Chapter 319: Oh, god of light
Alias offered no explanation. When the pile was set, Maya numbly struck a flint, setting the wood and the bodies ablaze. The black smoke began to billow into the high desert sky, a foul signal to the rest of the waste.
Turning back to the porch, Alias lifted his hand again. Theo’s large, unconscious frame rose gently from the red mud, levitating smoothly through the air and back into the house, settling onto the large sleeping mat.
Alias knelt beside him immediately. With unhurried but efficient movements, he stripped away the ruined, bloody shirt, dipping a cloth into the clean water to wash the grime and sweat from Theo’s chest and arms.
Externally, he was perfectly calm, but inside, his head was screaming at him to hurry. Every tick of the sun across the sky, every second he wasted in this clearing, was a dangerous, unpredictable variable for Kael.
A small, mute child in the hands of desperate men was a thought that made his divine essence flare with a dark heat. But he knew he couldn’t just leave. He couldn’t abandon Maya in a ruined yard with an unconscious brother.
He needed to ensure they were both stable enough before he left.
Only after wiping down the last of the blood did Alias stand up. His eyes flashed with a freezing, lethal light as a low hiss escaped his teeth. "How dare they take my boy?"
He turned to look at Maya, who was standing trembling by the bedroom door. He forced his lips into a smile, but it was not the gentle, worriless smile she was used to. It was heavy, sharp, and entirely lethal.
Maya felt an involuntary shiver run down her spine. She stepped forward, her small hand reaching out to grab his—the very hand that still carried faint traces of Theo’s dried blood under the fingernails.
"Where... where are you going?" she whispered, her voice cracking.
"I am going to find Kael," Alias said.
A profound sadness and worry filled Maya’s chest, making her breath hitch. Her heart was heavy, but as she looked at the absolute finality in his face, she knew she could not tell him to stay.
Kael was out there, small, terrified, and unable to scream for help. The child needed them. But she looked at Alias—so lithe, so seemingly fragile in his physical form—and a different fear gripped her.
Yet, remembering the floating bodies and the golden light that had just pulled her brother from the jaws of the underworld, she realized he was something entirely beyond her comprehension. Maybe he would be fine. Maybe he really could bring the boy back.
Driven by a sudden, overwhelming instinct, Maya sank to her knees on the wooden floor.
She pressed her forehead close to his feet, her hands clasped tightly in front of her breast. She didn’t see a companion anymore; she saw a deity who had descended into their misery to give them aid.
"Please," she prayed, her voice echoing with a fierce, newfound faith. "Save Kael... and come back safely to us. Oh, god of light."
Alias was taken aback for a single heartbeat, his breath catching as the weight of human prayer hit him directly—a sensation far more potent than any celestial data point.
He closed his eyes, the silver lashes casting shadows on his cheeks, and simply nodded. His secret was out; there was no use trying to correct her or explain the laws of the Architects right now. Time was their enemy.
Without another word, he stepped over the threshold and vanished into the desert.
Alias traced the path with an intensity that bordered on wrath. He followed the faint, lingering signatures of Kael’s life force—the small, rhythmic thrum he had memorized over the past month. He moved with a speed that defied human muscle, levitating past the vast expanse of the burning dunes, pushing past the jagged peaks of a barren mountain range that separated the deep wastes from the outer settlements.
As the hours bled together, a frown deepened on his brow. He looked back at the terrain he had just crossed. How did regular humans get past all this so quickly? he wondered, his suspicion hardening.
A group of mortal men on foot or basic skiffs shouldn’t have been able to cover this much ground in four hours. It was impossible.
Unless they had been carried by a wind that didn’t belong to the earth.
The trace finally led him down the northern slope of the mountains, entering a desolate, decaying village. The air here was foul, thick with the stagnant stench of rot and disease. The wooden huts were collapsing, and the few citizens he saw were huddled in the shadows, their skin covered in grey, weeping sores.
A plague had gripped this place, turning it into a living graveyard.
In the center of the muddy town square, the six remaining bandits were gathered around a stout, heavily adorned merchant. The merchant wore grease-stained silks, his fingers covered in cheap gold rings, his eyes fixed greedily on a small figure tied to a wooden post.
It was Kael.
The boy was covered in dust, his lips parched, but because he had spent a month drinking from the pure waters of the oasis, his skin was clear, vibrant, and entirely free of the plague that afflicted the locals.
The bandits were shouting, bargaining for an incredibly high price, pointing at the boy’s health as if he were a prime beast of burden. The merchant was nodding, a disgusting, slick smile spreading across his face as he reached out a fat hand to pinch Kael’s jaw.
Alias felt a surge of rage so violent it nearly choked him. He stopped at the edge of the square, his gaze snapping up toward the gray, indifferent sky, his mind screaming a curse directly into the higher realms.
Norx! So this was your grand design! This had nothing to do with testing the heart of the man who loved him. Theo hadn’t broken; he had fought until his blood spilled into the grass to protect his family. His heart wasn’t black.
The only black hearts here were the ones belonging to the men who traded a child’s life for iron coins, and the god who had orchestrated the transaction just to prove a petty point.
Norx hadn’t just allowed a raid; he had deliberately strung an innocent child into the hands of a monster who clearly abused the weak for profit.
"Mama!"
