Chapter 251: Third Gate and a Lion’s Spreading Wings

Those who bear the Night Goddess’ lineage are not beheld to the same style of trials that many of us are. They do not need to endure pain, tedium or even long, excruciating years of training to make their bodies proper enough vessels to handle the weight of their ancestor’s gifts. All they need is a deep and profound understanding of the night, secrecy and the ever ebbing world of shadows.

Which is why the Silent Lady has plagued her descendants with the gradual loss of their senses as they progressed ever further into their training.

The ignorant would think it a cruel price the Goddess had enforced upon her children, when in actuality it was nothing more than a temporary tool to aid them in their understanding of the concepts that she and their powers rule over.

And my Eve was already a third gated demigod in our past lives, with the fourth gate being no more than a stones throw away had she lived just a bit more.

Yet despite regaining her memories, she has remained unmoving from the first gate.

"Nizam. Yara. Leave us for a moment." I commanded the two remaining in the room with us.

"Yes brother." Nizam muttered with an awkward bow, his head still reeling from the sudden twists he had not expected at all.

"Understood." Meanwhile Yara left immediately without a single pause. She was always the perfect subordinate. She understood Eve’s needs and wants better than she herself ever did, or at least admitted.

"My love." I softly whispered, drawing her closer.

Her body slotted into mine. As though she had been forged to fit in my arms. An uncanny thing I had marvelled wondrously at many a time.

"I should’ve known you would say this." She eventually muttered.

"I’m sorr..."

"Don’t apologize." She interrupted me. "It was my decision more than yours anyway."

"I know what this is asking you to relinquish." I said.

"It would’ve happened sooner or later anyway." She shrugged, before muttering in a barely audible, regretful whisper. "I just wished it was later."

Yet before I could respond with anything else, I sensed a change in the air. One of cold, silent encroachment. So subtle it was, that I barely even sensed it, and that was only because I was in such close proximity to it’s eerie source.

"What are you doing?!" I asked, looking at the shifting thin frame of the woman in my arms.

The crown of her once pale golden hair turned from the shade of woven sunlight at dawn, into the blackness of the sky at twilight. Her thin arms, wrapped around my middle grew strong, and etched with elegant runes of shadow and secrets. She then lifted her bent head to lock eyes with me, and I saw her once amethyst globes take a form I had not witnessed in a lifetime.

Once purple pools ringed with pearl white, had now become endless voids of darkness, interrupted only by the passing twinkle of a violet stars.

"...Eve?" I softly spoke, now knowing what she has done.

"Shhh." She stopped me, her three mid fingers upon my lips. "I want your lips to be the last thing I taste."

And so it was, I found her lips upon mine. Locked in a hungering kiss. One I would not soon forget. And not only due to the thrashing shadows growing mad with ecstasy around us, celebrating their mistress’ growth with a haunting danse of madness.

Yet when it eventually came to an end, I swiftly asked. "How do you feel my love?"

"Strong." She replied, breaking away from me. Slowly clenching and unclenching her fists. Yet then she began to roll her tongue around her mouth. "After such a long time, it’s an odd feeling not tasting or smelling anything again."

I said nothing for a moment, for I knew not what to say; especially with the sudden onset of an unknown and uncomfortable pain in the centre of my chest. Yet the smile she offered me a second later greatly alleviated all my abrupt discomfort.

"And your fourth gate?" I asked.

"...Just a push away." She closed her eyes and answered a moment later.

"That’s good." I nodded.

"My emperor." Isaac appeared near the window once more and reported with some urgency. "The Forge Lord and the war council have been summoned."

"And they’re not appreciative of being woken from their bed twice in one night." I said, smirking.

"I’m afraid not, sire."

"Right." I chuckled, before looking back at my Eve. "Duty calls my love."

***

The coming days were a hurricane of frantic preparation. It was as though all the effort of the last few months had never been. The whole empire had once more began to shift under the hammer, boot and blazing crucibles of the industry of war. Since we now had to prepare for a very different situation.

Supplies, men and all else in between began to move across the empire’s desert dunes with horrifying speeds. And all were now headed in a single direction. East.

"The world will be in an uproar when they get wind of this." Darius commented, as he and I stood upon the battlements of Eklepsus, witnessing the Seventh Army, formerly stationed in Lahtesh, marching opposite the setting sun.

"Let them. The more they panic and discuss the better. Distracts our enemy all the more." I replied.

"Yes sire..." He paused then.

"Out with it Darius." I said.

"Forgive me my liege, but duty dictates- No, common sense itself demands that I ask this of you one more time. Are you certain with the course of action you have begun to tread? We are still not too far the beaten path to change lanes sire." He says with a strain of desperation colouring his words.

"There will be no turning back Darius." I coldly reply.

"And if the gamble fails sire? What then? What are we to do if the best case scenario does not come to pass and we are instead forced to face the disasters of your capture or worse, death? What then my liege?" He argues.

For a moment I am without words. I have of course thought of the same risks as he did, but they were unflinching in their stubborn tenacity to remain looming over my path. I had already admitted that to myself days ago. These were not problems in which cunning would prove the appropriate tool.

I was finally reaching the line where my wits could no longer cover for the failings of my strength.

"My liege?" Darius repeated, putting a hand on my shoulder.

I was almost startled from my thoughts, before I calmed myself and said "I know, Grand Vizier. But you will trust in me, and by the end of it all, you will be glad you did. As always."

"...Very well then, sire." The old Grand Vizier nodded with a retreating step, but I could still hear his continued aversion. Not that I particularly blamed him for it either.

Another voice then broke into our suspenseful silence. "So you’re abandoning the southern campaign, brother?"

"No." I replied, looking at the rising figure of my golden haired brother as he ascended the steps to the battlements, while he and Darius shared a simple nod and bow for a greeting.

"No?" He asked, surprised by my answer.

"No Cyrus. The southern campaign will not be forsaken. I’ve already spoken with the Grand Marshal. He will make do with the two new armies he’s been building beyond the Hadrians, along with his already war tested three legions. Though his conquests will undoubtedly be lesser than we would’ve anticipated considering our reduced support." I finished with a momentary scowl.

"Are we capable of such a double effort on two fronts?" He asked, coming to stand by my side, as we continued to gaze at the endless columns of marching men.

"You’ve been speaking to our brother, have you?" I asked, already guessing the answer.

"...I’ve never seen him like this before." He said with a sad tone, before he then re-hardened his voice. "And he says that the empire can not handle the provisional strain of such massive conflicts at once. But that’s not true, is it brother?"

"No. I’m afraid he’s right in that regard Cyrus." I replied.

"What?!" He exclaimed, turning towards me.

"War of these scales on two fronts is a task the empire can not presently handle." I clarified once more.

"Why?" He asked a moment later, his calm returning to him.

"Because of the limiter of all things, your highness. Money." Darius replied then.

Cyrus looked at me for a moment then, and his eyes glinted meaningfully in the dying sun. "I see then."

"You’re not interested why I still plan on such outwardly foolish plans?" I asked, surprised by his oddly calm countenance today.

"No." He shook his head. "Because I know you already have a plan to make up for our shortcomings brother."

"Is that so?" I replied with a jovial smile that I could do little to stop at that moment.

"Brother may I ask for a favour as well." He then said, sounding slightly apprehensive.

"Of course." I replied, turning to look at him now with curious eyes.

"May I join the Grand Marshal in the south?" He asked, looking at me.

"I thought you’d want to follow the armies heading east." I said, truly shocked by this unexpected change of events.

"I thought about that at first, too. But then I remembered that both you and Nizam will be there. So I doubt that... well... I’ll have much to do there. So I maybe thought it would be better if I go to the south." He said in a poor attempt to appear calm.

I looked to my younger brother for a moment, before I then said "Do well my brother. Earn your laurels. And if you do, the Tenth Army is yours."