.

Cael felt it first. The pressure in his skull, like someone whispering in reverse.

He blinked slowly, and in that blink, he saw it—a woman standing at the far end of the room.

White hair. Eyes black as coal. And a voice that felt like it came from the earth.

"Do you remember me?" she asked.

Cael couldn't speak. Could barely breathe.

"Even in pain, you held the memory. That makes you the key."

She stepped closer. Veylan couldn't see her. Couldn't hear. But Cael saw it all.

"You are the one who remembers," she said, placing a cold hand on his chest.

His breath hitched.

And then the pain stopped.

Just—stopped.

---

Veylan jolted upright. "Cael?"

Cael's eyes were wide open, glowing faintly. The wound had stopped bleeding.

Veylan blinked. "What the hell—"

Cael turned toward him, his voice steady now. "She showed me the chains."

"What chains?"

"The ones around the world."

And then, without warning, Cael rose to his feet. Unsteady, but alive.

The chains are real. The goddess. The memory. The war.

Everything was connected.

And Cael remembered it all