Lucien stood still.
The battlefield had stilled, the heavens had been silenced, and the child had spoken a single word that reshaped all meaning. It was supposed to be a moment of peace.
But inside him, something was breaking.
He had walked this path from blood and rebellion.
Slayer of saints.
Breaker of temples.
The sword in his hand had once tasted the marrow of gods. It had cleaved through faith, order, and even time.
But now, it trembled.
Not from fear.
From dissonance.
The child had not commanded.
He had chosen.
And in that choice—gentle, wordless, absolute—Lucien felt a wound open.
Not on his body.
In his function.
"I was never meant to protect," he whispered to himself, beneath the burnt branches of the Halo Tree.
Kaelira heard him.
"You think you're being erased," she said softly.
He didn't answer.
Because she was right.
Lucien had always been a blade.
Now, in the shadow of belonging, he felt useless.
Even dangerous.
Talia came to him days later, her glow dimmed to a soft shimmer.
"You haven't come near him."
Lucien looked away. "He doesn't need me."
"He chose me," she said. "But he knows you."
Lucien clenched his jaw. "He knows what I was."
"Then become something else."
He looked up.
Her gaze was steady. Strong. No longer just a woman. No longer just a god.
A mother asking the man who stood beside her to stay.
But Lucien saw it differently.
He saw the weight.
And he wondered—how long until I cannot carry it?
That night, he dreamt.
Not of war.
But of the child's eyes—those empty, shifting voids. In the dream, they stared through him. Saw everything.
His lies.
His kills.
His vengeance.
And then… his doubt.
Lucien woke choking.
His sword had rusted overnight.
Not from weather.
From rejection.
Talia found him kneeling in the dew.
She said nothing.
He whispered, "I don't know if there's room for me in a world where he breathes."
Talia knelt beside him.
"He doesn't need you to be righteous," she said.
She took his hand.
"He needs you to be real."
Lucien looked at her—truly looked. And for the first time, his eyes watered.
Not from grief.
From shedding what he thought he had to be.
The child watched them from afar.
His gaze was quiet.
And when he smiled, Lucien didn't shatter.
He exhaled.
And began, finally, to mend.