The silence that followed the clash between Rhaegalur's finger and the hero's enchanted steel was so thick it could be cut with a knife. The hero, his muscles still taut from the futile effort, did not recoil in fear. On the contrary, a crooked, mad smile crossed his scarred face. His eyes, bloodshot and clouded by alcohol, lit up with a spark of pure, brutal excitement. He felt the pressure emanating from Rhaegalur a gravitational force that seemed intent on crushing him to the ground yet that thrill of real danger seemed to wake him from his stupor.
"Interesting…" the hero slurred, slowly withdrawing the sword, which now bore a prominent crack. "An old man with metal fingers. It's been a lifetime since I felt a shiver like that down my spine."
Rhaegalur stared back with the coldness of a glacier. In that brief instant of proximity, the former Dragon God's gaze slid along the man's neck, right where the worn cloak had shifted. There, embedded in the rugged skin, was a dark mark a series of intertwined runes pulsing with a faint, violet light. It was almost identical to Hayjin's Mark.
The hero sheathed his blade with a theatrical gesture, grabbed the last bottle of beer from the merchant's table, and, without deigning to look at anyone, headed for the exit. "Not worth it today. I'm hungry… I never fight on an empty stomach, old man. You got lucky. But we'll meet again."
As soon as the door closed behind him, the inn exploded into excited chatter. The merchant and other patrons stepped forward, surrounding Rhaegalur with servile smiles.
"Sir, such courage! You gave that parasite a lesson!" the merchant exclaimed, trying to shake his hand. "Allow us to offer you dinner, or perhaps…"
"Get out of my sight," Rhaegalur thundered. His voice made the glasses on the tables rattle. "You mocked a man who fought for your lives when you were too cowardly to leave your cellars, and then you shook like leaves as soon as he raised a finger. You are pathetic. Out of here, all of you!"
The crowd dispersed in an instant, terrified by the man's fury. Rhaegalur turned toward the table, ready to tell Hayjin to gather his things so they could leave immediately. But the chair was empty. The plate of meat was still steaming, but there was no sign of the boy.
"Damn it…" Rhaegalur growled, realizing immediately that the boy's curiosity would be his undoing.
Outside, the evening air of Opes was crisp, but Hayjin didn't feel it. He had slipped away as soon as the hero had turned his back. He was following him through the narrow alleys leading toward the destroyed quarters, keeping his distance but with his eyes fixed on that dirty nape. He had seen the sign. He had seen it clearly when the candlelight hit it.
The hero stopped abruptly in a dead-end alley, surrounded by black marble rubble. He drained the last swig of beer and shattered the bottle against a wall. "Think you're invisible, brat?"
Hayjin stepped out of the shadows, his heart hammering against his ribs. "That mark on your neck…" he said, trying to keep his voice steady despite his stature making him seem insignificant. "It's like mine. You know what it is. You know how to go back, don't you? You have something to do with the Cult… don't you?"
The hero burst into a hoarse laugh that dissolved into a coughing fit. He turned, staggering toward Hayjin. "What does a brat like you know about the pain of this mark? You think it's a passport? It's a chain, you little idiot!"
In a sudden burst, fueled by anger repressed for years, the hero struck Hayjin in the face. The boy flew backward, crashing into a pile of debris. The metallic taste of blood immediately filled his mouth.
"Why did you follow me?" the hero screamed, grabbing him by the tunic and hoisting him off the ground. He struck him again in the stomach. "You want answers? You want to know if this sign made me the scum of the coast? Look at what I've become! I'm a wreck that reeks of piss and booze!"
Hayjin, despite the agonizing pain, spat blood onto the man's shoe. "You're just a coward... you have incredible power and you use it... to beat a child... say it! Say that this mark is the only thing you have left!"
"Admit it without Cross, you'd be nothing, you slimy piece of shit."
The hero threw him to the ground again and began to kick him. A few passersby stopped, watching the scene with horror, but the violent reputation of fallen heroes kept them at a distance. No one dared challenge a man with a sword, not even to save a child.
"Don't cross my path again, worm," the hero hissed, stopping only when he saw Hayjin curled on the ground, gasping. "If I see you again, I'll slit your throat and let your blood feed the rats of Opes."
The man staggered away into the shadows, leaving Hayjin in the mud and dust.
The alley was an open wound in the side of Opes, saturated with the smell of marble dust and urine, where the golden light of the magical lamps reached only as a dirty, sickly reflection. Hayjin was curled against a cold stone wall, the metallic taste of blood filling his mouth and his chest heaving in irregular, painful breaths.
A few moments later, a massive shadow obscured what little moonlight filtered into the alley. Rhaegalur knelt over Hayjin, lifting him with a gentleness that contrasted with the fury he emanated.
When Rhaegalur appeared, his presence seemed to physically displace the air. He didn't say anything at first. He simply observed the broken child, with his torn tunic and trampled dignity.
"Stay still," Rhaegalur said, passing a hand charged with warm energy over his face to soothe the bruises. "How do you feel?"
Hayjin coughed, spitting out another clump of blood. He tried to pull away, frustration burning hotter than his wounds. "I'm fine... let me go."
Rhaegalur leaned in, reaching a massive hand toward his face.
"Don't... touch me!" Hayjin hissed, swatting the hand away with a convulsive gesture. He tried to stand up, but his legs gave way, forcing him to slide back against the stone. The frustration exploded within him like an uncontrollable fire.
"Answer me, Hayjin. Why did you leave without telling me? Why did you follow that man?" Rhaegalur's voice was low, veined with an authority that allowed no argument.
"I just wanted... a breath of air," Hayjin lied, but Rhaegalur's golden gaze seemed to read his soul.
"Tell me the truth…" Rhaegalur said, visibly annoyed by Hayjin's behavior.
"Fine… I saw it, okay? When he left the inn, his cloak moved. He had the Mark, Rhaegalur! Just like mine. I thought that... if he's a hero and has that sign, then he's connected to the Cult. Maybe he knows how to reopen the passage. Maybe he's my key to getting back to my world."
Rhaegalur sighed, looking toward the spot where the hero had disappeared. "I noticed it too. But that mark isn't a blessing; it's a parasite. That man is likely a failed experiment of the Mark, a soldier injected with a curse he couldn't contain. Even if he knew something, he isn't capable of telling you. And causing a riot in Opes now would draw the Cult like rats to blood."
"I don't care about the mess it causes!" Hayjin screamed, tears of rage finally streaking his dirty face. "You don't understand! You're a God, Rhaegalur! You live in a beautiful cabin with a wife who loves you, in a world where you can fly and destroy mountains with a finger! If you were in my place, if you had been torn from your home, your life, your entire existence to be stuffed into the body of a brat in a world falling to pieces... wouldn't you do everything to go back? Wouldn't you risk your life for a single hope?"
Hayjin's speech echoed in the alley, heavy with profound psychological anguish. It was the cry of a man who felt his identity slipping away more each day, replaced by the biological needs and fragilities of a child.
"You think I'm pathetic, don't you?" Hayjin screamed, and this time his voice wasn't that of a child who had been slapped, but that of a man whose soul was screaming not to drown. "Look at this body! Look at these hands! I can't even defend myself from a drunkard! In my world... in my world I was someone. I had books, I had a future, I had a mind that people respected. Here I'm just a toy. A moving target for crazy cultists and armored failures!"
He grabbed his head with his hands, pulling his hair with a violence that made tears spring forth. "You talk about 'debts,' you talk about 'destiny,' but you have no idea what it means to lose the right to exist! Every time I look in the mirror and see this face, I die a little. This isn't an adventure for me, Rhaegalur! It's a lucid nightmare I'm trying to wake up from every second! That mark... that cursed sign on that hero's neck... it was my only lead. Maybe he's like me. Maybe he was dragged here from somewhere else, or maybe he knows how to tear the veil. If you were in my place, if you were stripped of every scale, every flame, and thrown into a world of ants that want to trample you... wouldn't you scream at the sky too? Wouldn't you try to get home with your nails and teeth, even at the cost of getting killed in a filthy alley?"
Hayjin was trembling violently. The psychological release was total; he was vomiting days of repressed terror, the mourning for his past life, and the hatred for his current weakness. He was a 23-year-old man begging not to be erased by the biology of a child.
Rhaegalur remained silent for a long time. His figure seemed to grow smaller, more human, as he knelt in the mud before him. He didn't interrupt; he didn't scold him for his recklessness. He waited for the echo of Hayjin's screams to die out against the silent walls of the city.
"Are you finished?" Rhaegalur asked, his voice a deep whisper, devoid of judgment.
"No... I'll never be finished hating this place," Hayjin replied, roughly wiping the blood from his lip.
"You're right, Hayjin. I cannot fully understand. Many of your human emotions... the nostalgia for a specific place, the attachment to a routine, the fear of losing what one has built... these are concepts that, for a being who has seen millennia pass, are hard to grasp. I have seen worlds born and die; I have changed name and form more times than you can count. For a God, time is a circle, not a line leading toward a future."
"Human emotions... this desperate need of yours for coherence, this attachment to what you call 'self'... for a long time, these were just biological curiosities to me. I saw mortals weeping for the loss of a life and thought: 'Why cry over a blink of an eye in eternity?'. But being with Elara, and now observing you, I'm starting to glimpse the weight of that suffering. I see that for you, returning to your world isn't a whim; it's the search for a soul you feel is dying. I'm trying to understand, Hayjin. I'm trying to empathize with a creature that sees its own end every day and defines itself through the memories of a lost world."
He paused, placing his hand on Hayjin's head. "I am trying. I am trying to understand your pain because I see it is real. Despite being a God, I am learning from humans what it means to be fragile and, at the same time, have the courage to be furious. But precisely because I want to help you, I cannot allow you to commit suicide by following a drunkard into an alley."
He turned toward the boy, and his golden eyes shone with a light that wasn't power, but a form of archaic and complex empathy.
"I'm not helping you just because I owe a favor to your lineage. I'm helping you because your fury reminds me that life, however short and fragile, has a dignity that we immortals have forgotten. But listen to me carefully: if you want to go back, if you truly want to reopen that door, you must stop acting like a man with wounded pride and start thinking like a survivor. That hero you followed… his mark isn't a portal. It's a parasite. It's what happens when the Cult tries to stuff the power of Alius into a container it doesn't belong in without the right key. If we don't protect yours, you'll meet his same end: a shadow screaming in the alleys, suspended between two worlds and belonging to neither."
Rhaegalur stood up, offering his hand this time with an open palm an invitation to mutual respect, not an order.
"I am a God learning to be a man. You are a man who must learn to be the Bearer of a divine power. If we collaborate, perhaps you will find your way back to London. But if you keep running toward death for a scrap of nostalgia, there will be nothing left of you to take home. Do you still want to go to the mage, or do you want to stay here crying over your wounds?"
Hayjin looked at that hand. It was enormous, scarred by work and time a hand that could crush steel but was lifting him with the fragility of glass. Slowly, with his bones still aching and his spirit exhausted, Hayjin took it.
Hayjin wiped his eyes, his breathing returning to normal. Rhaegalur's words had calmed him not because they gave him hope, but because they recognized his dignity as an individual.
"We must go now," Rhaegalur said, helping him to his feet. "We must make that mark permanently invisible. Only then can we move without being hunted at every single corner."
Hayjin nodded weakly, cleaning his tunic.
"Let's go," Hayjin said, his voice low but charged with a new, cold determination. "Let's go to this healer. But if he lies to me, Rhaegalur... I swear I'll find a way to destroy this kingdom too."
Rhaegalur gave a faint smile, an almost imperceptible gesture. "That's the spirit. Anger is an excellent fuel, as long as you're the one who decides when to light the fuse."
"Fine. Let's go to this mage, sorcerer, or whoever he is. Who is he? Another god hiding divine secrets?"
Rhaegalur gave a small smile as they set off toward the upper part of the city, where the spires touched the stars. "No. He is someone much more complicated. He is a surviving member of the Royal Family of Opes. One of the few who wasn't found by the Demon King, and who now lives in the shadows to protect what remains of this kingdom's magic."
Hayjin looked up toward the castle. The day had been infinite, but he felt that the real journey in Alius had only just begun. "Is it one of the princesses?"
"With her," Rhaegalur replied, "physical pain will be the least of your problems. It's the truth that will hurt you."