Lysander tore up the marriage contract with my daughter to marry a mortal woman. He seized the dowry I had left for her. He even stole my daughter’s Celestial Core, all to grant that mortal woman immortality. On the mortal’s birthday, heedless of my daughter’s life hanging by a thread, he ripped out her Starlight Eyes and presented them as a gift. By the time I clawed my way out of the Maw, my daughter was clinging to life. Everyone in the Empyrean said the War-God was dead, fallen in the great war against the fiends. No one remembered my victories, and no one cared for a poor, orphaned girl. But those pampered celestials, fat on their leisure, had forgotten. Every ounce of their gilded honor was bought with my blood and bone. After five hundred years of being sealed in the Maw, I was finally free. The war had shattered my divine essence, my celestial frame nearly ground to dust. The fiends had thrown their entire race’s power into imprisoning me, certain I would perish. They were wrong. The thought of my daughter, my beautiful, radiant girl, was the one thing that kept me sane. I endured the soul-gnawing agony, the endless torment, and somehow, I survived. The moment I returned to the Empyrean, my only thought was to see her. But the return of a War-God shakes the celestial realm. Protocol demanded I first see the Celestial King and the assembled court. He held a grand feast in my honor, a celebration of my return. Yet, as I looked around the hall, the faces were a gallery of strained masks. There was no joy here. My eyes scanned the crowd until they landed on a familiar figure in a shadowed corner. Lysander, the man my daughter had chosen herself. The Celestial King had decreed their betrothal just before I left. They were surely married by now. I walked towards him, my heart filled with a hopeful ache. “Your power has certainly grown, Lord Lysander. Where is my Elara? Why hasn't she come to greet me?” His gaze darted away, his head bowed as he mumbled something incoherent. Was he shy, meeting his mother-in-law again? I always said he lacked backbone. The sole heir of the House of the Phoenix, yet he was shortsighted and timid. If Elara hadn't been so utterly smitten, I would never have approved of such a match. “Lysander, I am speaking to you. You are at this feast, so why is my Elara not with you?” My brow furrowed, a killing frost creeping into my voice. Knowing Elara, she should have been the first to rush into my arms. Her absence was a cold knot of dread in my stomach. He pursed his lips, taking a long moment before answering. “Elara has a fiery temper. We argued recently, and she stormed off in a rage. I’ve sent my people to search everywhere, but there’s been no sign of her…” His words dripped with blame, painting my daughter as reckless and immature. But one thing stood out with chilling clarity: he had merely sent people to look for her. What, then, was he doing? Rage flared in my chest. I drew my blade, its ethereal light shimmering in the grand hall, and pointed the tip at his throat. “I entrusted my daughter to you. How could you let her wander off alone?” But five hundred years had passed, and Lysander had grown bold. He drew Godsbane—the very sword of the War-God, my sword—and met my gaze without a shred of guilt. “Her temper is a storm I cannot contain. She’s spoiled and cruel. If not for my respect for your final request, I would have disciplined her long ago!” “Discipline the daughter of a War-God? You dare?” My blade lunged forward. Lysander sidestepped the attack. “It is your indulgence that made her so arrogant! She torments the palace staff and was cruel to Lila. I warned her many times, but she refused to listen…” Tormenting staff? My Elara was the soul of kindness. She wouldn't harm a fly. And cruelty to another? Utter nonsense. But that name he mentioned… Lila. It sounded like a woman’s name. “Who is Lila?” At my question, a flicker of something—guilt? unease?—crossed his face. I’ve walked this world for ten thousand years. I knew a lover’s lie when I heard one. He had found someone new and was now blaming Elara for "tormenting" her. “Lysander,” I reminded him, my voice like ice, “you swore an oath to marry my Elara and no other.” I had no more time to waste on him. Finding Elara was all that mattered. Following the faint, thrumming call of my own blood in her veins, I navigated the winding paths of the upper realms, the signal leading me far from the opulent palaces. It led me to a dilapidated hovel in the Bound Quarter, a place for outcasts and servants. Outside the crumbling door, I heard a sharp, venomous voice. “You little bitch, that War-God mother of yours is long dead! Why are you still clinging to life? Just die and get it over with. Lady Lila is tired of us having to deal with you.” War-God mother… That was me. Which meant the person inside… was my Elara. A furious inferno erupted in my soul. I kicked the door off its hinges and stormed inside. The sight that greeted me froze the very blood in my veins. My mind went blank, a roaring void, as if the entire Empyrean had just collapsed upon me. “Elara! What… what have they done to you?” I dropped to my knees, gathering the frail, skeletal figure into my arms. Her life force was a guttering candle flame. Her Celestial Core was gone, and only the single drop of my War-God’s Ichor I’d placed in her heart was keeping her tethered to this world. She lay limply on the crude bed, her face a mask of desolate, vacant despair. This was my child, but a ghost of the girl I knew. When I left, I had arranged everything for her. How had my vibrant, cherished daughter become this broken thing? “…Mother? Mother, is that you?” Elara whispered, her voice a dry rasp. Her hands reached out, fumbling blindly in the air. It was only then that I saw it. My poor, darling girl… her eyes were nothing but hollow, empty sockets. “My child! Oh, my sweet girl, I’m so late.” Tears streamed down my face—I, who had not shed a tear in ten thousand years of bloodshed, was weeping uncontrollably. “Who did this? Who did this to you?” All of Elara’s former vibrancy was gone. She collapsed into my embrace, her sobs weak and broken. Her Celestial Core had been carved out, her Starlight Eyes gouged from their sockets. The Ichor in her chest pulsed with a faint, fading light. Soon, it would be depleted. And then… she would be extinguished forever. My body trembled with a fear I had never known, a terror more profound than any I had faced on the battlefield. “Who are you? How dare you trespass in Lady Lila’s residence?” The shrill, cruel voice sounded again from behind me. Elara gasped for breath, but instead of words, a trickle of blood spilled from her lips. “I have never heard of any ‘Lady Lila’ in the Empyrean,” I snarled, gently laying Elara down and turning to face the servant. “And who gave her the right to torture the daughter of a War-God?” “Hah!” The woman spat on the ground, her face a caricature of smug disdain. “There is only one War-God in the Empyrean now, and that is my Lady Lila’s husband, the mighty Lord Lysander! You? You’re just some imposter trying to cash in on a dead name!” Footsteps sounded at the door. An older man and a younger boy entered. The old man was a vile-looking creature, his words slurring. “H-how dare you! Trespassing in the War-God’s residence! G-guards! Seize this little bitch and this lying hag!” The boy next to him nodded eagerly, puffing out his chest with borrowed arrogance. I could bear it no longer. With a wave of my hand, ropes of pure energy bound the three of them like trussed-up pigs and tossed them into a corner. I immediately turned back to Elara, pouring my divine power into her, doing everything I could to stabilize her fragile hold on life. Behind me, the wails and screams began. It turned out they were a family. “I’m Lady Lila’s own father! You’re in for it now, you old crone! My son-in-law is the War-God of the Empyrean, Lord Lysander himself!” The father’s screeching was grating. My hand flicked. A blade of pure energy shot from my fingertips and pierced his heart. He died before his body hit the floor. His wife and son stared, their eyes wide with disbelief. The boy pointed a trembling finger at me. “You… you killed him! Aren’t you afraid of what my brother-in-law, the War-God, will do to you?” Afraid? There was no one in the Empyrean who had the right to make me afraid. It all clicked into place. These were the family of the mortal, Lila, whom Lysander had mentioned. And Lysander had not only abandoned my Elara for this woman, but he had allowed Lila and her vile family to torture my daughter to the brink of death. I sent another blade of energy forward, but this time, I did not grant them a quick end. My Elara had suffered. A swift death was a mercy they didn't deserve. “Shut your mouths,” I commanded, my voice low and seething as the killing intent from a thousand battlefields washed over them. “One more sound, and I will unmake you.” The two of them froze, petrified. A dark stain spread across the floor beneath them as their bladders gave way. With a single, sweeping gesture, I obliterated the wretched hovel. I stuffed the whimpering mother and son into a bestiary pouch and, cradling the barely conscious Elara, returned to the Aegis Hall—our home. But as I approached the grand entrance, I stopped, a bitter, mirthless laugh escaping my lips. The place had a new master. The two lanterns crafted from the bones of slain fiends, my trophies, were gone. In their place hung sickly-sweet pink lanterns woven from cherry blossoms. “Where are the Bone-Fiend Lanterns of the Aegis Hall?” I asked a nearby servant, my voice tight. The servant looked me up and down, his expression disdainful. “Lady Lila is compassionate and kind. She could not bear the sight of those macabre things, so they were taken down and sent for purification rites.” He then shot a venomous glare at the girl in my arms. “That Elara tried to stop it. If Lord Lysander hadn't struck her unconscious and destroyed the lanterns himself, she would have caused an even bigger scene. Truly, a weed that refuses to die. Why did you have to bring her back?” His voice was filled with annoyance, as if he assumed I was just another servant of the hall. The rage that had been simmering within me finally boiled over. My poor Elara, beaten for trying to protect my legacy. I had told her those lanterns were a symbol of my trial to become the War-God. Of course she would defend them. And this Lila… to hell with her compassion. Where was her compassion when the fiends were slaughtering innocents across the realms? “You dare call my daughter a weed?” My voice dropped to a lethal whisper as I advanced on him. I seized him by the throat, my fingers like iron bands. “It is vermin like you who should be stamped out first.” He choked and sputtered, his life slowly crushed out of him by my power. I kicked open the doors of the Aegis Hall, ready to bring my daughter home. But an invisible barrier, a ward, blocked my path. “Since when does my own hall have wards placed against me?” With a contemptuous sweep of my hand, I shattered the shimmering barrier into a thousand pieces. From within the hall, a woman of exquisite, fragile beauty emerged. She was followed by a phalanx of divine guards, who immediately surrounded Elara and me. One of them recognized me. “Aethel… Lady Aethel? Is that you?” Lady Aethel. So, with Lysander now the "War-God," my old subordinates no longer dared to call me by my true title. “What is this?” I asked, my voice dangerously calm. “Have you come to bar my way?” The guards exchanged uneasy glances, but none of them stepped back. Marcus, a man I had personally raised from a beaten servant to my second-in-command, stepped forward. “My lady, times have changed. This is now the residence of Lord Lysander, the War-God. You were my benefactor, and I don't wish for this to be ugly. I must ask you to leave.” The breath I was holding finally tore from my lungs in a ragged gasp, and I tasted blood. “In the Great War,” I began, my voice trembling with betrayal, “I stood alone to defend this realm so that all of you could live. You knelt behind me then, swearing oaths to protect Elara with your lives…” I gestured to my broken child. “Now my daughter has been nearly murdered, and you stand here as accomplices to her tormentors?” Marcus’s face was a mask of conflict. He clenched his fists. “Lady Elara’s fate is of her own making. You yourself taught us: we serve justice, not family. If she hadn't been so arrogant, so cruel to Lady Lila, none of this would have happened…” “Fine,” I snarled, the word ripping from my throat. “Fine. A fine lesson in justice.” Since they all believed us to be the villains, I would show them what true villainy looked like. I unleashed only a fraction of my power, but it was enough. The self-righteous guards who once served me were thrown back, broken and gasping, left with just enough life to feel their failure. “Learn this lesson well,” I spat at their crumpled forms. “This is what it means to throw your weight around.” With them neutralized, I turned my attention to the delicate, tear-streaked beauty before me. This had to be Lila. She did have a face that inspired pity. “Your eyes,” I said with a slow, chilling smile as I stepped toward her and lifted her chin with my fingers. “They are quite captivating. Tell me, do the Celestial Core and Starlight Eyes of a War-God’s daughter sit well within you?” I had felt it the moment I saw her. Within her body pulsed the divine power that belonged to my daughter. She didn't speak, only let two perfect streams of tears roll down her cheeks before sinking to her knees in a graceful heap. “Lila greets Aunt Aethel,” she whispered, her voice trembling beautifully. “I never asked for the Celestial Core or the Starlight Eyes. If they displease you, Aunt, you may take them back for Sister Elara this very moment. These last few days, I have been tormented by guilt, unable to sleep, for I never wished to take what belonged to my sister… Thank the heavens you have returned. Please, take them back. It would be a release for me…” She closed her eyes, a flawless performance of a martyr awaiting her fate. I was not some fool to be swayed by such a pathetic, calculated display. But just as I reached out to reclaim what was stolen, Lysander appeared. “Stop! Get your hands off Lila!” he roared, his face contorted with fury as he rushed to shield her. “Aethel, you go too far! The Empyrean is no longer your personal fiefdom. I suggest you learn some restraint.” My fiefdom? The absurdity was breathtaking. When the celestial realms were weak and faltering, I was the only one who could lead their armies. A woman, fighting for ten thousand years, who single-handedly drove back the fiends and secured a hundred-thousand-year truce. And now that peace reigned, my sacrifice was twisted into tyranny? There was nothing left to say. Elara needed to be healed. I drew my power, ready for battle. “Lysander, you conspired with others to harm my daughter, to nearly extinguish her life. Today, as her mother, I will claim justice for her!” “Watch your words, Aethel,” he retorted, parrying my initial assault. “I never harmed Elara. Your accusations are baseless.” A coward who wouldn't even admit to his own deeds. I allowed a sliver of Elara’s fading life force to flare out from my arms. “Look! Look what you have done to my child, and you still dare to deny it?” Lysander faltered for a second, a flicker of shock on his face, and my energy blade scored a deep cut across his shoulder. “How… How could Elara’s life force be so faint? Who did this to you? Who hurt you?” “Oh, spare me the act,” I sneered, my voice dripping with contempt. “I rescued my daughter from a squalid hovel owned by your new War-Godship. It seems the dogs you keep have learned to bite.” My eyes blazed with a murderous light. I wanted to tear him limb from limb. Lysander’s expression hardened. “What hovel?” he demanded coldly. And there it was. He didn't know. He had no idea that the precious Lila he protected with his life had tried to murder my Elara.
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