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Phainon wakes up to the smell of baking bread and something tugging at him by the ankles, alarmingly sending his tall body sliding off the bed.
He groans, awake with his eyes still closed like a newborn pup, and kicks off the rough grip. “Ungh,” he mumbles instead of get off me. Phainon was in the middle of a strange dream, and he wants to know what happens next.
“Deliverer, I swear to Kephale if you don’t wake up I’m going to get Hysilens up here to drown you.”
The loud shhk of the curtains roughly being drawn sends piercing daytime sunlight directly into his face. Everything is orange under his eyelids, and Phainon vaguely chucks a pillow in the direction of the offender. It’s childish, but he doesn’t care as long as it pisses off the Kremnoan.
Everything about this is surprisingly natural, and that in itself is surprising to Phainon. He can’t remember the last time he had such a domestic moment with Mydeimos, what with the Flame-Chase and everything. In a way, with the sun warming his limbs and Mydei berating him in his unfamiliar tongue, the normalcy has an undercurrent of strangeness — not strange in a bad way, just the sense of peculiarity — as if Phainon has grown too used to their constant struggle for coreflames to ever think about settling down.
“Come on Deliverer, get UP! This was your idea and it’s almost Ascent Hour and we don’t have all day!”
Phainon smacks his lips, his eyes still shut, except now they’re screwed closed from the light. His idea? He drags his mind back to the land of the living and tries to reorient himself. What idea? Relenting, Phainon blinks, and the first pieces of the scenery come together before him. There’s Mydei, marching around his modest room and throwing things into a travelling rucksack. The room is pleasantly toasty; the slightly sweet aroma of bread grows stronger when he sniffs towards the door.
“Where are we going?” Phainon asks drowsily, turning so he’s facedown into the pillows to get the sun out of his eyes. Blissful darkness tries to coax him back to sleep, but the sudden smack of hands on his ankles as Mydei grabs them again and yanks with all his might makes Phainon jump and yelp, eyes shooting open. He twists and reaches for his companion to free himself even as the other man hoists him up by the ankles until he’s dangling upside down from Mydei’s shoulders, knees hooked over and around his chest by his strong arms. All the while, Phainon exclaims “hey, hey, HEY! ” increasingly loudly as the former Crown Prince of Kremnos shouts something about Aedes Elysiae was YOUR idea YOU should be getting up on time you bloody HKS—
Really, Phainon wouldn’t have it any other way.
The path to Aedes Elysiae comes naturally. Phainon doesn’t even have to think about directions as his feet carry him forward without hesitation through the holy city of Okhema, Mydei by his side. Wandering through home to go home weighs on his mind; he’s been away from Aedes Elysiae for so long that his birthplace is starting to become a stranger, a whisper of a memory. For Phainon, this trip holds the same sacred value as it does for Mydei, who’s been nervously picking at the straps of the rucksack he’d refused Phainon’s generous offer to carry. Phainon smiles, catching his eye.
“It’s okay,” Phainon says. “My parents will definitely swarm all over you, but they won’t be mean. All you have to do is stand there and look pretty like you are right now, and they’ll gush over you for hours.”
Mydei huffs. “They should change your title from Deliverer to Flatterer. I hope the bread is okay.”
Mydei’s painstaking creation from this morning — Georios' Seven-Grain Bread — is bundled in layers of cheesecloth and silk. A classic Amphoreus dish eaten during the Sowing Festival: a gift from a doting partner to the parents of an only son. It’s perfect. “Audata will be incredibly impressed, but you really didn’t have to make anything. I heard that cloud wheat prices have risen astronomically in Marmoreal Marketpla-”
“Watch out!” calls a familiar voice.
A ball of sky blue fur barrels into Phainon’s shins, chirping and chattering like an angry canary. Before he can take a hasty step back, tiny claws latch onto his pants as the… thing scuttles up his body like he’s a tree, frantically scaling his height.
“Fuck!” Phainon shouts in surprise, damn near jumping out of his shoes. A few passerbys give him dirty looks. Mydei is too busy boisterously laughing his ass off to do anything to help. “What the-”
Castorice runs towards them, Cipher close behind holding what looks like a spool of thread the size of a small child. Another creature coloured like a tulip scampers next to her. “I’m so sorry, don’t mind him,” she pants, “he’s having a huge argument with his sister about what to have for lunch and I can’t stop them.”
“His sister?” Phainon splutters as he finally gets a hold of the creature clinging onto him and looks at it — him — properly. It’s a chimera. He blinks innocently at him with stark yellow eyes, little forearms clinging onto Phainon’s wrists. “Do I put him down?”
As soon as he suggests this, the chimera twists around to see his sister and instantly hisses something Phainon assumes is an absolutely foul chimera insult, because the pink chimera bristles so sharply he’s worried it’ll turn into a horse brush. It tenses to pounce, but Castorice scoops the chimera up as soon as it’s in the air and brings it close to her chest.
“I’m so sorry,” Castorice says, flushed with embarrassment. Cipher snickers behind her until Castorice stomps on her foot. “Give Oizys over to me.”
With some difficulty, the former demigod of Thanatos wrangles Oizys out of Phainon’s arms so both of her pets are settled under one arm each, muttering evil little chimera curses at each other.
“Where were you guys headed anyway?” Castorice asks to save face.
“Aedes Elysiae,” Mydeimos answers immediately, clearly glad to brush past the chimera incident for Phainon’s sake, but he knows from that twinkle in his eye that he’s going to be viciously teased later. “He invited me to come see his hometown.”
Cipher’s foot is saved from being stomped on as Castorice chooses to ignore her ooh ing. “Oh, that’s great! We’re on our way to Aglaea’s tailor shop and we’re already running late, so we’ll have to get going. It was lovely bumping into you two, hope you have a wonderful outing!”
D-A-T-E, Cipher mouths at Phainon and Mydeimos as the two girls leave.
In between Mydeimos rolling his eyes at the reformed thief and Cipher sticking her tongue out, a funny feeling stirs in Phainon’s chest. He can’t place what’s causing it, but his heart prickles with unease as he watches Castorice leave, holding two chimera under her arms with her bare hands. It’s as if something is off about what he’s seeing, but maybe he’s just tired from waking up too late.
Only when Phainon steps foot onto the friendly shore of Aedes Elysiae does he remember that Aedes Elysiae was completely destroyed by the black tide. The damning sincerity of the fact immediately makes him falter in his steps. Mydeimos looks at him uncertainly. “Deliverer?”
How on earth did Phainon forget that? Shame buzzes through the veins in his neck down to his spine, nonsensically bringing the droning hum of cicadas during summers to mind. He suddenly recalls the fires, the screams of the villagers as they morphed into hideous creatures, the ashes on his hands. The dishonour he’s brought upon his lost friends and family by forgetting the tragedy of Aedes Elysiae gnaws at him ferociously. Oh, gods. How could he forget? Why did he forget?
Ah, Era Nova! That must be it. The satisfaction of the answer instantly relaxes Phainon, bringing solace to the sickening guilt flooding his system mere seconds ago. During the Flame-Chase, all of Amphoreus had talked about reincarnating in the next life — and this was it, the afterlife they’d all talked about so merrily. If people could come back as themselves, he reasons, why couldn’t places swallowed by the black tide also return? It made perfect sense.
Right?
“Deliverer?” Mydeimos asks again, reaching out to thread his fingers with Phainon’s. His callouses are still there, but they’ve noticeably softened from…how much time has passed? “Are you okay?”
Phainon opens his mouth to confirm he’s fine, but nothing comes out. Instead, he realises — he… he has no idea how Era Nova was achieved.
He tries again, clearing his throat, but the epiphany sounds alarm bells in his mind. “Ugh, sorry. I’m fine, just, uh- remembered something.”
Mydeimos holds his gaze in the simultaneously terrifying and endearing way that makes Phainon squirm. His amber eyes are concerned, understanding. Distracted away from his realisation, Phainon’s startled by how foreign the naked emotion looks on Mydei. There was no time for such obvious worry during the Flame-Chase, not when everyone was busy running after coreflames and risking their lives in the process. The last thing anyone needed was a tangle of emotions that distracted you from the mission.
“We don’t have to do this today. I know it can be troubling for you to come here when you have memories of darker times, and I don’t mind taking it slow. We could-”
Oh. Oh. “No, no, no, it’s fine,” Phainon says quickly while his heart backflips in his chest. “It’s really fine, I swear, it wasn’t anything to do with the— the black tide. Maybe we could take it slow, though? I don’t think I’m ready to see everyone all at once.”
Mydei smiles, squeezing his hand. Phainon can’t get over how weird it feels physically. “Of course. Where do you want to go first?”
They skirt about Voyager’s Wharf for a while, shoving each other playfully until Phainon pleads mercy and finds fishing poles under some old scrap. After a while of describing the length of the fish they’d catch with increasing fantastic detail, Mydeimos manages to bring up three respectable silver-bellied fish while Phainon struggles with what he swears is a legendary beast from tales of yore until a rock littered with oysters dangles at the end of his line. He takes off, shouting at Mydei to catch up with him as he abandons his pole and runs into the resplendent fields. He reaches Phainon with terrifying speed. They take time poring through a copse of trees before Phainon finds the Membrance Maze from all those years ago. After laughing about the Kremnoan getting stuck in the fairy tunnel before getting stuck himself, he introduces Mydeimos to Dolimem, who chatters excitedly about his background while shushing the other fairies from cooing and gushing. Phainon takes his time catching up with his childhood friends while Dolimem gives Mydeimos a grand tour of sesame plants and olive trees.
It’s good and all, but Phainon’s heart thuds off-rhythm, heavy with trepidation. After every laugh or joke, his thoughts trail back to Era Nova — or rather, his lack of thoughts on Era Nova — and he knows his expression must reflect it because he catches Mydeimos looking at him more than once. He waves him off but Phainon knows he can’t keep this up forever. He’s enjoying himself. He is enjoying himself.
“I think it’s time,” Phainon says gently, shaking off his anxious mind. He’ll think about it later.
Mydeimos smiles encouragingly, like this is for his sake as much as his own. “Yeah.”
When Phainon opens the door to his childhood home, he thought he’d be ready to see his parents again. But seeing Audata and Hieronymus for the first time in forever is like taking a serrated blade to the gut and watching it twist.
“I’m home,” he manages before they register him standing there.
“My son!” Audata cries, throwing her arms around Phainon, and he can’t help the tears that instantly well up in his eyes. “Oh gods, oh Phainon, it’s been far too long!” Her hands are everywhere, smoothing back his hair, grabbing his face, his broad shoulders. “How have you been? How’s the big city?”
Hieronymus pulls him into his arms as Audata peppers Phainon with questions, and he can’t think of a single response. Why does this tug at some hidden depth in his soul beyond what is ordinary?
“And who’s your handsome friend?”
Phainon makes a noise like a duck being stepped on. “This is my — this is Mydeimos, the former Crown Prince of Castrum Kremnos.”
Mydeimos, smooth as ever, waves with a charming smile on his face. “Hello. Phainon’s already done introductions without me, but I’m his partner. I brought Georios' Seven-Grain Bread.”
He’s too busy blinking back the ocean of tears balanced in his eyes to properly pay attention to the way his mother clasps Mydei’s hand and accepts the gift appreciatively, citing the same cloud wheat prices Phainon had.
“Oh, you shouldn’t have!” she says enthusiastically. “How on earth did you find the time to make this, you must be so busy being a Chrysos Heir, and a Kremnoan Crown Prince at that! You needn’t waste your efforts on Phainon’s old parents.”
Mydeimos laughs, directing the conversation back to Phainon. Oh, he’s great at this. “Ah, not at all, the busy one is your son, being the Deliverer and all. I abdicated from the Kremnoan throne a long time ago, so I’ve got plenty of time on my hands to chase Phainon up.”
His father’s smile is simply blinding as he shakes Mydei’s hand. “I’m so glad Phainon has such a well-mannered person like you looking after him. His head was filled with adventures as a child, you couldn’t keep an eye off him for a single second or he’d disappear!”
“Phainon?” Audata interjects. He looks up to the three most important people in his life staring at him with a mix of shock and worry. “Are you okay? You’re crying.”
Oh. He reaches up to touch his cheek; his finger comes away wet. He’s crying.
“I just love you guys so much,” Phainon chokes out, and he laughs wetly into his hands as they surge up to him.
“Did you mean it?’
Phainon hums questioningly, too engrossed in enjoying the warm breeze feather over his skin. The golden meadow around them that Aedes Elysiae is so famous for shivers and sighs, swaying to the rhythm of the wind. Doubts still nag at him in the back of his mind, but it seems like a waste to think about something so trivial when there is such beauty in the world.
He hears Mydeimos turn to face him and opens his eyes to do the same, basking in the warmth of the sun and Mydei’s eyes. There’s crumbs dotted on his bare collarbones from the honey suncake Audata gave them and he knows for sure that he’s got bits of the fish they’d caught earlier stuck in his teeth. Phainon would give anything to stay in this moment forever.
“Did you mean it, back at your parents’ house? When you said you loved me?”
Phainon laughs, hearing it inside his own ears. “Is that what you’ve been worrying about? Of course I meant it. I’ve always loved you.”
Something changes in the depths of Mydeimos’ eyes, and Phainon is suddenly struck by the overwhelming relief and pure love that’s pooled in them. Something in his mind has just been confirmed, except Phainon has no idea what it is. Has Mydei really worried about something as straightforward as his love for him?
“Hah,” Mydeimos says before Phainon can comment, falling onto his back. He shields his face from the sun, but Phainon thinks he catches a glimmer in his eyes. Mydei smiles. “I’m glad.”
“By the way,” Phainon asks Audata as they prepare to leave, “Have you seen Cyrene anywhere?”
To Phainon’s surprise, she shrugs. “Haven’t got a clue. Last I heard of her, Cyrene was in Okhema with you.”
He frowns. “Oh. I haven’t seen her anywhere around Okhema, so I thought she might’ve come back here.”
Audata claps him on the back reassuringly. “Okhema’s a big city, so don’t worry too much about her, alright? She’s grown enough to wander around without your antics anyway.”
Phainon laughs, but the revelation that Cyrene is missing only tugs at his growing suspicion that something is amiss.
??? stirs. In ???’s mind, ??? realises something, but everything is too dim to grasp hold of.
Yet.
??? groans softly, and rolls over.
Phainon wakes up screaming.
A pain unlike anything he’s ever felt before sweeps through him and refuses to let go. Coal-hot claws seem to rake across his body unrelentingly, digging into his chest without mercy and squeezing his heart free of ichor. He chokes on his own screams, shaking and panting when the pain grants tiny moments of reprieve before mercilessly laying waste to him again. Phainon’s chest and back burn so agonisingly that when he wraps his arms around his torso in a futile attempt to nullify the pain he half-expects them to burst into flame. Nothing helps. None of this helps. The tiles are so blessedly cool beneath his touch that he doesn’t even realise he’s fallen off the bed.
“Phainon!”
Someone is calling out his name. He fails to register it three times before hearing it above the agony that has him bent over on his knees, eyes squeezed shut with his forehead on the floor, chasing some kind of short-lived relief. What the fuck is happening? There’s some kind of horrible noise in the background of all this torture, and Phainon winces at its blatant wailing before dimly realising it’s him crying out.
He wants Mydeimos, gods, please—
Someone above must be listening, because Phainon instantly recognises the touch that wraps around his back protectively despite the blood-curdling scream it pulls out of him. Invisible knives prickle and twist into his flesh wherever that touch lands, and he’s begging Mydeimos to stop before he can reign back the plea.
“Mydei,” he gasps, voice ragged from his tortured throat. His vision blurs. The heat wracking his body has died down to manageable levels, but that doesn’t prevent Phainon from letting out weak yelps of pain. “M-Mydeimos, please.”
“Holy fuck, Phainon, what happened? Who did this to you?” When Phainon strains to focus, there is a panic that doesn’t fit Mydei alight all over his face. “Phainon. Phainon. ”
Phainon shakes his head and immediately stops as the room begins to spin. “I-I don’t know, it jus’ happened, M-Mydeimos it hurts-”
“Hyacine’s coming,” Mydei says desperately, unable to hide the anguish of not being able to do anything to help ease his suffering. “Just hang in there Phainon, Hyacine’s coming right away. Don’t close your eyes, don’t close your fucking eyes. Talk to me.”
Phainon breaks off into sobs when another fresh wave of pain runs its course through his body, and he writhes like his soul wants to escape his mortal shell. His chest heaves. He can’t get enough air. “I want— I want to get up,” he babbles, trying to force himself up. He focuses on trying to sit up and unclenching his jaw, chasing release. “My chest, I can’t— please, I can’t—”
As he scrabbles up to rest against Mydei’s chest, a thought connects to another just before he loses hold of it in his torment, and—
“Wings,” Phainon chokes out, shuddering uncontrollably. “A c-curved blade.”
Mydei shakes his head. It splits Phainon’s skull in two: double images of him bounce around like one of Zagreus’ tricks. “You’re not making any sense,” he whispers, smoothing back Phainon’s sweat-soaked hair from his eyes. Phainon moans and leans into the action, melting into the other. His white-knuckled fingers grasp his arms hard enough to bruise, but Mydei doesn’t push him away. “Stay awake for me, Deliverer.”
In the next minutes that drag on for hours, Phainon dizzily attempts to discern a cause. All he was doing was sleeping, dreaming about…something he can’t remember anymore. The throes of his torment are concentrated around his torso for a reason that he swears he knows, which is the part that confuses his frightened mind the most. When he pushes past the pain and really thinks, Phainon can make out vague shapes and memories that simultaneously feel alien and belong to him. Tears prickle in the corner of his eyes for the umpteenth time, but not from his tortured body.
Phainon must’ve faded off into unconsciousness for a second, because he opens his eyes without realising they were ever closed to see a collection of colourful concerned shades. He turns his head into Mydei’s arms with relief before wincing as the slight motion causes aches all over.
“Are you sure?” Mydei is demanding. “You’re a hundred percent certain?”
“I checked the thread network, there’s nothing,” replies the yellow blur that must be Aglaea. “No intruder, no injuries. He did this to himself.”
Mydeimos snarls, rattling the fragile remainder of consciousness in Phainon’s skull. When he whimpers, Mydei stops. “Aglaea, this is no time for-”
“She’s right,” Hyacine interrupts. “None of this makes sense on the outside, but even more so internally — his organs are a mess of internal bleeding, and there’s a ridiculous amount of scar tissue that shouldn’t exist in his body. It’s like he’s corroded, like something fundamental has been pulled from him. In short—”
Just before Phainon faints, his body crumpling as it releases all tension, the last thing he hears in the grim gravity of Hyacine’s voice:
“I— I have no idea what happened. There’s no discernable physical source for his pain. Instead, it’s all… mental?”
In the dreams he always forgets, someone is calling out to Phainon. He thinks they might need help with something, but some part of him wonders if they’re trying to help him instead.
With Cyrene still remaining at large, Phainon turns to the person best fit for the job of finding someone: the former demigod of passages, Tribbie.
“How’s De, by the way?” they ask.
Phainon coughs and looks away from their knowing gaze. “Good, we’re good.” More than good, actually. “Can we focus on Cyrene please?”
“We have to warn you, Snowy,” Tribbie chides as they walk to the outskirts of the city, just in case his childhood friend is somewhere dangerous, “She might not entirely be too happy about being intruded on. She did say she wanted some time to herself.”
Which Phainon would totally understand and back off immediately in a different scenario, except he doesn’t remember Cyrene saying that. He doesn’t remember anything about her, actually. He knows they came to Okhema together, but what happened after that? Where was she in the thick of the Flame-Chase? No one will tell him where she is. They all respond with some variation of “She’s figuring things out” or “She’s out there exploring the world for herself!” When he protests, people look at him knowingly, or laugh off his fretting. They think he’s being too doting or protective. Thankfully, he and Mydei are obvious enough that no one suspects Phainon of pursuing Cyrene romantically, which is one small burden off his shoulders. But everything else?
Everyone’s too calm about Cyrene’s disappearance, including all the Chrysos Heirs. Except Mydeimos, maybe. He’d coughed before saying something along the same line as everyone else, but Phainon brushes it off as a case of nerves. It’s a well-known fact that Cyrene watched Mydei like a hawk during their first meeting, especially during the trial with the ring and the Deliverer card; he can’t blame him for being antsy around Phainon’s oldest friend, eager to impress.
“We haven’t opened a Century Gate in forever, but we know we can do it!” Tribbie says brightly. Phainon smiles and folds his arms together.
“Whenever you’re ready, Teacher.”
The gate manifests with all its usual triangular glory, massive and matte gold. Peering into it is like staring into the sun, but Phainon squints and bears it. He needs to see if this will work.
Tribbie’s eyes are squeezed shut with concentration, their hands raised as they try to find Cyrene. The Century Gate hasn’t failed once during the entirety of the Flame-Chase journey, so there’s no reason for it to-
CLANG.
The Gate shuts explosively, sending both Tribbie and Phainon flying. While he lands on his rear like an idiot, Tribbie simply veers away from the ground with a cry and flies away from the Gate. They land next to Phainon, dusting him off with multiple hands, now split into three.
“That was…” starts Trinnon.
“Crazy! And impossible,” Trianne finishes. “The Gate shouldn’t have been able to close by itself like that. Unless…”
Phainon groans. That’ll bruise for sure. He’s noticed he’s grown significantly weaker, unable to resist things he used to shrug off without a second thought. It beats the phantom pain roaming all over his body though, especially with that night scare a couple days ago. “What?” he asks, ears ringing. “What is it?”
“Snowy…” Tribbie holds his hand, and Phainon braces for the worst. A familiar feeling, his mind whispers, and he’s too dazed to be shocked by the thought. “Rene’s gone. We can’t find her. She’s not anywhere in Amphoreus anymore.”
“Oh Phainon,” Mydei murmurs. Featherlight lips ghost his forehead, the barest idea of a kiss. Phainon keeps his eyes closed. “How long are you going to take?”
To do what? Phainon thinks drowsily, but he’s already faded off to sleep.
Gods, his body aches.
Logically, Phainon understands it all like this: they collected all the coreflames and dumped them in the Vortex of Genesis, and the Era Nova they’ve been waiting for was finally achieved.
The only problem is that no matter how hard Phainon tries, he can’t remember a single thing concerning Era Nova: what the Vortex of Genesis looked like, how Amphoreus changed, when everybody came back. None of it comes to mind. Phainon remembers the warmth — a burning responsibility rather than a comfort — of Kephale’s coreflame through memories of a feeling rather than an actual moment. He can faintly see himself dropping the blasted thing into the Vortex, and then— and then? And then?
His mind is scrambled, his memories unclear. His thoughts are no longer trustworthy, and these days he falls asleep to the red-black flickering of the black tide behind his eyelids.
??? twists, eyes twitching with REM. Is this it? Is it over?
One rare morning where Mydei was not by his side, Aglaea walks in onto Phainon clutching his ribs. He notices her entrance far too late, and his attempt to dismiss his pain with a strained laugh is met with withering disapproval. Before Phainon knows it, Aglaea has dragged him off to the baths, forcing him to settle in the warm water to loosen up his aching body.
“Has it gotten worse?” She asks conversationally, sitting next to him on the ledge above him. That way, she dips her feet into the water while the rest of her body is dry.
Phainon lets out a noncommittal hum. Ever since that terrible night, random pains seize him like an invisible force. Mydei keeps finding him braced against a wall or thrashing in his sleep, and now the Kremnoan pays a ridiculous amount of attention to Phainon. He’s not exactly complaining though.
“Hyacine did a whole bodily survey. There’s nothing but the abnormal presence of scar tissue and extensive nerve damage, but even that doesn’t make sense since I don’t have the injuries for it.” He sighs, resting his face in his knees as he folds them to his chest. “None of this makes sense.”
Aglaea gives him a long, piercing look that Phainon can feel at the back of his neck. The waters of Marmoreal Palace bubble merrily. “I never thought the great Deliverer would be so forlorn after a long-awaited Era Nova.”
He shakes his head. “It’s just…no one can tell me what happened in the Vortex of Genesis at the very end, or where Cyrene is, or what’s—” wrong with me, Phainon wants to say. What’s wrong with all of me. I think I’m going crazy. “—plaguing my body.” Phainon stretches his legs back out, wincing at the pull of tired muscles.
The Goldweaver regards him. “Move forward a bit.”
“What?”
“Just do it.”
Phainon does as she asks. Aglaea slides behind him and takes a hold of his shoulders, rolling out the tense knots in them. He instantly straightens his back, a mix of pain and relief making him jerk. “Ah, fuck, ” he hisses. “Thanks, Aglaea.”
“You’re welcome,” she replies. The two remain in comfortable silence for a while before Aglaea says, “To be fair, the rest of the Chrysos Heirs were felled by the prophecy by the time you made it to the Vortex. Regarding your first quandary, I mean.”
She’s not wrong. “It’s not just that, though,” Phainon says, frustrated with himself rather than Aglaea at the lack of a clear answer. “I don’t remember anything about the beginning of Era Nova, or how we realised it. It feels like I woke up one day and everyone’s just…back again. I watched you—” die. He remembers the fall, the bracelet, the prophecy coming true.
Aglaea moves further down and kneads his back, catching knots in places he didn’t even know one could occur. Phainon bites back a groan as the tension melts away into soothing nothingness.
“There isn't as much substance to it as you think there would be. We did what we could, rebuilding the city, rebuilding the world. However, it is ultimately up to the children of humanity to forge the futures they’ve been fighting for. In this, you and I can finally take a step back after embarking on this long, long quest.”
When Phainon ponders his questionable memories of the Flame-Chase journey, he remembers how committed Aglaea was to the cause. No matter how much her humanity faded, Aglaea was the most selfless demigod Phainon had ever met. She would never throw the fate of the new world into the hands of the war-torn people that formed Amphoreus, not when this was when the children of humanity needed guidance most.
Oh, gods.
His eyes burn. His throat tightens. The warm water lapping up to his ribs is suddenly ice cold.
No wonder he can’t remember anything.
He can’t believe it took this long for him to finally understand.
“Oh, Aglaea,” Phainon says with the fragility of an autumn leaf, a shooting star, teetering on the edge of tears. Once there, forever lost. This is not the Aglaea he knows. “This isn’t real, is it?”
“Ambrosia for your thoughts?” Anaxagoras asks, coming up beside him. The winking lights of Marmoreal Marketplace bustle lively beneath them, but Phainon knows they’re fake. Everything he’s seeing — the strolling Okhemians, the proffered goods — all fake. All of it, including the professor next to him. They’re just projections in the grand equation. Binary flickerings for the Destruction.
“You’re not real,” Phainon says bitterly, failing to inject indifference into his voice. “None of this is.”
Anaxa barks out a laugh. “Are my ears deceiving me?” he says dryly. Mine are, Phainon thinks miserably. Mingling accents and boisterous laughter register as an auditory hallucination to his ears, doused in the curse of understanding reality. “Is the most dedicated Chrysos Heir among us seriously having the same doubts as the infamous heretic of the Grove?”
The professor doesn’t get it. Of course not, it wouldn’t make sense if he did, but Phainon can’t help but long for someone to understand what he’s experiencing and provide an answer different to the one he’s already found, the answer he’s been dreading for days. “Not in the Flame-Chase Journey, no. I meant literally. All of this,” he gestures to the marketplace with a half-hearted hand. “All the people. All of you guys. None of it is real.”
His expression changes, some new realisation dawning in his eyes. Phainon tries not to hold onto it. He still doesn’t truly understand; as a complicated figment in Phainon’s mind, Anaxa doesn’t really know his dilemma. He thinks Phainon’s talking about his theory of cycles. Phainon can practically hear the gears in his mind turn as Anaxa considers Phainon’s distress. For him, the Deliverer ( gods, he scoffs internally) is asking: if they’re destined to eventually become Titans, is any of this real? Was Era Nova worth achieving if they’re doomed to repeat the cycle with a new generation of Chrysos Heirs? Is there a point to any of this?
And Anaxa unexpectedly sighs, gliding a gloved hand across the railing. “Oh, Phainon. You already know this, but…” The scholar trails off slightly before picking up the thought again.
“Nousporism mainly focuses on the composition all living beings are founded upon: you should know this as the soul, the force which compels and binds all. But Nousporism is also about the origin of things — and in attempting to answer the fundamental question of “Where did we come from?”, one inevitably runs into the trickier “Why are we here?” This partially falls into Erythrokeramist territory, but to finally answer your question: Of course none of this is real. Think of the human consciousness as a tangible substance, one that flows and breaks apart like waves melting on the shoreline. If this substance embodies the past, and the future is dependent on a million different variations of it, the present is just — hypothetical. Fictional. The present is ever-changing and impossible to pin down, but because of its nonexistence, everyone has the uniquely human ability to forge something that is.”
His throat tightens as Phainon swallows and nods, agreeing in his own way. Despite everything, he’s still Phainon of Aedes Elysiae, and this — dream he’s trapped in isn’t a tragic glimpse of what could’ve been; it’s a world he’s still fighting for, no matter how many cycles it takes. Phainon wishes he could rest here with all of his friends, his second family. But he is still the Flame Reaver, and gods does it hurt. It all hurts. On the outside, he can sense the degradation of his body and soul, mind shattered into fragments. Golden blood runs down his body in rivulets, his corrupted divinity mirroring Nanook. Yet all of this pales in comparison to the burning desire nestled next to the hundreds upon millions of Coreflames within him: the desire for tomorrow, a world where he can fulfil everyone’s wishes. A true nameless Deliverer will come. That is the reality he’s been fighting for, a hope he’s held onto for the past thirty-three million cycles.
Phainon laughs a little, sad and bittersweet in the way a student says goodbye to their mentor in the stirring heat of an oncoming war, understanding that they will never see each other again. Bits of code his eyes recognise as dancing creation nymphs lilt about in the air. “Thanks, professor.”
Anaxagoras, articulate as ever, just shakes his head and responds, “You were always a bit of a puzzling student, Phainon. But — you’re welcome.”
Phainon finds Mydeimos in a field of golden grain somewhere in Aedes Elysiae, orange leaves scattering in the wind from ancient trees. He walks up to him, slow and steady, sensing the deja vu of millions of other cycles: walking up to his partner one more time. Or one last time, depending on how you look at it. Phainon isn’t too sure anymore.
“I knew you’d be here,” Phainon says.
Mydeimos nods. “Me too.”
He takes another step towards him. Mydei doesn’t move.
“You knew, didn’t you?” Phainon asks. His voice catches and shakes instead of being confident. He can’t do this. He has to do this. “You knew the entire time.”
(He knows this is a digital illusion, but he stalls anyway.)
Mydei breaks into the first true smile Phainon’s seen in a while. He wonders when the last time he saw an expression like that in reality was. “I knew you’d figure it out, eventually.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Phainon asks, the hint of a plea bleeding through. Why did you let me suffer?
Mydei sighs. The wind in the trees and stalks mimic him. “My curse of immortality allows me to move upstream of the River of Souls with little difficulty. Being dead in actuality though is…intense. I couldn’t reveal the truth to you when everything in me was dedicated to just being here. I’m sorry, it’s a shitty excuse, but—you have no idea how much I wanted to be here. With you. If not for just a little while.”
“You enjoyed taking care of me?” says Phainon, his tone slightly teasing, unintentionally lighting up the mood the way people can’t help but do when they love each other.
Mydei laughs. “Yeah.”
Perhaps he was stalling as well. It would certainly make sense for the Mydei of Phainon’s heart to do so.
Phainon exhales a long, shaky breath. Gods. “It’s really you,” he whispers, knowing it’s not true. A silence stretches between them, as vast and impenetrable as the boundary between the living and the dead. Around them, the endless plain shimmers like a yellow sea, as marvellous and splendid as the new dawn.
“You know what to do, right?” Mydei asks after a while, breaking the fragile peace. Phainon nods. Inhales, exhales.
Mydeimos suddenly steps down to him, grabbing a hold of his arms to pull Phainon forward. “This time,” his partner says with desperate urgency, “you find that damn library of mine, and we will meet again. I swear to you, Phainon of Aedes Elysiae. I swear to you. ”
Phainon raises his hand to cup the back of Mydei’s neck, pulling him closer. The hush of his breath tickles his nose, and he looks at Mydeimos for the first/final time. He knows better than to swear on promises of an afterlife in a world of doomed cycles, endless repeats. He knows Mydei knows this. He knows the despair written across his face is not new to him, and there’ll inevitably be another loop where he runs his sword through the other man’s body only to see that expression again.
Regardless, Phainon smiles when the dream finally shatters, and the last thing he sees is the brilliant flash of Mydei’s eyes.
Phainon The Flame Reaver wakes up. There is a wicked blade forged into the shape of a crescent moon jutting out of his chest. Golden blood spurts from his front and trickles from the exit wound on his back.
On the other side stands the newest Phainon, the next bearer of his tragic legacy. He looks into those painfully familiar blue eyes and feels tens of millions of years worth of despair fall onto his shoulders as another cycle is set in stone. If he could weep, he would. If he could spare the next Phainon, he would do anything.
But his gaze shifts from his successor to the grey-haired individual on the left, and blessed reassurance melts away the weight of the world. Finally, finally. He understands that this time, for the first time, things will be different, and his efforts will finally be paid off.
CYCLE NUMBER: 33,550,336 → 33,550,337