They came not with fire, nor with song, nor with decree.
Just a knock.
Three soft raps upon the carved wood doors of the sanctum gate—barely audible, almost apologetic.
Kaelira was the first to reach it.
Behind her, Lucien stood warily. His sword remained in its sheath, but his hand hovered near the hilt. Talia did not come. She was with the child, their rhythms now so closely aligned that every breath he took rippled her aura.
Kaelira opened the door.
And the god bowed.
They were small.
Not weak—condensed.
A man, perhaps. Humanoid. Silver robes woven with forget-me-not patterns. Skin of polished dusk. Hair slicked back like dew. Their aura was clean, like the scent of an old book returned from fire.
"I am called Eluth," they said. "Lesser god of Memory Left Behind."
Lucien narrowed his eyes. "Forgotten things?"
Eluth nodded. "Not quite. I tend to what was discarded with pain. Old loves. Old regrets. Pieces you leave behind because to carry them would break you."
He looked up, eyes wide, childlike and endless.
"I felt the boy. I would… serve him. If permitted."
Talia stood atop the sanctum tower, watching from above.
She had seen gods beg before.
But never without masks.
This one bore no weapon. No prophecy. Only willingness.
Kaelira stepped aside. "We do not bar entry."
Lucien scowled. "We should."
But Talia descended.
Her wings were gone—retracted—but the air still parted for her.
She approached Eluth.
"Why him?"
Eluth did not smile. "Because he remembers what hasn't happened yet."
They let him in.
He bowed again and passed through the threshold.
The moment he did, something shifted.
The air tasted colder. Light dimmed—only for an instant.
Kaelira frowned. "That felt…"
"Wrong," Lucien finished.
That night, Eluth wandered the temple gardens.
He spoke to no one.
But the flowers withered behind him.
And in a locked chamber far beneath the sanctum, something stirred.
Not awake.
But remembering.
Eluth stood before the child's chamber.
He didn't enter.
He only whispered:
"I remember you too."
And somewhere deep in the folds of forgotten time, a door creaked open—a door that was never supposed to exist again.
And from its gap, an eye blinked.