A smile touched her lips as she began to walk. Her long strides carried her past villages, where windows shuttered against the overwhelming aura; past towns, where cursed beings emerged from their homes to kneel along the roadside; past great cities, where shadows gathered in vast crowds, their beautiful form bending low in reverence.
Everywhere she passed, mortals trembled and cursed spirits prostrated. A silent procession unfurled before her, stretching across the land like a living hymn.
She did not entirely understand why she came here, only that something compelled her, some pull that gnawed at her essence and whispered of inevitability.
And with each step toward Erik's capital, toward the throne room that awaited her, the compulsion grew stronger, thrumming like a heartbeat.
Until she now stood here, before Erik.
And then she understood.
The instant his eyes fell upon her, the reason revealed itself. The way Erik looked at her, his eyes alight, blazing with hunger, with raw and unashamed desire was enough. That gaze, desperate yet worshipful, reminded her of the very force she embodied. Yes. That was why she had been compelled to come. For she was beauty incarnate, lust made flesh. How could she not answer the call of such yearning?
And yet… her smile held a sadness to it.
The rumors of her belonging to Tide, the god of the Everflowing Treasury, were not false. They simply lacked completion. They were not yet wed, but their bond was undeniable, a thread woven tightly over the years.
She remembered the first time Tide approached her. It had been at the gathering of the gods, when the divine hosts assembled to look upon the newest ascendants. She had danced then, grace and beauty unrestrained, her body moving like water caught in moonlight. Tide's gaze had never left her. When the gathering ended, he invited her into his realm. That was how it began.
Tide had given her something she had not known since her mortal years, something she once believed forever lost to her: love. Not worship. Not fear. Not hollow devotion. But love. Genuine, unyielding, radiant. For he desired her not only as an arch-curse, not only as a jewel in his treasury, but as a woman.
As the god of endless wealth, he lacked nothing in extravagance, and he extended all of it to her. He showered her in rivers of liquid gold, wrapped her in robes spun from gemstones, filled her hands with pearls and treasures beyond mortal imagination. Yet it was not the treasures themselves that bound her to him. It was what lay behind them, the devotion in his gestures, the way he treated her as something precious, not just alluring.
And yet here she stood, before Erik.
His gaze burned with a different hunger than Tide's. Less refined, more primal. It stirred something deep within her, a reminder of her origin, of what she represented.
She loved him for this. Truly, deeply, she loved Tide for his openness, his constancy, his refusal to flinch in the face of her true nature. He knew her not just as the beautiful arch-curse, not just as the embodiment of lust, but as her. And still, his treatment of her never faltered. His devotion was steady as the tides themselves.
And yet, even in the midst of that love, a hollow ache gnawed within her.
Siren felt conflicted. For all of Tide's warmth, for all his lavish gifts and the dreamlike life he had given her, she felt incomplete. Something was missing. Something Tide, with all his wealth and devotion, could never fill.
She knew why. Or at least, she thought she did.
Her life with Tide felt like a story spun from moonlight and gold, a fairytale too pristine, too unreal. It was a love untouched by shadow, unmarred by pain. But she was no goddess of pure affection. She was no spirit born from gentle romance. She was the Arch-Curse of Beauty, and her domain was inseparable from lust, jealousy, and ruin. To her, beauty and love were never only radiant they were sharp, dangerous, filled with edges that cut as often as they caressed.
Her very birth was proof.
She was born not from the joy of beauty, but from its wounds—the bitterness of jealousy, the despair of rejection, the cruelty of comparisons, the venom that turned admiration into spite. She was the incarnation of the darker truths people tried to hide: that beauty could isolate, that love could hurt, that desire could corrode.
She knew the cycle well. A woman admired for her beauty might just as easily be hated for it. A lover who felt unworthy might try to drag their beloved down, crushing their light in order to feel equal, to feel secure. Beauty could lift one up… but it could just as easily destroy it.
And so, when she looked at Tide, his endless generosity, his unwavering love, her heart split. Part of her longed to surrender to it completely, to live forever in the dream he had woven around her. But another part whispered that this love was incomplete, unreal, because it lacked the very darkness that gave her existence weight.
And now, standing before Erik, she saw in his eyes not the gentleness of Tide, but the raw, unrefined hunger of mortals. Desire without restraint. Love without safety. A gaze that reminded her of who she was, and of the part of herself that Tide's devotion had never touched.
For the first time in years, she felt whole.
Erik lost himself at those words. The last thread of restraint snapped as he stepped forward and lifted Siren into his arms. Her laughter, a soft, melodic sound echoed faintly in the chamber, blending with the hum of cursed energy that began to ripple through the air.
But far above, in the boundless expanse of the heavens, Tide sat frozen upon his throne.
His realm, once serene and filled with the endless shimmer of liquid gold and crystalline water, had gone utterly still. The god's eyes were fixed upon the vision unfolding before him his beloved, the Siren, entwined in the arms of another.
When she had left his realm, her parting gaze had been strange gentle, resolute, and heavy with something he had not understood. Her final words lingered in his mind:
"Do not follow me, my love. If you do… you may not like what you find."
He had ignored her warning. Out of love, he told himself. Out of care. But perhaps, deep down, it had been out of fear, fear of losing her. And now that fear had become reality.
Tide's hands clenched upon the arms of his throne, the water around him beginning to shudder. The oceans of his realm trembled, waves rising without wind. The very pillars of his domain quaked as his divine fury began to bleed through the fabric of creation.
He wanted to drown Erik. He wanted to erase this mortal's existence from every corner of the world, to wash away the shame that burned inside him.
But more than that, he wanted to understand why. How could she, the Siren, his cherished one, the woman he had adorned with treasure and love choose to do this? Had he ever truly understood her? Or had he merely fallen in love with the illusion she had let him see?
His anger grew, and with it, his realm convulsed. Rivers in the mortal world surged; the tides turned violent. The worshippers of Tide felt it first, a sudden weight upon their hearts, a divine grief pressing upon their souls.
Across the kingdoms, priests collapsed mid-prayer, temples flooded with saltwater that wept from their walls. The sky above Erik's land darkened, clouds swirling in unnatural motion. There was no thunder, no lightning only the sound of relentless rain.
It began as a whisper, then a murmur, and soon a roaring cascade that drenched the world in the god's sorrow and wrath.
It took only seconds for the Origin Gods to understand what was happening. Their forms manifested above the western continent, beneath the darkened sky that loomed over Erik's kingdom.
Mahu and Crepuscular exchanged silent glances, their expressions grave as their eyes turned toward Jaus. Yet, to their surprise, Jaus stood with his arms folded, unshaken by the turmoil below.
He could feel their questioning gazes and turned slightly, his blowing blue eyes calm as still water.
"They are no longer children," he said. "They are gods now, each capable of facing what comes their way. If I were to act, it would only muddy the waters further, wouldn't it, brother?"
His gaze fell upon Crepuscular, whose form flickered between lights.
Crepuscular held Jaus's eyes for a moment before looking away, his silence speaking louder than any protest. All three of them understood the weight of what he did not say. If Jaus were to intervene, then Crepuscular would have no choice but to respond as well.
For the western continent, the lands now trembling under the ascended god Tide's fury was Crepuscular's claim. And to allow another Origin god, even a sibling, to act freely upon his domain would tarnish his image and call his authority into question before all divine eyes.