Tyrant of the Ruined Sun

"It’s sunrise." I remarked, glancing at the stream of golden light spilling from the window, and onto the tangled sheets and covers of Eve’s bed.

"And what of it?" She smirkingly replied, trailing a line of kisses from my neck to my jaw.

I chuckled into the deep kiss she gave me, before I smirkingly said "Yara will come looking for you in a minute. Can you imagine what she would think if she saw us like this?"

"I’m sure she’ll understand. You’re guards haven’t left my wing all night after all." She cheekily proclaimed, before finally halting her barrage of kisses upon me, as she lay her head on my shoulder.

"You have so few scars now." She remarked a second later, running her hand along my torso.

"Yes." I agree, examining my yet unblemished body and comparing it to my mutilated one of the past.

"It’s nice." She says, nuzzling her head deeper into my neck.

"I still can’t believe this is real?" I say, running a hand through her pale golden hair.

"Neither can I." She replied, her tone soft and low against my neck.

"My love. How much do you remember?" I ask a moment later, holding her closer still to me.

She’s quiet for a moment, before saying "I remember much. I remember a . I remember a lifetime with you and the error that brought it all to an end. Yes my love, I remember how I died."

I say nothing, for I could say nothing.

"Then it is darkness. Not absolute darkness, the one born out of light’s inexistence, but the darkness of shadows and night. The darkness that creeps it’s way into light’s presence without fail. Then I see it, the first sight I could behold in so long. The sky, littered with millions of tiny bright lights. Yet they weren’t stars, for they never stayed still, always whispering to each other new and exciting secrets, some are mundane, some seemingly absurd, while others muttered the hidden truth that could found empires and topple dynasties."

"Your ancestor’s domain? You remember it?" I asked in shock.

"Just the sky." She replied, before her tone goes coldly distant. "And the sadness. The never ending sadness."

"Why?" I question, moving to better look into her anguished eyes.

"Because they would often whisper about you. About my family. My friends and subordinates. About the endless wars raging in every corner of my home. And the mad tyrant, that monstrous son of the God of the Underworld, burning clean the world of Meathria with miasmic hellfire, and sending untold millions into the millions more waiting maws of his ancestor’s kingdom."

"What else?" I ask, prompting her to continue, and not wanting her mood to remain so down.

"Then it is blissful childhood, with my mother and father. My life as I knew it before, yet wiped clean of my previous memories. Of you, of pain, of death and of my ancestor’s silent domain, where only secrets are told. It is odd now that I look back on it, as though my early memories had been replicated in my mind. All is the same without a single deviation, until about four years ago. The news coming from the south are utterly different from what I originally know. Now there is no great division and devastation of the southern hegemon. There is no civil wars and instability. There is only triumph and a whisper of a new great king to sit upon the Black Throne." She paused then. "I assume because you returned then?"

"Yes." I affirmed her suspicion.

"And I assume you already know everything that happened after." She said.

I nodded.

"Can you tell me what happened with you now?" She asked.

"I thought you already knew?" I questioned in retuned.

"I do most things, yes. But I want to know it from you, as well as how all this is even happening."

I then explaining to her all that had happened to me in the long centuries of our separation until, including my own death, and later resurrection at the hands of my ancestor, before I too stopped at our reunion in this lifetime in the Banquet of Concordia.

"So that’s what happened. But how come I have regained my memories now?" She asks, looking to me. "Could it be my divine boon from my ancestor?"

"Maybe?" I say completely unsure of my answer. "I have no idea. But if that is the case, did your ancestor make a deal with the God of Time too? Or was this granted to you solely on your ancestor’s authority, since she is the Goddess of Secrets after all? But if that is the case, then why leave your house’s divine boon with me? Why not just give it to you directly, like my ancestor did to me?"

"I don’t know. But I think we could be fairly confident to assume that this was the key to my memories’ return, correct?" She says, raising her hand with mine, to see the two glowing pinkish bands upon our fingers, who seemed to have taken permanent residence on our bodies now.

"To think you needed divine intervention to finally place a ring on me." She said smirkingly, glancing back at me.

"For the sake of the Gods." I mutter with a sigh, though I could not contain the small smile that emerged upon my lips.

"Do you already long for the young and foolish me who you so eloquently wrapped around your fingers?" She asked, climbing on top of me, our hands still intertwined, with a vulpine smile.

"Well, you certainly showed me a certain new charm of yours." I said, smiling up at her.

"And what of me now?" She coquettishly asked, batting her long eyelashes at me.

"Perfect." I replied. "Though you are more playful today than I’ve ever seen you before."

"I’m happy. That’s all." She answered, before then lowering herself to lay on top of me, her head back to the crook of my neck. "More happy than I have been in a very long time."

I said nothing, sufficing myself to simply hold her closer to my chest, before I asked "Do you feel that?"

"Yes." She answered. "Can we assume that it too has something to do with this gift, your ancestor’s servant gave you in your resurrection?"

"It has to be." I said, lifting my hand to gaze once again at the glowing band. "What else could make us feel this connection?"

"True." She muttered, beginning to stare at her own hand. "But the Lord of the Dead’s authority does not extend to the domain of a binding of this nature, does it?"

"No." I immediately answered. "I can’t feel a shred of similarity between my own divine powers and this."

"True. If anything, it feels like..." She hesitated, but I knew what she meant, so I continued her statement.

"Like the powers bestowed upon the children of the Goddess of Beauty, Love and Sex."

"But why would you be given such a thing from one of your ancestor’s servants? How would that being have even gotten it?" She asked.

"I don’t know. But one thing’s for sure, it was not given to me without the Goddess’ consent."

"Obviously." She snorted. "None can steal another God’s divinity, let alone bestow it as a blessing such as this without their knowledge."

"Indeed." I nodded gravely.

"The question now is, why would the Goddess of Love, Sex and Beauty ever send us such a gift?" She asked.

"That’s not the only question." I said.

"What do you mean?" She asked, frowning slightly.

"My more pressing question is how she even managed to give us this?" And I needed no more words for her to understand me.

"True." She muttered. "If the Gods could not interfere with the test bar giving their descendants a single boon, then how could she give us this?"

"That being said that the Gods had taken special care for this test’s do-over, especially on account of the Winter Goddess’ cheating in the last round. I highly doubt they would allow another such mistake to happen again." I felt temples beginning to throb as I continued to mull over this matter.

Suddenly Eve raised her head with a look absolute astonishment on her face, as she said "Could she have forsaken her descendants, and instead offered you her sole divine gift she could gift?!"

"But... Why would she ever do that?" I asked in the an utterly bewildered voice. "Why would she abandon her descendants? And for me no less?"

"Could she have made a deal with our ancestor’s like the Tome God did with yours?" She hypothesized.

"The Time God’s descendants have long since gone extinct in this world, so he would have nothing to lose in this situation, he’s already out of the race, but why would the Goddess of Beauty do the same? Her children are still alive and well. They could still theoretically win this competition for the world. Especially if given a particularly powerful divine artifact that could enhance their natural abilities to influence the minds of men."

My Eve stayed silent afterwards, her brows furrowing in concentration at the conundrum we found ourselves in all of a sudden.

’The Gods have always been mysterious creatures, who’s names are not even known to their own descendants, but they are not illogical beings, and nor do they act without reason. But what possible cause could there be for this?’ I yelled out in my mind, as I stared at my hand, and the mysterious band of glowing pinkish light, that was made of tiny little revolving runes.

’What does this mean?’

***End of Volume 4***

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