I didn't bother showing them the rest of the Singularity. It wasn't pretty. Under the threat of humanity's incineration, I did my best to save humanity—but what I saw humanity as, and what humanity saw, were two different things.
A god sees spirit. They see soul. They see essence—and in essence, every human is the same.
It was a completely anti-human way of viewing humans.
And back then, I had seen humans like that. So I wanted to save only those who were truly pure—those souls who wouldn't collapse under the weight of their own eternity.
The room was tense as the illusion disappeared. What they had seen was shocking.
Horrifying.
I could see it in their eyes—the shock.
"Sir Rogers," I turned to him, "I didn't show you that because I wanted you to become afraid of me, afraid of my knights. I want you to understand that what we did was wrong." I admitted.
Sir Bedivere opened his mouth to speak up, but I raised a hand to keep him quiet. "My knights… they followed me despite not agreeing with me. They had their own reasons, as did those who didn't bend their knee."
I turned to my knights. "I do not blame any of you. You did what you felt was right. You couldn't follow a king who had no human heart—and to those who did…" I looked at the few. "Thank you. And… sorry. Sorry that I forced you to do that. But your loyalty—I know—is beyond question."
"There was one knight," I said, looking right into Sir Bedivere's eyes, "one who didn't kneel, didn't turn against me—one who didn't answer my call."
I held his gaze.
"That knight was the one who helped me regain my human heart… and realize that what I did was wrong."
"Thank you, Sir Bedivere, for your sacrifice." I lowered my head slightly, then looked back at Steve.
"Steve Rogers… you are weak. The weakest of the Illuminati." I didn't say it cruelly. I didn't say it to shame him. "But you are the most important person there—the most important role. The real reason you had to be there is because the Illuminati needs a human heart."
I let the words hang in the air.
"You are weak," I repeated, not cruelly, not dismissively, but plainly. "You cannot bend reality. You cannot command armies with a word. You cannot rewrite the world by force of will."
Steve did not argue.
"But you feel loss," I continued. "You feel the weight of a single death. You see a face, not a statistic. You hesitate where others calculate."
I stepped closer, close enough that he had to look up at me.
"That is why you matter."
The knights were silent now—not bristling, not offended. Listening.
"The Illuminati does not need another god," I said. "It does not need another king, another genius, another tyrant who believes they alone know what must be done." My gaze flicked briefly to where I knew Doom would one day stand. "It needs a reminder of what is lost when decisions are made without cost."
Steve swallowed.
"You fear me," I said. "Good. You should."
I straightened.
"But understand this, Sir Rogers: I do not sit above humanity because I wish to rule it. I stand above humanity because I am not like you. I have a human heart, but it is only a small part of me. Far more wants me to act like a Divine Spirit."
Suddenly, I felt tired. I let out a sigh, then returned to my throne.
"Fear me. I allow it. I welcome it. But do not see me as a threat, and do not stand against me." My voice cooled. "Mortals can't stand against a god."
I knew it wasn't entirely true. There had been mortals who reached the divine—who killed gods. Legendary god-slayers.
People worth respecting.
But those who could reach that stage were truly few and far between. And even though the Illuminati was filled with extraordinary people, I doubted they had any who reached that level.
Plus, I didn't want to give them ideas—not because I was afraid, but because I knew.
I knew that if they stood against me, I wouldn't be able to hold back.
Whatever I was—king or goddess—I wouldn't allow myself to be challenged like that.
Steve took a few moments to take it all in. He had been shocked by what he saw—frightened, horrified.
And he had more questions than ever. He didn't understand why I had shown him—what the point was.
And maybe… that was the point.
To not try to understand the mind of a god.
Still, he couldn't just accept all this.
"Tell me," he said at last, "how did Sir Bedivere return your human heart?"
Of all the many questions he had, this was the first he asked—because if I turned evil, he really didn't want to fight me.
I had saved Earth. And he knew that I was a kind person—someone who did what she could to help people. He wanted to know what he could do to save me if something happened.
"Excalibur," I told him honestly. "He returned Excalibur to me." As I spoke, I summoned the blade into my hands.
"Excalibur," I began, "isn't a normal sword. It's not forged by mortal hands, nor meant to fight mortal foes. It is the Sword of Promised Victory—the sword that shall save the world, that has saved the world. A sword of pure good."
As I spoke, Excalibur came alive, and a golden glow covered the blade, making it seem like the sword was made from pure light. "My lance, Rhongomyniad, turned me into a god. And the sword reminded me of my time as a king."
I could guess why he asked, because he was a kind man. He wasn't like Fury—like Doom—people who would want to find a weakness, who would plan for a fight with me on the chance that I turned evil.
Instead, he only thought about how he could help me.
"So," he said carefully, "if something like that ever happens again—if you start to lose yourself—"
"You can't give me something I already have," I said at once. "If I love my humanity, then there is nothing you can do. But do not worry—I doubt it will come to that."
"That," I said, closing my eyes briefly, "is why the Illuminati exists. Not to judge gods. Not to control them."
A faint smile touched my lips.
"But to remind the world—and those above it—why humanity does not need me to save them. That you can save yourselves. That the world isn't ending… not as long as there are people like you to save it."
…
Steve still had many questions, and I did my best to answer them.
He didn't come only to talk about me as a possible threat; he also came to have many other questions answered. Clearly, the Illuminati saw me as a potential source of information.
Someone who could answer their questions about gods, and aliens, and magic, and legends.
And I couldn't blame them.
I had given them a heavy responsibility, and they naturally wanted a better idea of what awaited them out there.
Not that they would face it alone. I wouldn't just sit back.
No—the Illuminati had their role, mainly ensuring that I didn't have to deal with everything myself.
The world was filled with problems—ugly ones—and I couldn't just stand by and watch injustice happen before my eyes.
Still, I was a king, the ruler of Albion, so I couldn't go around dealing with everything on my own.
Some problems my knights could handle. Others, my Veiled Hand. And now even more could be handled by the Illuminati.
Allowing me instead to focus on the bigger things.
-----
Mordred pushed open the doors to the mess hall, expecting noise.
She got silence instead.
Not the comfortable kind, either. Not the low murmur of knights unwinding after duty. This was the kind of silence that pressed down on the shoulders, thick enough to taste.
She stopped just inside the doorway.
Every table was occupied. Helmets sat untouched. Plates half-full, forgotten. Knights who could laugh in the face of dragons now stared into cups, hands folded, jaws tight.
Heads bowed.
Mordred frowned.
"…What the hell happened?" she asked.
No one answered.
She walked farther in, boots echoing too loudly on the stone floor. That was when she noticed it—how no one met her eyes. How even the loud ones, the brash ones, the ones who usually gave her grief, suddenly found the floor very interesting.
Something twisted in her gut.
She spotted Gawain first.
He sat straight-backed as ever, but the light that always seemed to cling to him was dimmer—muted. His hands were clasped together, knuckles white.
"Oi," Mordred said, stopping by his table. "Sunshine. You look like someone kicked your dog."
Gawain didn't look up.
That was wrong enough that it made her skin crawl.
She turned slowly, scanning the room again.
Tristan sat alone, harp untouched beside him, eyes unfocused—as if listening to something no one else could hear.
Lancelot sat rigid, staring at nothing, guilt practically radiating off him in waves so strong it was nauseating.
Agravain stood near the wall, arms crossed, expression carved from stone—except for the tension in his jaw, tight enough to crack.
Bedivere wasn't seated at all.
He stood near the far end of the hall, hands folded, head bowed, looking older than Mordred had ever seen him.
"…Alright," she muttered. "This is officially weird."
She looked back at Gawain.
"Did someone die?"
That finally got a reaction.
Gawain's shoulders shifted—just barely.
"…No," he said quietly.
Mordred's frown deepened. "Then what?"
He hesitated.
Then, slowly, he looked up at her.
There was no anger in his eyes.
No—instead they held something else. Something strange.
Mordred looked around, and many of them were watching her, and their eyes all held a different feel than they normally did.
She sometimes felt them judging her—judging her for her rebellion—a mix of anger and doubt in their eyes, as if guarding against whether she would do it again.
But now? Some of them seemed guilty, as if they had somehow betrayed Father…
But that was impossible… right?
Father had already said that if anyone did that, he would kill them.
Mordred quickly looked around again, checking if anyone was missing—but no. They were all there. Even Agravain, who sat deep in thought, and he rarely ate with the rest of them.
She looked back at Gawain, clearly wanting an answer.
"We just…" he said, then exhaled. "We just had our loyalty tested. And many—many—didn't do well."
Mordred stared at him, more questions than ever. "What?"
Gawain just sighed again and shook his head, clearly not willing to talk about it.
In response, Mordred snorted angrily and ran off to find someone else to ask—someone who for sure wouldn't hide anything.
She ran off to find her father.
(End of chapter)
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