Time is the moving image of Eternity.

- UNKNOWN REPUBLICA PHILOSOPHER

"THERE IS A TALE."

I speak, my clothes washed clean of blood, my back against the soft grass. It is night, and it is silent—the stars glint against the dark sky smilingly, and for once I smile back. Perhaps it is forced, perhaps it is not—but I feel a peace I have not felt in a long time, and it comes quietly.

“There are a great many Tales,” replies Cas, in the same amicable tone, before forcing his voice deeper with a clearing of his throat. “Which one has caught thy beautiful eye, milady? Thy grace knows no bounds, truly—as we lay amongst the stars, may this lowly suitor request of you to unveil your unfathomable thoughts?”

I force mine higher, adding that familiar aristocratic accent to my Imperi, before replying with a haughty sniff. “I will indulge thy request on thy account, just this once.” Softening, I shift my position, turning so the embers of the fires reflect the other Chosen’s face.

He looks strange, airy—like a sceptre, an unchained ghost floating above the world. A Myth. A memory, a story.

I want to catch him.

The remnants of him, the scattered pieces and shards—I want to Weave them together, see the whole puzzle of his story, his being. And not in the way that I’ve done so before—I reach out towards his face and hesitate for the first time. Or the second.

Citrine light carves shapes on his skin, his blue eyes glimmering a strange sheen—but the colors are subdued, as if washed over with grey, and perhaps that prompts me to brush my fingers against where shadow touches his cheek.

Balancing the supposed intensity of the action with a quirk of my lips, I withdraw my hand after a few seconds before I continue. “It is a story behind story—as it is, a moral behind a moral. My knife-throwing teacher recounted it—you have likely heard it, of course.”

My lips quirk in not amusement, but something unidentifiable as I look up at the sky from the ground.

“‘It starts with the Gods playing God,’” I say, repeating her words. She had come from Galbraith, where there existed only a singular deity, and yet there had been no reverence in her words. I turn to his interested eyes. “‘And another playing Hero, as all stories do.’”

The cold of the night makes my toes curl, the darkness of the surroundings unsettling, yet the heat of the fire and presence of another dulls my blade of vigilance.

“The fire-bearer,” Cas names, and his guess is correct.

Prometheus.

He never was a dullard.

“Yeah,” I agree. “Do you know why people do not widely speak the Gods’ names? We do have monikers—the Lightning King, the Queen, the Blacksmith, the Archer, the Huntress—but even in the plays we do not speak their names.” Of course, he knows. Everyone does. But—

“Words have power,” he says, simply.

It should be a disappointing answer, but the way he delivers it—matter-of-fact and without fervor, a statement hurled by one who refuses to let words tyrannize their life—makes me smile.

“Yeah,” I say again. “Her version of the story was quite short. When you think of mercenary, you think of someone sly, more methodical brute than general. My teacher...was a strange person. She was a brute, yes, and methodical—but I digress.”

I shuffle closer. “What do you think?”

He laughs, and leans forward as much as he can without being quite nose-to-nose.

“About?” he asks the question nonchalantly.

I laugh. “Life. Death. Everywhere. Nowhere.” I wave a hand. “What do you think?”

Cas laughs, breath tickling my nose.

“Then we’ll be here until the end of time,” he replies, smiling. A bit of light touches his eyes, and I smile.

“We have all the time in the world,” I lie, before I continue my story.

From the time he had been born, to the time he had entered the Cage, Caspian Nameless had never questioned his right to change the world. He smiles, now—he should’ve, he realizes that now. But now his words ring hollow, as if someone had carved his throat up from the inside—as if his dream lay dead with the corpse of the Minotaur he’d slain.

“Cas?”

She’s holding up a flower, eyes teasing as she offers it. It’s a craggy bloom, a weed—a dandelion, roots still gathering dirt.

“How will you take it, milord?” Seraphina asks, gaze sparkling.

If he’d told the boy he’d been before he felt content, now—not happy, but not unhappy either; as if he could spend this entire period of his life in stasis—the other would’ve laughed in his face.

Cas accepts the flower. “I will take it all, lest I give nothing in return, milady,” he says with a wink.

She does an aristocratic bow, and the former street rat does one in return, only to—purposefully—trip over a root. His rear lands on a particularly prickly tree stump and he howls in genuine pain, before Seraphina makes a sound that’s more cackle than laugh.

“Oh how the mighty fall,” she mockingly taunts, before leaping to fall on the ground next to him. He holds the dandelion in front of her face from his position leaning on the stump, and she sneezes, scattering the seeds throughout the air.

He laughs.

“Oh how the weak remain still,” he voices back—a satisfactory witticism (people have always complimented him on his silver tongue, more than ten threatening to cut said tongue off, which he also takes as a compliment).

Seraphina laughs, this time.

Every time she does, it is wry and full of genuine amusement—her eyes glint as she smiles, and every time Caspian is struck by the compulsion to talk again, another comment spilling out his lips to see her laugh again.

And she does.

Sometimes she rolls her eyes, sometimes she strikes up a competition, and other times she makes an obscure literary reference he struggles to understand (but letting her know that would mean letting her win, so he abstains).

The theatricality of her gestures never fails to amuse him, which he realizes is dangerously close to affection.

Yes, that is it—affection.

“I win again,” he pronounces, preparing to gather the sticks that make up the mock-Crowngame, to which she stops his hand with a move.

“No, I win,” she corrects, raising her eyebrows while grinning.

“That’s not fair—”

“It’s not my fault you didn’t see the Paladin—”

Sometimes, they sit in silence.

She places a flower on his nose. He sneezes it off.

She does it again. He sneezes again.

She cackles. She’s not laughing when he throws a harpy gizzard at her.

The sky turns blue—the color of her eyes—and he is soaked in monster blood.

“Five,” he says, and the adrenaline from wielding his knives burns alive in his chest.

Seraphina raises an eyebrow. “Six,” she says, simply.

The fire from competition flares in him. “Oh, come on.” Six harpies? Really? He could’ve done better, though, he knows. “Again,” he demands, a laugh in his words.

“Again?” she phrases the statement like a question, tilting her head.

The thrill of the kill makes him smile wryly and speak falsely. “We have all the time in the world, don’t we?” he asks.

We don’t have all the time in the world.

We’re both lying, and we both know the other is lying, and the situation is really quite amusing.

Does it really matter, though?

No, it really doesn’t.

I’m— not happy, but content.

Yes, that is it.

I stretch. “Have you made flower crowns before?” I ask, earnestly. “I never have.”

Cas blinks. “Never,” he says, unquestioningly.

“Wanna try?”

“Sure.”

Flower crowns are made misshapen, and as the days pass they take on form—as we speak and laugh and sing and hunt, the light shines through the viridian trees that don’t seem as oppressive and towering. Sometimes we take separate paths and travel the island alone, meeting where brook and stream divulge, but I do not forget.

I cannot forget the blood that we have spilled here.

The shine of company does not fade, but I can feel the satisfaction spilling from my heart, draining away as the wind rises.

It is not poetic, waiting for the inevitable.

We stop on the fourth day, in front of the gap.

The crack between the bars glints underneath the sun. I step forward, through the gap and onto the precipice of the island, and sit down, dangling my legs over the edge. Cas follows, casting but a glance towards the vast sea waiting below. It is great and azure, treacherous and serene—Lake Ichor, upon which lay the Three Isles of the Empire, would be my destination after a long, plummeting fall.

I decide not to contemplate that too much.

“We could swim out,” I say, leaning against the nearest bar. “Go out in a raft, live our lives and brave the treacherous seas.” We would live in hiding, of course, but—

“You aren’t the type of person who could do that,” he replies, amiably. “Live the rest of their life in hiding, I mean.”

At least he knows that.

“I’m tired of waiting,” I say. “The Gods haven’t slain us so far—why not do something?”

Cas sounds amused. “So you wouldn’t escape with Jonas and Vivianna, but you would with me?”

“With,” I agree. “Not for.”

The waves glisten their dark blue sheen, tidal depths that swallow and refuse to give back.

Relentless.

We don’t address the proverbial elephant in the room, even though we’ve done quite well in doing so.

“I am happy,” I continue. “Not content, but I’m happy.” I raise my eyebrows in a mock-challenge. “Can you claim the same, Caspian of Nowhere?”

Cas laughs.

“I can claim the same, Seraphina of Inevita,” he says, leaning closer with a mischievous smile. “After all, I’m bound by Oath, aren’t I? To stay by you, through glory and ruin?” Although his words are light, his eyes are stormy, and I instantly sense the depth of his words.

“The only person you are bound to,” I reply, “is yourself, my dear.”

She was the one, but it wasn’t love.

What do teenagers know about love, anyway?

Perhaps Caspian would’ve found someone he loved when he grew older, after he tricked his way to a sizable fortune and retired from the streets. He could imagine them—always smiling wickedly, his forever partner-in-crime. Maybe they would’ve adopted children, lived until they were grey in a house they’d longed for when they were younger.

But that someone wouldn’t be Seraphina.

They wouldn’t smile like her, scheme like her, talk like her.

They wouldn’t have that dramatic flair, that wry humor—every trait he has, she magnifies it further.

It’s not love, but Caspian has that feeling that she has the right—that right to change—he’s lost.

She will be Victorious.

The plotting, the planning, the willingness—personal bias clouds his mind, perhaps, but…

“What do you think of a greater good?”

It’s night, and she thinks for a while to respond.

It’s a courtesy—he knows she could easily spin a remark off the top of her head, but she’s Thinking.

“There is good, there is bad, there is neither,” she says, “but neither is greater or lesser, really, is it?” She smiles. “If it is yours, it is greater. There is no lesser.” And then she laughs, as if she hadn’t been serious, but there’s a challenge in her gaze, like there always is.

Her placidness, her mildness, it all comes with a I dare you to the world. I dare you to prove me wrong. I dare you to prove me right.

I dare you to let me Win.

That was why she’d brought the possibility of escape up—

But there is no escape.

Yes, he could see it now.

She was the one.

The next day, the Cage’s doors open and the Victor steps out.

The eternal sun gleams against blue without doubt.

Icarus’ wings are spread and yet another shall fly.

There will be another will, another reign, under the Anothen sky.

Josephine is smiling when she hears the news. It’s her default expression, really—for the last twenty-seven years, from the day she’d been born, she’d realized that smiling widely constituted a reason to approach her; smiling thinly could be taken as an insult; and so she’d settled on smiling coquettishly.

“Josie!” a count’s daughter squeals. “Did you hear? It’s starting! The Colosseum’s been opened!”

The Theatre is painted its usual elegant shade, and Josephine’s companions seated in their usual seats, the curtains opened to their usual angle.

But this is not a usual day.

“Really?” Of course, the Colosseum is not really opened, not yet. Back when she was an aristocrat—and she still is, outranking most of those in the realm—even she knew that the nobles got first priority when it came to seats. And then the Cagekeepers started up their ferries and boats, working with the Harbormasters to set up transportations for the rest of the Empire.

It is a momentous occasion.

Josephine’s smile grows.

Yes, it is a momentous occasion.

She gets up from her seat and lets her attendants open the box’s door for her, gliding down the miniature staircase that she came up in.

At the bottom, lies a noble scion—the scion of the day—holding a bouquet of beautiful flowers.

She doesn’t remember his name, and she doubts she’s ever talked to him.

“Marry me!” he says with a flourish, and she amusedly snorts.

Ten years in the Palace, and they’ve never grown bored.

“No,” she tells him.

The man’s face contorts in confusion, and the Princess prepares to step past him, before it oh-so-predictably shifts into anger. “You—you seduced me! With that revealing outfit, you—you—”

“Whore?” Josephine completes. “Slut? Tramp? Harlot? Skank? Hussy, slag, lowly courtesan?” She has heard all there is to hear. “Your mouth is disappointing even now, dear man,” she says. “I doubt it would be much better in bed. Step aside.”

Her entourage is already fanning out, but she is bored.

He is indignant. “You—”

Ant.

“Seem to forget,” she finishes, calmly, “that I have slain eleven by my own hand. Step aside, or you will regret it. A smile is not an—”

“—Invitation?” Cyrus raises an eyebrow. “Do we really need an invitation? After we all, we came from that Godsbroken place.” Scorn drips from his lips like it usually does, but still he narrows his eyes at his brother. “Did Her Greatness ask you to fetch me, then?”

Orion smiles, wryly. “Do you think me her hound, brother?”

Blue eyes blink in return. “You are a hound. A dog can be leashed, a hound can be led, but either can still bite the hand that fed.” His expression, already twisted into one of disgust, stares at the paper. “I still can’t get over it. Josephine, Arathis...Pah, what am I saying. I just hate the damn thing.”

“Understandably,” Orion agrees. “Hate, love—if there exists a Chosen who doesn’t feel any strong emotion towards the Cage, then they would be the true monster.”

“Pah,” Cyrus repeats. “I get that we have to go, and I guess I’m curious, but…” he scowls. “Another monster, but too many make a menagerie. I feel like a fucking animal, being on that island again.” The Chosen clenches his fist, but the archer hums.

“But animals are to be hunted,” Orion says.

“That’s the point,” the other returns. “Even if I do manage to hunt down the people and make them pay my dues, I would still feel like a fucking animal.” Cyrus harrumphs in an uncharacteristic moment of vulnerability. “Always hated when people ‘what now?’. Always makes me feel like if there’s something left to do, that we have that choice to do it. We don’t. We aren’t ever in control of our futures, or pasts. We just walk through the present, and try our best to give people the choices we haven’t made.”

Orion remains silent.

“I try to help people,” continues the other. “Still feels like I’m doing nothing in the scheme of things, but I try. I give them choices, to end their own stories. Find their own salvation. And—” Cyrus breaks himself off. “Never mind, damn it. I’ll be damned if I let it get inside my head.”

Amber eyes crinkle in amusement. “We’re all already damned,” says the archer, “in more ways than one.”

The Lightning King’s Chosen shakes his head. “And they call me a killjoy,” the exile murmurs. “I guess we’re going, then, frater?”

Orion smiles. “And so we are. For the ferries, we’ll have to board—”

“—up the walls in the Palace,” Greta says. “Just in case there’s a riot while we’re away. The anti-Imps tried something last year, and I’ve been too busy to intimidate them these days.” More and more organizations had formed in the Dayhepts leading up to the Cage’s Opening, likely to try and prevent another weapon being added to the Empire’s arsenal.

Nikephoros hums. “We’ll have to go soon,” the Emperor responds, lightly. “It’s our obligation as Chosen to attend—defense plans can be handled by Deimos, daughter.”

The green-eyed Princess sighs. “Alright, alright. I will go.”

She’d already memorized the Chosen this time around, of course—but her spies, even with Anaxeres’ aid, had only managed to scrounge up information on the more publicly-known Chosen. There had only been two nobles this time around, which only added to her conclusion of—what had it been?

She was forgetting things far more often lately.

Greta had pushed herself trying to use her Ability on Arathis.

Whatever semblance of mind she’d found in the Chosen, it had already been warped beyond belief—but she’d found at least one method of control. It had been one of the rare times she’d used her Ability since the Cage, but all the plans she’d been making had finally been taking shape. Not the most perfect shape, but a shape.

And that is enough.

And so she turns, stepping outside the Palace.

Her next destination?

The First Isle’s—

—edge. Arathis Delawar loves to live on the edge, the precipice, the escarpment of life—but, sometimes, it gets boring (like all things do). So he dangles his legs off the cliff and invites someone to see the sea that’s the result of a plummeting fall, and the sun that continues to burn after so many eons of falls from grace; and offers them a pair of wax wings.

The choice to leap.

Will they try to see the sun?

Or will they follow instructions and glide to escape?

Whatever choice they decide to make, the fact remains that all humans are interesting.

Hades’ Chosen hums on the ferry he’s sharing with his siblings, ignoring Cyrus’ grumbles for him to shut up while Josephine belabours the air with a fan. Greta and Orion are having a conversation through eye contact and raised eyebrows, Nikephoros is jovially going on a spiel about his childhood years, and Arathis is sitting on the edge of the boat, dipping his bare feet in the crystal clear water.

The boat is luxurious, and so the Forsaken lets the summer wind spin his pale hair into wild tapestries as he leans back.

The Queen’s Isle, with all its twisting metal bars, comes into sight soon enough.

An unreadable silence occupies the boat—resentment, mostly, with the occasional mild hatred; but it’s a mixed bag—as the vessel is steered closer.

So many memories.

Of course, none of their expressions change drastically—Cyrus’ scorn-filled expression stills, Josephine’s eyebrows arch themselves just a bit higher, Greta merely blinks and Orion leans back, and Nikephoros’ grandfatherly smile doesn’t disappear—but a nostalgic silence lulls the conversation.

And so—

—as they file into the Colosseum, and the sun climbs higher in the sky, Nikephoros makes himself comfortable. They are his children, as sure as the Empire is named Eternal, and he does have to be there for their life accomplishments, don’t they?

Life accomplishments.

It sounds like the beginning of one of his mother’s not-so-hilarious jokes.

The Cagekeeper he’d met when he’d ascended the throne—Lux, their name was—was seated next to Nikephoros, and the Emperor had engaged in conversation with them for the better half of an hour. The crowd was growing restless, but as Nikephoros was commenting on the summer weather, the Cagekeeper abruptly stood up and intoned:

“The time has come.”

The crowd stills even though the Imperials are still conversing, and so the Opening starts.

It is morning, yet there is still light from the many braziers set up—the Keepers are likely using their strange magic to illuminate the Cage, too, the light magnified by some invisible lens; as, like a bronze flower, the bars unfurl—giant petals, glistening with the golden sheen of eons—and reveal a lone figure.

A girl strolls into the Colosseum.

Her boots are bloody, her bearing proud, and Nikephoros recognizes her features as one of his vassal’s daughters. As if carved by a sculptor, her features are what some may call traditionally beautiful—wide blue eyes, tumbling dark hair, a lithe nose, and a sharp jawline. She raises her head and closes her eyes just for a bit as the crowd applauds, and that is when—

A familiar feminine voice echoes in his ears.

A voice the Emperor hasn’t heard in years—his Liege.

Harbinger, the Queen of the Gods says.

Harbinger, says the Lighting King in the exile’s ears.

Harbinger, enunciates the Lord of Death, to a grin on a puppeteer’s lips.

Harbinger, speaks the Lady of Doves, a smile on a lady of the night’s face.

Harbinger, informs the Huntress, the archer stilling at the fact.

Harbinger, pronounces the Keeper of Revelry, green eyes blinking in response.

The Last Harbinger.

Bringer of a final reign.

PRESENT

Greta Queenscage looks at the painting that hangs in her personal office. She’d asked to have two commissioned—a serious, austere scene that would be hung in the Palace’s west wing, and a less formal one that would be hung to the right of her less official desk.

In the bottom row sits Josephine, Arathis, and Seraphina; in order of seniority. Aphrodite’s Chosen is painted beautifully, coy Eurusan-gold eyes crinkling in amusement and teeth exposed mid-laugh. Delicate brush strokes follow her dark hair that coils around her neck, and she is leaning forward, chin propped on hand, towards Arathis (who had just been telling a bawdy joke, Greta remembers).

The Forsaken sits in the middle of the bottom row, lips poised in the after-form of said joke, leaning towards the painter mischievously with a hand on his knee and another in his hair (the pale strands messily gelled). The painter managed to convey his unsettlingly intelligent gaze, eyes sparkling dangerously as he grins lopsidedly.

Seraphina is smiling wryly, but there is genuine humor in it—her blue eyes are twinkling, fingers lingering below her chin and brushing her throat (reminiscent of Josephine’s pose, but she manages to make it desert-dry). She, however, is propping her other elbow on Arathis’ shoulder, leaning towards the right of the painting but still being a part of the scene.

When shown the scene, you wouldn’t doubt the trio’s familiarity.

Above, Cyrus, Orion, and Greta are far less closely grouped, a slight scowl forming the first’s expression that remains more disapproving annoyance, than anger. The half-Republica is, still, at ease—his stiff back is relaxed, his fists loose, as he leans a bit towards his brother. Light occupies his eyes, but his features remain firm (he had snorted, Greta knows).

Orion, on the other hand, can’t hide the curve that affects his lips, his mouth caught mid-twitch. His amber eyes glint under the light, fingers of one hand brushing Cyrus’ shoulder while the other touches Greta’s back, pulling them closer in twin half-embraces.

Greta is poised in the painting, features regal with a surprising glimmer to her green eyes, and the Empress’ hand had been placed inadvertently on Seraphina’s shoulder.

They are family, even though they all have a menagerie of different features—even those without context could easily tell.

They all look- content. Happy.

Perhaps, making them stay that way is Greta’s Wish.