The sky itself seemed to warp as he descended.

  Herephyn drifted down with the casual grace of someone walking through a dream—no wind, no effort, only the soft, impossible gleam of silver hair and the fractured halo sputtering dim light around his head. The Celestari’s robes hung like cloud-ruffles; he carried the air of somewhere too high and too indifferent to care.

  Skhav and Hilda froze, mouths slack with the kind of awe that erases fear, if only for a breath. Even the panthers lifted their heads, ears pricking at the unfamiliar, glittering visitor.

  The Celestari’s starlit eyes settled on Lucon with profound disdain.

  “I was sure you were dead, mortal,” he said, voice cool as cut glass. “The Ambrosia you drank should have claimed your life.”

  His gaze drilled inward; Lucon felt it like a cold scalpel cutting through his chest. Herephyn’s starlit eyes swirled, honing in on the center of Lucon’s being. The Celestari’s mouth quirked.

  “Oh. I see. You could say you were saved by divinity. By me and her.” He gestured vaguely, as if the Merciful Goddess hadn’t reduced his presence to dust once. “The Ambrosia flowed along the path I forged through you to your soul, where it was caught—quite coincidentally—by her lingering presence.”

  He tilted his head, a predator inspecting a curiously resilient insect. “When I felt a direct, answered prayer from this backwater land, I had to see if it was the sly-tongued mortal who somehow survived. And it was.”

  A heavy silence hung over the clearing, broken only by the crackle of the dying campfire.

  Lucon threw his arms wide and shouted, “Brother!”

  Skhav and Hilda stared as if Lucon had sprouted a second head.

  Herephyn’s composure cracked. A flush of divine indignation colored his cheeks.

  “Do not call me that, you insufferable bug,” he snapped. “Or I will unmake you where you stand!”

  Lucon clutched his chest, feigning injury. “But we shared a moment, brother! We bonded!”

  The Celestari looked genuinely, magnificently flustered.

  ***

  One day ago, in a cavern deep in the Wilderwood

  Herephyn had just finished pouring the glowing Ambrosia down Lucon’s throat, watching the mortal’s body convulse before going completely still.

  Death. A fate awaiting all mortals who touch what belongs to the divine.

  Herephyn laughed—an odd, brittle sound. A clop resounded as the golden jar was set upright, the Celestari easing back into the Mana Alpha’s fur.

  His starlit eyes became distant as he stared at the sun streaming through the hole he had made.

  “New beginnings…” he murmured to himself.

  Melancholy poured over him. His shoulders sagged; grief tugged him toward the undertow of spiraling thoughts.

  Cruelty, thy name is solitude.

  His voice left his lips small, almost human. “Perhaps I should’ve kept the mortal alive…at least until I had my fill of entertainment.”

  A golden chalice appeared beside him, hovering in his peripheral vision.

  Herephyn blinked, startled, following the arm holding it to its source. Lucon—bleary-eyed, disheveled, and somehow upright—was the hand holding the cup.

  “How, mortal…?” Herephyn breathed.

  Lucon’s voice slurred, graceless and expectant. “By your pardon, brightest pants of Nim-bor-ah, but would you care to give me another cup?”

  The Celestari, equal parts affronted and curious, poured.

  Lucon could not hold the heavy liquid steady; he set the chalice in the dirt and lapped from it like a dog, eyes closing in grotesque pleasure.

  “Good stuff!” he gasped, then offered the cup back with a ludicrous, defiant flourish. “Your turn.”

  Herephyn scoffed, superiority seeping back into his posture.

  "You will return to being servile if you value your continued existence," he hissed.

  Lucon actually scoffed—a rude, undignified sound that made Herephyn’s eye twitch.

  "Are you afraid you’ll be out-drunk, oh divane bean of Nimroda?" He shoved the chalice hard into Herephyn’s hands. "Drink! Or admit defeat at the hands of this mortal!"

  Herephyn bristled.

  “You will die soon from this nectar,” he said, contempt lacing every word. “You only hasten your end.”

  Lucon squawked a laugh—a loud, honking, deeply offensive noise that made the divine being bristle.

  “Excuses!” Lucon crowed.

  Veins writhed beneath the skin of Herephyn’s temples. The air crackled with nascent power.

  "We will drink, mortal," he seethed, voice trembling with wrath. "When I outlast you, I will use your corpse as a club to slaughter the men waiting for you outside."

  Lucon rolled his eyes. "And if I win, you have to stop being such a storm cloud. All the moping! It ruins the mood!"

  Gritting his teeth so hard the sound echoed through the cavern, Herephyn accepted the challenge—fully intending to savor the massacre that would follow.

  One hour later.

  The cavern reeked of extreme inebriation.

  Herephyn sprawled against the Mana Alpha wolf, his halo a dim, pulsing glow. Opposite him, Lucon sat cross-legged with the solemn balance of a drunkard convinced he was being very responsible. Between them, the golden jar of Ambrosia glowed faintly—less a divine nectar now, and more a way to drown sorrows.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Herephyn’s cheeks flushed; his voice thick with something halfway between outrage and despair.

  “You…don’t understand, mortal. I am Fallen.” He hiccuped, pointing at his broken halo. “Do you have any conception of what that means?”

  Lucon blinked at him with the slow patience of one whose inhibitions had left quite some time ago, his remaining senses soon to follow.

  “Means you messed up,” he said finally, giving a firm nod. “Everyone makes mistakes. Even the divine agents of the gods, surely.”

  Herephyn’s silver hair fell forward, framing his starlit eyes in the low glow.

  “Not me,” he muttered. “Not I. I am the highest of the Celestari. Everything I do must be correct.”

  Lucon reached out and clumsily patted his shoulder.

  He said sagely, “If they don’t accept you in the first place, nothing you ever do will be correct to them.”

  Herephyn stared at him, mouth opening, then closing, before covering his face with one elegant hand. A sound escaped him—suspiciously close to a sniffle.

  Lucon tilted his head. “Are you…crying?”

  Herephyn kept the hand in place. “Of course not! What kind of Celestari cries? Certainly not the highest of them!” His voice cracked on the last word, which did nothing to help his case.

  Lucon leaned back, staring up at the cavern’s open roof. A few dark birds swooped in through the jagged hole, landing on a dead wolf’s carcass nearby and pecking contentedly.

  “You told me,” he said dreamily, “that we should learn to enjoy being fallen.”

  Herephyn wailed—a beautiful, tragic noise that sent the birds scattering. “I lied! Why would anyone want to be an outcast?”

  Lucon nodded solemnly, giving his shoulder another consoling pat. “It happens.”

  Minutes blurred together in a haze of laughter and confession.

  They were now howling with laughter, slumped against the dead Alpha like old tavern mates.

  “—and then my father had to sh-sell the Summer Cashtle to cover the debt I owed!” Lucon finished, tears of mirth streaming down his face.

  Herephyn gasped for breath, clutching his stomach. “That’s nothing! One time, the order was sh-simply to talk to a pesky little civilization…and I accidentally…hic…massacred them all!” He dissolved into another fit of giggles. “It was so messy!”

  Lucon laughed uproariously, too drunk to process the horrifying content of the story, only enjoying the shared joy of the telling.

  He wheezed, “You said accidentally!”

  They laughed until their sides ached. At last, Herephyn wiped a glowing tear from his cheek and stared at his palm. A soft, golden glyph appeared there, humming faintly—a divine sigil shifting in endless patterns.

  He held it out to Lucon, unsteady. “This…this is a Divine Glyph of Brotherhood,” he hiccuped. “A mark of trust between equals. I—” He paused to swallow, words thickening. “I apologize for trying to enslave you earlier. You are…someone who truly understands me.”

  Lucon squinted at the glowing mark, his brain slogging through fog.

  “Sounds good,” he said with a shrug, reaching out to shake Herephyn’s hand. The glyph pulsed once between them before fading.

  A few more minutes slid by in tipsy silence.

  Then Lucon pushed himself up with sudden determination. “I need to tell my father’s men to go home,” he declared grandly. “Because I’m going to drink the night away with my new brother!”

  Herephyn raised his head just enough to mumble something incomprehensible—but approving.

  “Good! Grab the golden vase,” Lucon said, wobbling to his feet. “We should drink outside! The weather’s nice.”

  Herephyn nodded drunkenly, fumbling for the jar as he staggered upright.

  Together, they stumbled toward the cavern mouth, the jar of Ambrosia sloshing between them.

  Outside, the air was tense and wrong.

  Three figures hovered above the wagons and horses, their silhouettes outlined by a faint divine radiance. Captain Mavor and the men-at-arms below had drawn steel, but none dared strike.

  The one in the center—clearly the leader—resembled a monarch from some lost empire. His eyes were kohl-lined, a neat dark goatee protruding from his chin. His expression was a line of utter contempt as he surveyed the mortal soldiers.

  The trio of broken halos around their heads glowed like cracked suns.

  Half the men froze like statues, eyes wide and empty. The rest trembled as if winter had come, though the air was warm and breezy. Horses stamped nervously, snorting plumes of mist. The driver of the wagon had disappeared into the canvas, shivering among the supplies.

  The three radiant figures hung above like judgment itself. Then the one in the center turned, his glowing eyes narrowing on the two drunks emerging from the cavern.

  He descended with terrible grace, sandals never touching the earth, the air bending subtly around him. His voice rolled across the clearing—measured, cultured, heavy with divine threat.

  “Mortal,” he said, gaze piercing through Lucon, “step aside from the Celestari. Or be destroyed.”

  Lucon blinked. The words took a few seconds to find meaning inside his drink-fogged skull.

  “Can’t,” he said cheerfully. “Gotta help him.”

  “Help?” The leader’s eyes flicked to Herephyn, leaning precariously against Lucon’s shoulder, glassy-eyed and swaying. “Do you serve him?”

  Lucon nodded vigorously. “Oh, yes. Served him a lot.” He scanned the ground around his feet. “There was a…golden chalice somewhere…to prove it…”

  Herephyn, in a dazed gesture of solidarity, patted Lucon’s shoulder and nodded solemnly.

  The leader’s frown deepened, divine poise slipping into bewilderment. “Taking on a mortal servant? And such a frail one?”

  Lucon smiled dreamily. “He wanted to come outside and drink. Said the weather was nice.”

  Herephyn hiccuped in agreement, nearly toppling over.

  The leader blinked, processing the tableau of absurdity. Then his eyes caught the gleam of the golden jar clutched in Herephyn’s arm. Recognition and hunger lit his face.

  “Did you bring us Ambrosia…from Nimbora, Herephyn?”

  Herephyn’s head lolled to one side. He nodded without thinking, eyelids drooping.

  Gasps escaped the other two Fallen above. Their starlit eyes flared with feverish light.

  “Ambrosia,” one breathed. “Real Ambrosia.”

  The leader’s composure cracked into delight. He coughed delicately into his hand, then swooped forward with sudden eagerness, sweeping up both the unsteady Celestari and the jar.

  “Ah—yes. Of course. We must…ensure our brother Herephyn is properly settled in his new life here in the mortal realm.” His tongue flicked across dry lips. “We’ll just…take him off your hands for now.”

  He turned, clutching the glowing jar like a priceless gem. “I’m sure he’ll come for you later, mortal servant.”

  Lucon grinned brightly and lifted a hand in a lazy wave. “To new beginnings!”

  The leader ignored him entirely. The divine figures rose into the sky in a swirl of light and heat before streaking away toward the horizon.

  The clearing fell silent, save for the creak of leather and the confused snort of a horse.

  Lucon swayed on his feet, blinking up at the empty air.

  “Always good to meet nice people, eh?” he said at last.

  When he turned, every man of the elite guard—including Captain Mavor—was staring at him in utter disbelief.

  Lucon looked between them. “Is everyone alright?”

  For a long beat, silence.

  Then, as if some spell had broken, the men erupted into cheers, lifting their weapons and voices to the sky.

  “Young Lord Lucon has saved us!” cried one.

  A few others roared, “Hero!”

  ***

  Present.

  Herephyn’s silver hair rippled in the dying campfire’s light as his composure snapped.

  “If you call me brother again, mortal,” he hissed, his voice filled with fury, “I will kill you.”

  Lucon smiled pleasantly. “Brother, there’s no need to act like strangers.”

  The Celestari’s face twisted. Reality itself seemed to twist around him—air bending, colors bleeding together like water running down a painting.

  Skhav dropped to one knee, breath shuddering under the weight of Herephyn’s presence. Hilda swayed where she stood, trembling, lips parted in awe and terror.

  Lucon, as though none of it mattered, sniffed the air and lazily pointed toward a barrel lying among the other supplies that had survived.

  “Is that alcohol?” he asked cheerfully. “I can smell it from here. You should join me, brother. Nothing calms the nerves like a good drink.”

  Herephyn’s luminous eyes narrowed to shards of light. “I will never allow such human swill to touch my lips.”

  “Suit yourself.” Lucon shrugged, crouching beside the barrel. He pried off the lid with the edge of his thumb and inhaled deeply. “Mmm.”

  He glanced around, then looked up at the divine being. “Brother, do you still have the golden chalice I lent you?”

  Herephyn was suddenly there—quicker than a blink. The air cracked where he had been standing. His expression was glacial, beautiful, and terrible.

  “I came here,” he said, voice trembling with restrained rage, “to take back my glyph, mortal. If you know what’s good for you, you will hand it over—now.”

  Lucon didn’t flinch. The Flow ran smooth and deep within him—a still river under pressure. And beneath that calm, he already understood the important part.

  “Brother,” Lucon said softly, tone almost pitying, “why threaten me when you told me in the cavern that whoever holds your Glyph of Brotherhood can never come to harm by your hand?”

  Herephyn recoiled. “I told you that?”

  Lucon nodded, serenely. “You did. After our tenth cup, I think.”

  The divine’s face froze in horrified realization.

  He grimaced. But then his gaze shifted to Hilda and Skhav, who still struggled beneath the remnants of his presence. His hand lifted, fingers splayed out as divine light coalesced in his palm.

  “I may not be able to harm you, mortal,” Herephyn said coldly, “but I can still kill them. And everyone you hold dear, one by one, until you beg me to take it back.”