The shrine breathed with her.

Ebonheim sat cross-legged on living wood that had grown into the shape of a meditation platform, smooth as polished stone but warm as sunlit bark.

Around her, the sacred space pulsed with subtle life—vines that grew in slow spirals up columns of ancient oak, water that flowed upward in defiance of natural law to pool in hanging gardens of moss and fern, eternal spring blossoms that never quite fell but drifted in lazy circles on currents of air that smelled of new growth and old earth.

Her demesne. The physical manifestation of her divine essence, tucked away in a hidden grove where the boundary between her domain and her self grew thin enough to blur.

Usually, this place brought peace. Today, it felt like a cage.

Intelligence reports lay scattered across the platform before her—Evelyne's precise sensor readings marked with crystalline notation, Th'maine's spidery handwriting documenting artifact signatures and corruption patterns, Ryelle's blunt observations about empty smiles and synchronized movements.

The papers rustled in the windless air, responding to her agitation.

A hand carved from stone that wasn't stone. Four fingers, perfect anatomy. An eye in the palm that shifted colors when observed. Pulsing like a heartbeat. Broadcasting constantly.

She picked up one of Th'maine's sketches, studying the artifact's rendered form. The old arcanist had captured something in his drawing that went beyond mere shape—a sense of wrongness, an impression of influence bleeding outward from the image.

Gentle compulsion. Invisible chains. Thoughts reshaped so slowly, so carefully, that victims never knew they'd lost themselves.

"Gentle," she whispered to the empty shrine. "He made it gentle."

That was what haunted her most.

Xellos hadn't broken his people. He'd simply... guided them. Shaped them. Made them want exactly what he wanted them to want. Clean streets and full bellies and perfect order, all bought with the small price of surrendering the messy, complicated, beautiful chaos of genuine thought.

The vines around her platform had stopped their slow spiral, responding to her mood. The water's upward flow stuttered, droplets hanging suspended like teardrops refusing to fall.

How long had she been sitting here?

The light filtering through her shrine's canopy hadn't changed—time moved strangely in this space, bending to her will or her emotion. She could spend hours here and return to find minutes had passed outside. Or the reverse.

Today, she suspected it was the reverse. Hours passing in the world while she sat paralyzed by indecision.

She set down the sketch and closed her eyes, letting her awareness sink deeper into the shrine's essence. Into her own history, looking for... what? Guidance? Precedent? Some moment in her past that would tell her what kind of goddess she was meant to be?

The memories rose like spring water from deep earth.

Eighteen years ago.

She remembered light. That was her first memory—not darkness giving way to illumination, but simply being light. Existing as pure possibility, condensed and aware but not yet physical.

The world had been sensation without interpretation: the rough texture of wooden beams overhead, the acrid scent of pipe smoke and spilled mead, the rumble of voices that resolved into words only gradually.

"...call her Ebonheim, after the trees. Unity of the village and its goddess."

Engin's voice.

She hadn't known his name then, hadn't known what names were, but she'd recognized something in his tone. Conviction wrapped around doubt. Hope fighting exhaustion. A man who'd lost too much trying to believe in one more thing.

She'd wanted to help him. That impulse had come before language, before thought—just pure, unfiltered wanting to ease the weight she'd felt in his words.

And so she'd tried to take form.

The first attempt had been... problematic.

Even now, nearly two decades later, she felt a ghost of that early embarrassment. Manifesting as a mote of light had been easy—staying in that form, comfortable.

But she'd wanted to speak, to interact, to be among her people rather than just above them. So she'd reached for the image they'd painted in their mead-soaked imaginations: a young girl with earthy flesh and flowing hair, clothed in clouds and sunlight.

She'd managed the girl. The rest had been... approximate.

Her first physical steps had carried her directly into a briar patch behind the shrine they'd built for her. The thorns had hurt—her first experience with pain—and the indignity had hurt worse. A goddess, trapped in brambles, unable to dematerialize because she didn't yet know how, waiting for dawn when someone might find her.

When old Doyle had discovered her there, she'd been so relieved that she'd manifested right in front of him. The poor man's heart had nearly stopped from shock.

She'd saved him, barely, by instinctively purchasing the Ailment Cleansing Pulse ability through the Akashic System.

That had been her introduction to her nature—the System appearing in her awareness like a door she'd always had but never noticed. Scrolling through abilities, spending Essence, learning that she could buy divinity in ways other gods apparently couldn't.

You are different, the realization had whispered through her nascent consciousness. Created, not born. Artificial, not natural.

The word "artificial" had felt like an accusation then. It took her years to embrace it as identity.

The memories flowed faster now, her divine consciousness pulling threads from the tapestry of her existence.

The Kungwan War. Her first real test.

Those grotesque, frog-like monsters that had erupted from the Magitech gateway, parasitizing hosts, reproducing through horror. She'd been so young then, barely understanding her powers, but her people had needed her. So she'd fought, and bled, and learned that divine constitution meant wounds healed but fear didn't fade.

She'd killed so many during that war.

The memory of it still sat strange in her chest—both necessary and terrible. The Kungwan Alpha's dissolution under her Essence Bolt. The knowledge that ending its existence had saved dozens of her people.

Did the rightness of the outcome justify the act? Or did justification itself corrupt the moral calculus?

Roderick's caravan arriving like a gift and a challenge. Nearly five thousand people appearing at her borders—the Artificers fleeing divine persecution, the Silverguards seeking honest employment, the Hrafnsteinn exiles looking for home, the Gorgandale miners escaping their abusive god.

Her little village of seven hundred swelling overnight into something that could barely be called a village anymore.

She remembered the terror of that responsibility. What if she couldn't feed them? What if she failed them the way their previous gods had? What if her artificial nature meant she lacked some essential divine quality that real gods possessed?

But Engin had stood beside her, and Hilda had offered wisdom, and somehow they'd made it work. The settlement had grown not according to plan but through improvisation and collective effort. Chaotic. Messy. Alive.

The Verdant Pathway expedition.

Her first ventures beyond her domain, traveling with Thorsten and Ingrid and Lorne into unknown territories. Fighting the Abyssal Dweller in darkness absolute. Navigating the Miasma of Dejection that fed on despair. Discovering Cepheid—another artificial being, an ancient Aetherframe that recognized something kindred in her constructed nature.

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Meeting Liselotte had taught her that different didn't mean wrong. The Harpy Queen was brutal, pragmatic, ruthlessly honest about the law of strength. But she was also protective of her people, bound by her own code of honor.

Not all leaders needed to be gentle to be good. Not all leadership looked like nurturing care.

But Ebonheim wasn't Liselotte. And trying to be would destroy what made her herself.

Xellos.

The name sat in her mind like a splinter she couldn't extract.

The "rescue" from Old Drakon Castle. His apparent vulnerability, the Godblight curse that had seemed so real. His stories of rejection and loneliness that had resonated with her own fears of inadequacy. The gradual way she'd let her guard down, convinced herself that he was just another lost god seeking redemption.

Two years of minimal contact while he disappeared to "find himself."

Then his dramatic return, saving Gareth's caravan from Bog Trolls with overwhelming shadow magic. The settlers' gratitude as they founded Corinth under his patronage. His perfect, reasonable explanations for everything.

She'd been so naive.

Or had she? Part of her had known something was wrong. Kelzryn had warned her. The discordant hum she'd felt from Corinth. The too-perfect order. The empty smiles.

But she'd wanted to believe in redemption. Wanted to think that gods could change, could choose to be better. Because if Xellos could find his way from darkness to light, then maybe her artificial nature didn't matter. Maybe anyone could become what they chose to be.

Except he'd never been lost. He'd been hunting.

And she'd been prey too stupid to run.

Ebonheim opened her eyes, finding her shrine had responded to her darkening mood. The vines had grown thorns. The eternal spring blossoms had wilted at their edges. The upward-flowing water had stopped entirely, droplets hanging frozen in mid-ascent like a sob caught in a throat.

She stood, pacing the platform's perimeter, needing movement to contain the restlessness building in her chest.

Eighteen years. That's all she'd been alive. Eighteen years of stumbling through divinity, learning through trial and error, making mistakes and somehow surviving them. Most gods had centuries, millennia even, to figure themselves out before facing challenges like this.

She commanded a city of thirty thousand now. Thirty thousand souls looking to her for protection, for guidance, for justice. She couldn't know all their names anymore. Couldn't walk the streets and greet each person individually. She'd become something distant, abstract—a symbol rather than a person.

Is this what it meant to grow up? To trade intimacy for responsibility? To become the thing others needed rather than the thing you were?

And now Corinth.

Eight thousand people living comfortable slavery, believing themselves free because the chains were made of whispered suggestions rather than iron. Eight thousand people she could save by imposing her will, conquering in kindness's name, becoming exactly what Engin had fled when he brought his refugees to this valley.

We fled from gods who treated us exactly that way.

She heard his voice as if he stood beside her. That quiet, bone-deep certainty. The weight of lived experience in every syllable.

If she marched into Corinth and broke Xellos's hold, she would be acting as every other god acted—deciding what was best for mortals, imposing her vision of the good, demanding nothing except that they accept her benevolence.

But if she didn't act, eight thousand people would remain slaves. And Xellos would return in thirty days to resume his control.

The choice was impossible. Both options betrayed something essential.

Act, and betray her principles.

Don't act, and betray the people suffering under Xellos's thumb.

"There's no right answer," she said aloud, her voice filling the shrine with echoes. "Both choices hurt someone."

The shrine pulsed around her, responding to her turmoil. Light flickered across the moss-covered walls in patterns that almost looked like words. Her divine essence made manifest, trying to offer comfort in the only way it knew how.

But what comfort could there be? This was the price of power—having the ability to help meant bearing the weight of choosing how to help. Or whether helping at all was the right thing to do.

She was so tired of questions without answers.

A familiar presence registered at the edge of her awareness. Ancient. Protective. Concerned.

Kelzryn had come.

She didn't turn as the dragon entered her shrine, respecting the sanctity of the space by approaching slowly, announcing himself through the one-sided spiritual bond that let him sense her location and emotional state.

"You've been here a long time," he said, his humanoid form materializing from shadows that shouldn't exist in her well-lit sanctuary. Azure light pulsed in the cracks of his skin, echoing the bioluminescence of deep-earth places. "I felt your distress."

"I'm fine."

"You're catastrophizing." He settled onto the platform's edge, legs dangling over the side like a child on a too-high wall. The ancient dragon wearing youth like an ill-fitting costume. "I can feel it through our bond. The spiral of worst-case scenarios and impossible choices."

She finally turned to face him, finding his expression gentler than his words. "If I act, I become what I oppose. If I don't act, Xellos wins. Tell me which catastrophe to avoid."

"You're not catastrophizing, then." He tilted his head, studying her with eyes that had witnessed empires rise and crumble. "You're being accurate. The situation is impossible."

"That's not helpful."

"Truth rarely is." He gestured at the reports scattered across the platform. "But you already know what you're going to do. You've known since Ryelle returned. You're just hoping someone will give you permission to act, or permission not to. Absolution for whatever you choose."

"I don't—" She stopped, recognizing the truth in his observation. "I don't want to choose. I want there to be a right answer."

"There isn't one." Kelzryn's voice carried the weight of centuries. "I've watched gods face this dilemma for longer than your entire civilization has existed. The paradox of power: having it means using it, but using it means potentially abusing it. There's no clean resolution."

Ebonheim sank back onto the platform, suddenly exhausted. "Then what do I do?"

"You decide which wrong you can live with." He paused, then added more gently, "And I can tell you what other gods are thinking, if that helps."

She looked up sharply. "What do you mean?"

"Divine politics are already in motion." His expression turned grim. "Xellos's defeat didn't happen in isolation. Gods talk. Word spreads. And an indisposed god means an unclaimed domain."

Cold settled in her stomach. "Someone's going to claim Corinth."

"Multiple someones are considering it. The Eldergrove accord was supposed to keep outside gods from establishing domains in this valley. But you and Xellos had broken that precedent when you both founded your respective domains. Now the accord is meaningless. The valley is fair game."

She wanted to laugh at the absurdity, but the sound caught in her throat. "So my choice isn't whether to intervene. It's whether I intervene before someone worse does."

"Worse?" Kelzryn's laugh was bitter. "Ebonheim, you're measuring yourself against the absolute worst examples of divinity and calling yourself a failure for not matching their ruthlessness. Most gods would have claimed Corinth the instant Xellos fell. You're agonizing over preserving the agency of people who don't currently have any."

"Because forcing freedom on them makes me the same as Xellos!"

"No." His voice hardened. "It doesn't. Intent matters. Method matters. You're not Xellos because you're questioning whether you have the right to act. He never questioned. He simply took what he wanted and dressed it in pleasant words."

The shrine's vines had begun moving again, responding to the shift in her emotional state. Not spiraling upward now, but reaching toward Kelzryn as if seeking the ancient stability he represented.

"I don't know how to save them without betraying what I am," she admitted quietly.

"Then maybe that's your answer." He met her eyes, azure depths reflecting light that had no source. "You can't save them. You can only give them the choice they don't currently have, and accept whatever they decide. Break Xellos's hold. Remove the compulsion. Then step back and let them choose their own path, even if they choose wrong."

"And if they invite him back?"

"Then you'll have learned that freedom includes the freedom to make terrible decisions." His smile held no comfort. "But you'll have remained yourself. And that matters more than you think."

She sat with that for a long moment, feeling truth settle into her bones like deep cold.

"There's more," Kelzryn said, and something in his tone made her look up sharply. "The Divine Auction is soon. You should attend."

"I'm not in the mood for divine commerce."

"It's not about buying artifacts. It's about information." He leaned forward, intensity burning in his expression. "Gods will be there. Including some who are already calculating their approach to Corinth. If you're going to act—or prevent others from acting—you need to understand what you're facing."

The weight settled back onto her shoulders, heavier than before. It wasn't enough to struggle with her own choice. She had to navigate divine politics, prevent worse interventions, protect people who might not want her protection.

She looked around her shrine, seeing it with new eyes. This space that had always felt like sanctuary now felt like a hiding place.

A beautiful cage she'd built to avoid the messy, complicated world beyond her domain.

She willed the Akashic System to manifest before her. The countdown to the auction's opening still displayed on the shimmering projection.

"Three days."

She stood, straightening her shoulders, feeling the mantle of divinity settle heavier than before. The reports at her feet rustled in a wind that came from nowhere, pages turning as if pointing toward an inevitable future.

"Thank you," she said to Kelzryn. "For being honest."

"That's all I can offer." He rose as well, shadows gathering around him in preparation to depart. "The choice is still yours. But make it soon. The thirty-day window shrinks with every passing hour."

He faded into the darkness he'd brought with him, leaving Ebonheim alone in her shrine once more.

But the solitude felt different now. Less like meditation, more like preparation.

She had three days to decide what kind of goddess she wanted to be.

Three days to find a way to save eight thousand people without losing herself in the process.

Three days before divine politics forced her hand one way or another.

She looked down at the reports one more time, then began gathering them with steady hands. The Auction awaited. And beyond it, Corinth—that beautiful lie built on gentle chains and comfortable slavery.

Somewhere in the next few days, she would find her answer.

Or the answer would find her.

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