Not quite at the start of it all, but very far from today, the race of man was far past saving. The king of the gods, Zeus, told a rare good man named Deucalion to save himself and his wife from the soon-to-come end of days. After nine days of flooding, all was destroyed, and Deucalion barely survived in his ark atop Mount Parnassus. One race of men was destroyed and a new one took his place, an entire population remade from stone. Sometimes, when the world does not suit you, you must make another. A better one. One who knows enough to fear you.

You can hear whispering whenever you shut your eyes, and when you open them, too. It is a familiar sound, voices you recognize in dreams and memories, but not here. Never here. Never here, until you saw one of them at sea and another in your own home, and suddenly nothing was safe at all. You have screamed to the empty, derelict heavens that you do not fear the ghosts of your past, but they know enough to not believe you.

Aleksander is tense. So are you. You've finally gathered enough information to know with certainty of Alina's survival as well as her location. She's collecting allies like gemstones, and if there's one thing you've learned from centuries of warfare, it's that it's best to nip things like this in the bud before they grow too quickly. It would not do for Alina Starkov to rally an army. You would rather kill her while she is still killable, even if more and more people are clamoring by the day that her Sainthood is not to be questioned.

You don't fault Alina for the title, though. The urge to imagine yourself as something wondrous is astonishingly powerful. No matter how much she says that all she wants is a quiet life with her tracker from the orphanage, there will always be some part of her that lingers over the gold threaded keftas, the shouts of her supporters, the thrumming need to be important. We all have it. Alina is no exception, even if she'd like to be.

You and Aleksander plot your attack carefully, thoroughly, leaving no room for error. There are too many places for things to go wrong, and you will not have this attempt foiled. You have allies that would die for your version of what Ravkan Grisha should be, you have Aleksander's merzost creations, and you have your spells. All good things, all capable of tearing Alina's resistance to shreds.

The timing of it all is a different story. You need everyone there but distracted. The Ravkan soldiers should be tipsy, they should be distracted at their watch. No one should know you're coming until you're already there, until their base runs red with blood. Only then will you be able to end this.

The perfect bit of information reaches you soon enough. Alina may have found a strong ally in Nikolai Lantsov, younger son of the Ravkan king and infinitely more wily, but she is hemmed in by the other Lantsov brother, Vasily. Vasily, who is smarting every second that he is in the same hiding place as all of them, who cannot avoid the fact that his brother is a thousand times better at everything than him.

Vasily has spread invitations to esteemed Ravkan nobles, encouraging them to all travel to a place called the Spinning Wheel for the engagement party of Nikolai and Alina. Given that sort of occasion, it should be quite the spectacle indeed, the perfect opportunity for you and Aleksander to strike.

You watched Aleksander's face as one of your scouts relayed the news of Alina's engagement. It was a surprise; you expected Alina to never leave her little tracker, but you suppose politicking is important, too. This is a superb union. A saint and a prince? You couldn't write a better story yourself.

He's surprised too, you think. Aleksander. He prides himself on knowing Alina better than she knows herself, but you don't miss the way his hands clench at his sides. It makes your stomach turn, and when you force yourself to switch the topic of conversation to war planning again before either of you can make a mistake, you swear you hear Hera's cold laughter in the back of your head.

You leave in the dead of night, nichevo'ya in tow and ready to kill. A combination of your spells and Aleksander's living shadows is all that is necessary to cover your presence; on a cloudy night like tonight, with all eyes fixated on the festivities within, no guard is looking hard enough to spot you. Even if they did, all they would see would be shapeless shadow, not the killers within.

It is an easy, easy thing to break inside. Almost like opening the unlocked door of a friend's house. A slow grin crosses your face as you descend. You can see the scene playing out: a blond prince's perfect poise transforming to panic as he realizes what his brother has done, an elder brother making a nuisance of himself for that one final chance to get in the last word.

And then there is the shatter of breaking glass, the piercing din of screams, the thick, heavy scent of copper in the air as blood is shed. Aleksander's merzost creatures snatch up the elder Lantsov prince with ease, ripping off an arm before brutally killing him. Some of Alina's Grisha attempt to fight off the shadowy monsters, but they're stopped by thick cords of emerald magic. You have not had the chance to fight like this in a long time, and your spells revel in the chance to take control at last.

Aleksander's eyes flash to a hallway on the opposite side of the grand chamber, where you can just see a small crowd of Grisha tugging Alina to safety. You shout for him to follow her, and he disappears in a flash, walking calmly after them like a predator pursuing limping, bloodied prey. You have seen Aleksander hunt before, both at his side and as his target. He does not let anything escape him, not when he craves it like this.

That leaves the rest of the enemy Grisha and First Army as your victims. You descend upon them in a storm, a symphony of shouted spells and raised hands. They never stood a chance. They will fall easily, easily.

Just as your confidence is certain, though, you see something. Someone. It comes in flickers, so slow you half think you're hallucinating until you see it again. There, across the room, the flash of an ancient bronze weapon, the style of which hasn't been used for centuries. There is a Heartrender currently trying to kill you, and when his kefta rises with his raised hands, his exposed shins flash with greaves. A moment later, they're gone. Then they're back, coming and going until you slice off his legs and they vanish for good.

You look up and the signs of it are everywhere around you. The woman you're fighting has eyes of coal, and she laughs when she dies, she laughs like a madman drunk on all the violence you've created. You see plumes of red horsehair rising from bronze helmets. The waving scarlet strands spatter and bend like blood, popping up in every corner of the room.

An Etherealki marches towards you, spear leveled towards your chest. No, not metal, water from their gift, but you cannot tell the difference. You send a spell spiraling at them and they block it with a shield. There's a head fastened on the front of it, the visage of a monster with waving snakes for hair and fangs jutting from its lips. You kill the Etherealki and the shield clatters to the floor, gone in an instant, but you cannot stop the dread from creeping over your heart like stone.

It is too much, all too much. The ghosts are everywhere, threatening to choke you out. No matter how you look, where you turn your head, you get the sense of someone standing just outside your peripheral vision. A man, leaning against a wall; walking out from around a fallen table; peering at the dead with a grim sense of satisfaction: Ares. Of course he of all the gods would be here to witness this sort of destruction.

The thought makes you sick with fury. How dare he come here, to mock you or try to stir you from your path? How dare any of them think they have the right to affect you? You prayed for hours, days, when the last of them died. Why is it that they only come to you now when you've finally grown out of your need for them?

You spread your arms, feeling your power surge. It occurs to you that you have a say in this too, who shows up to see you. You don't want any of them anymore. They can crawl back to their Underworld to live out their deaths without bothering you ever again. The scream starts in the back of your throat, building in intensity until you can't tell whether the walls are shaking from the force of your spell or the magnitude of your voice. No more, you declare, no more. You shall have no hold on me, nor anyone I love. Go back to your deaths. You are gods no longer, only brittle bones to break under my feet.

There's a ringing in your ears when you finally open your eyes. You've sunk to your knees, although you don't remember the fall. Your pulse leaps, remembering the fight, the danger you should be in, but no attack comes your way.

The reason for that makes itself known soon enough. There is no one left to fight you because there is no one left alive. Scanning the room, you see only broken bodies, arms outstretched and faces locked in horror. You killed them all, slaughtered them like insects. Like the outsiders slaughtered your own people. This is a death like you swore would never happen again.

Yet it did happen, and worse, it happened by your own hands. Didn't you pledge to Aleksander that you would make a new, better world for the Grisha? Didn't you promise that you would protect every last one of them? Looking at the fallen bodies, how their blood darkens their clothes and keftas, the terrible thought strikes you that perhaps Alina was right to want you dead. If she had succeeded in murdering you on the sandskiff, all of these Grisha would be alive.

There's a girl at your feet, eyes wide even in death. She must have been just like you, without a family save for the other practitioners of the Small Science around her in this refuge, and you killed her. You killed all of them. How does that make you better than the ones who murdered the Hellenids? How does this make a better, safer world?

You stand slowly, brushing someone's blood from your sleeves. Your head is shockingly empty of voices or whispers. Perhaps your attempt to scare them off actually succeeded and the gods can no longer reach you, or perhaps they are so horrified by what you've done that they have given up on ever trying to save you.

Aleksander is standing in an empty room, staring at a caved in section of a wall. You take it by the lack of Sun Summoner that Alina and her friends escaped again.

He speaks without looking at you. "I will find her. I will scour the land until I do. She cannot be far."

It takes everything in you to stand up straight and keep yourself from breaking apart. You wonder why it is that Aleksander is still so fixated on his revenge that he cannot notice that. Didn't he tell you that he always knew you best? If he did, then why can't he tell that something is very, very wrong with you?

Aleksander is silent, and you realize that he's waiting for you to respond, to agree that you'll hunt Alina down to the ends of the universe. Right now, though, you are tired, and unhappily aware of the fact that you may be doing something wrong.

Instead of giving him the answer he wants, you sigh and tell him otherwise. "I'm going back," you say, and offer no explanation.

That seems to confuse him, but your expression is resolute and he must be able to tell that he isn't going to persuade you otherwise, so he nods and says his farewells.

You make your way to the base once more. The few Grisha who dare to look you in the eyes (they fear you and Aleksander both, but even still, the news of your attack on Alina has brought them new worries) give no sign of their current mood regarding your sudden arrival. They won't know what happened at the Spinning Wheel until you say it, but you think you're content to let Aleksander break that news. Who knows what twist he'll put on it. You doubt if even you will know it was a success until he decides that it was.

You decide to take the longer route to your study, the one that takes you outside instead of through the twisting inner passages. On your way over, you turn a corner to see Genya standing before her. One glance past her reveals Baghra hidden in the forest beyond, evidently waiting for the Tailor to follow her to safety.

Genya remains stock still, absolutely petrified. They must have seized the opportunity of you and Aleksander being away to escape their cage. You cannot blame them for trying; since their arrival here, Baghra has lost a finger and Genya has been robbed of her beauty. This was their only chance to find freedom.

You look from Genya to Baghra again. The elder woman's back stiffens, and her eyes regard you without fear, only curiosity as to what you'll do next. You're somewhat ashamed to admit that you haven't been to visit her once since she was installed at your hideaway. It's almost as if you knew she would be able to talk sense into you that your gods couldn't.

Briefly, you remember what had happened when you arrived at the Little Palace months ago, under the guise of Y/N Stassov, resident cartographer and friend of Alina. You had revealed yourself to Baghra almost immediately, and in return, she had protected you from her son. What have you given her in return except for suffering and a life of fear?

You turn back to Genya, and jerk your chin towards the forest. "Take the southern bend around the river. Baghra knows the way. If you stick by the cliff face, he shouldn't find you. You have time now to avoid him if you hurry."

Genya stares at you with shock, but when you refuse to attack her, she takes your advice and runs. Baghra remains a moment longer, looking at you with that same cool gaze. She nods slowly at you once before melting back into the trees. You stand there for a long time, even after they leave, but you feel no pang of regret, no sensation that you've done the wrong thing. In fact, one thread of guilt seems to unravel itself from your gaudy tapestry. You may have done wrong tonight, but at least it wasn't by them.

Aleksander comes back some time later. You wordlessly show him the empty cage, and watch as he storms about in rage. He does not suspect you in the slightest. Technically, you were not the one to free them, but you could have brought them back. You didn't, and he cannot see through you enough to realize that.

Again, you wonder how he could have known you for so long but still be unable to read you when it matters the most. There's a chink in your armor if he would only look, but instead Aleksander condemns himself to his rage, his revenge. Not yours. Never yours.

The slow, unhappy thought occurs to you that this is another beginning, not of a start but of the end. Pity how the good things never last.