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Glory to my Proofreader: Solare. For he is one who points out mistakes and acts as my favourite wall to bounce ideas off of.
In this chapter, there's gonna be a lot of parts where Tarnished is gonna relay what Marika said to the others, so for the sake of convenience and expedience, I won't be writing him saying Marika's dialogue over to them every time. So just pretend he is relaying it every time.
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"…Why, Marika…?" Maliketh murmured, his voice ragged with the weight of countless years. "Why didst thou shatter the Elden Ring?"
Marika grimaced. She had known this question would come, she had expected it. But knowing was not the same as facing it. Not when it came from him.
Tarnished turned his head slightly, addressing her with genuine curiosity. "Yeah, that's… honestly a good question. I've always wondered. Why did you shatter the Elden Ring? Seemed like the catalyst for a whole lot of avoidable suffering."
Melina nodded slowly, her tone quiet, yet searching. "I, too, would know. The world still reels from that act. There must be a reason."
Marika let out a sigh, not a dramatic one, but a long and drawn out breath. It was the sigh of a god who had borne too much for too long.
She floated down from her cloud of grace and stepped barefoot onto the cold stone floor, moving toward a broken marble pillar. She sat upon it slowly, her eyes closing as if she were speaking to ghosts that only she could hear.
A long silence passed between them.
Then, softly but clearly, she spoke in Tarnished's mind. "Ask them this. Exactly as I say it: 'What do you think the Elden Ring is?'"
Tarnished blinked. That wasn't the answer he was expecting. Not even close.
"Huh… That's… a good question." He glanced down, chewing on the thought as if it tasted strange in his mouth. Then he looked up at Maliketh and Melina and relayed the question:
"Marika wants to know: What do you think the Elden Ring is?"
Both Maliketh and Melina stiffened at that. What had seemed like such a clear-cut question now felt impossibly layered. The answers they each began to form were not the same.
Maliketh was the first to speak, after a long, almost reverent pause.
"The Elden Ring is… a Contract." He said, his voice firm, resolute. "A divine order forged between gods and fate itself. It is balance made law, purpose given shape. For us, it was the foundation of duty. The spine of the Golden Order."
"To shatter it… was to forsake all that we strived and bled for. All that I was meant to protect." The Shadow continued with his jaw clenched, his golden eyes narrowing.
Melina's voice followed with the soft certainty of someone who still believed. "The Elden Ring is the root of Order. Not merely law, but harmony. A bond between the Erdtree, the people, and the Greater Will. It is what binds us to a higher purpose."
She looked gently toward Tarnished. "To see it shattered… Is to see our purpose scattered. But I believe it can be restored, made whole once again."
Both of them turned to Tarnished now. He rubbed his chin in thought, digesting their words—but more than that, reflecting on his journey. His mind drifted back to the Shadow of the Erdtree, to everything he'd seen…
The Gate of Divinity, where Miquella had become a God.
The haunting plea of Saint Trina, begging him to kill her other half, to end the Godhood she saw as a prison.
The cost of divinity was laid bare.
Tarnished nodded slowly, the answer was obvious.
"The Elden Ring is… A cage."
Both Maliketh and Melina stared at him in disbelief. Maliketh's expression darkened. Melina's brows drew together in quiet horror.
But Marika… she did not flinch. Her golden eyes merely widened slightly before a small, weary smile ghosted across her lips.
Tarnished continued, his voice steady. "The Elden Ring is like a circle closed too tightly. Sure, it governs the laws of creation for the Lands Between. But that's the problem, it's too rigid. It's unchanging. Stagnant."
He turned toward the others. "It's a promise made with golden chains. Shackles, handed down by the Greater Will to keep this world locked in a cycle it can't escape."
He looked at Marika directly now, eyes narrowing with realization.
"And although you, somehow, you managed to remove a part of it. The Rune of Death. Probably through some kind of trick or hidden mechanism… You couldn't change the Elden Ring's core nature. You couldn't rewrite the Order in your image."
He took a breath. It felt like truth, spoken aloud for the first time.
"So you shattered it. Because it no longer served the purpose you wished it to. Because it had become nothing more than a prison. A cage for Gods and Mortals alike."
Marika gave a bittersweet smile, a mix of pride and bitter melancholy dancing across her face. Her golden eyes shimmered faintly with something ancient, something heavy.
She sighed and muttered softly, "Of course… it would be thou to see the truth hidden between the lines. Though…" she tilted her head slightly, studying the Tarnished with a curious gaze, "I suppose thou hast an advantage in that regard. I can feel it within thee, thou knowst far more than thou hast let on."
Her eyes narrowed just slightly, not unkindly, but with fascination. "Especially about the Elden Ring and the Divinity therein. Thy description… is hauntingly close to the truth. As if thou had spoken to one who had endured something similar."
Tarnished smiled faintly, his eyes glinting with memory. "Remind me to tell you about Miquella's other half someday. A certain someone named Saint Trina."
"Something tells me…" Marika muttered as she gave a quiet laugh. "The tale will feel all too familiar..."
Then, her smile faded, replaced with a quiet resolve as she exhaled deeply. "But… returning to thy question. Yes. Thou art correct. The reason I shattered the Elden Ring was because I no longer had any other choice. There was no path forward. No growth, no evolution, no future. The Elden Beast had seen to that personally."
Tarnished relayed her words to Maliketh and Melina, the air grew still in the sanctum.
Maliketh stood frozen, his golden eyes locked on the Tarnished as if he had been struck in the chest. His fists clenched faintly. Melina's brows furrowed deeply, her arms folding across her front as if to keep something inside. Her gaze dropped to the floor in contemplation.
Marika's voice returned, this time heavier; less divine, more human. "I built the Golden Order with my own hands. With sweat, blood, and unrelenting faith. And what did I receive in return? Powerless divinity. I was told to stand idle… to smile like a statue while the world crumbled. My people fell to madness and rot. My empire fragmented. I was chained in grace and gold and forced to watch."
Her voice trembled just slightly at the edges, though she caught it quickly. "At some point… enough was enough. The madness, the stagnation, the injustice, it reached a breaking point. And I broke with it."
A suffocating silence followed as her words settled deep into each of them like roots into soil.
Maliketh finally broke it, his voice barely audible. "Godwyn… that was thy final straw, was it not?"
Marika's face darkened with sorrow so deep it seemed carved into her features. "Yes… his death was the wound that would not heal. The final betrayal. A child of my own blood… Stolen from me, a wound inflicted upon me from mine own blood. Slain in soul, not body. A twisted, abominable thing, neither alive nor dead."
She paused. "But… I've had time. Centuries of it. And in that time, I have asked myself again and again, why? Why did Ranni do it?"
She lowered her gaze. "In all that time, I could not find anger. Only sadness. And a question."
Maliketh blinked, taken aback. "Thou… thou dost not blame her?"
Marika didn't answer at first. Then, quietly, "How could I, when the Gods created a world where such choices seemed necessary?"
Melina had been silent, but now her voice cut through the heavy air like a whisper on a blade. "I have read the legends. The Night of Black Knives… the death of the Demigod Godwyn. But your words… suggest something else. You do not think Ranni wanted to kill him, do you?"
Marika turned toward her slowly, a quiet pride settling on her face. "Well caught, my dear daughter."
She stood and crossed her arms, thinking aloud. "For years I asked myself, why Godwyn? She had no grievance with him. He bore her no ill will. And yet… he died, and she vanished."
Melina tilted her head. "Then what was the reason?"
Before Marika could answer, Maliketh did, his voice grave.
"…The Cursemark of Death."
Marika nodded. "Yes. It all comes back to how Godwyn died."
"The Cursemark of Death left upon his body was incomplete." Maliketh said solemnly, his deep voice echoing off the cold stone of the Sanctum. His golden eyes narrowed as he stared into the distance, as though he were still looking at the lifeless husk of Godwyn.
"I recall it as clear as flame. Only his soul was slain. His flesh remained, cursed yet untouched. Such a mark should not have activated without completion. And yet... it did. How...?"
Marika stepped forward slightly, her golden light flickering softer than usual, the weight of memory heavy on her expression. "Just so. It defied all known laws. The logic of Destined Death... unraveled. But I have seen her once more, Ranni. And upon that moment, the truth began to take form."
Tarnished crossed his arms, brow furrowed. "Ranni used the other half of the Cursemark on herself. Killed her body, walked around as a ghost. That part I get. But why Godwyn? Why him? Couldn't she have slapped it on some random jackass no one would've missed?"
"It is for his blood, and for his name." Maliketh growled with a weary huff, the pieces falling into place in his mind. "A Demigod, and kin of close bond. The mark holds restrictions, wrought into the Rune of Death by design. It must be completed upon one being, or those of a tethered nature."
Tarnished squinted. "Okay, but... they ain't the same person. So how the hell did it still work?"
"It was his soul." Maliketh answered darkly. "Strong, noble and of divine decent... and bound by blood to her own. In that, she found a flaw in the Rune's design. She forged a symmetry where none should exist. A deceit most foul, yet most cunning."
He leaned back slightly, the weight of the realization still sitting heavy in his voice. "Had the ages not turned mad in the wake of the Shattering... I might have named her a genius for such an intricate plan. It was a vile, yet masterful thing."
Marika gave a solemn chuckle, lips curling into a helpless smile. "Mine own daughter, indeed... ever the clever one. The act was not out of hate. It was not vengeance. It was a necessity, circumstance. Godwyn... was but the surest path."
Tarnished nodded slowly, beginning to catch onto her train of thought. "Yeah. She must've known she had one shot at this. Screw it up, and that's it. The others weren't options."
He began counting on his fingers, speaking thoughtfully. "Malenia? Radahn? Way too strong. Way too guarded. Miquella had Malenia watching over him, so the same applied to him. Mogh and Morgott were in hiding, or too hard to reach. As for Rykard, well, she probably needed him alive in case her plan fell apart. That just leaves Godwyn."
Melina's voice was soft as she put the pieces together in her mind as well. "He alone was... Vulnerable."
Maliketh let out a low grunt, his gaze shadowed. "Godwyn had always been careless. He spent his days drinking, hosting feasts and tournaments, wasting his potential. I warned him, repeatedly. I said his luxury and ease would be his undoing. And what I predicted came to pass…"
Silence settled over the Sanctum again. Melina looked uncertain, her voice unsure. "But... Why? Why such sacrifice? What could compel one to such ends?"
Marika looked down at the floor, her light flickering dimmer, and chuckled, bitter and old. "It is ever the same, my dear daughter. The root from which all rebellion springs."
She lifted her head, her voice quiet but clear. "The selfsame reason I ascended to Godhood. The same reason I shattered the Elden Ring. She sought Freedom. To unbind herself from the yoke of the Greater Will. Her Empyrean flesh was not hers, 'twas but a prison. A vessel. One forged for purpose not her own."
She closed her eyes. "And I… I do understand. Far too well."
Melina said nothing, the revelation slowly reshaping her understanding of her family.
Marika stepped forward once more, eyes meeting Tarnished's. "I bear her no hatred. I cannot. We are alike. Wrought from divine expectation... and broken by it. To scorn her would be to scorn myself. 'Twould only be making mineself a hypocrite."
"Had I stood where she did... in her form, in her hour…" She muttered under her breath as closed her eyes for a long moment.
"I know not if my choice would differ."
The silence that lingered after Marika's revelations seemed almost sacred, thick with reflection, heavy with truths that had, until now, remained buried beneath centuries of divine legacy and faded history.
Maliketh's gaze had lost some of its earlier sharpness, replaced now by a quiet solemnity, as if the weight he had carried for so long had finally been lessened, if only slightly.
Melina, by contrast, looked deeply troubled; her calm facade cracked by revelations that had chipped away at the foundation of everything she once believed about the Golden Order.
Then, with all the grace and timing of a hammer through glass, the Tarnished clapped his hands together with a loud smack.
"Welp! Time to get moving." He declared with a grin. "Sitting around feeling all sad and existential ain't gonna get us anywhere."
Melina let out a soft, exasperated sigh as she shook her head. "Very well. We've taken up more than enough of your time already, Master Maliketh." She said politely, her voice still bearing the residual tremor of introspection.
The Divine Shadow chuckled. "No such thing, princess. I always have time for you. And please, just call me Maliketh."
"...Thank you, Maliketh.
As the two of them stood, Maliketh leaned back against the stone wall of the sanctum, folding his massive arms.
"Before you go." He said in that gravelly, ancient voice of his. "Is there aught I might offer thee? Something you would ask of me, before our paths diverge again?"
Melina began to shake her head in polite refusal, only for Tarnished to cut her off with shameless glee.
"Actually, yeah. Would you mind teaching me your incantation? And uh… if you happen to have, say, an ancient dragon smithing stone lying around… that'd be real swell."
Melina's head slowly turned to him, eyes narrowed in silent judgment. The sheer audacity.
For a moment, Maliketh stared at him. Then he huffed once… and laughed. A low, amused chuckle that rumbled from deep within his chest. Marika covered her mouth to stifle her own laughter before giving up and letting it spill freely.
"Very well." Maliketh said, shaking his head. "I can part with a smithing stone and teach thee whatever basic bestial incantations thou can wield. I don't suppose thou hast any need for a Seal?"
Tarnished blinked.
"…Huh." He looked down at his open palm, curling his fingers slowly. "Now that you mention it, I haven't been using one. Not even the Seal Melina gave me."
Both Melina and Marika froze.
"…Wait. You haven't?" Melina asked, stunned. "You've been casting Flame, Grant Me Strength without the Seal I gave you?! Since when? How?! Why didn't you say anything?! How didn't I notice?!"
Marika rubbed her chin thoughtfully, her brows raised in faint curiosity. "Come to think of it… neither I, nor Melina, use traditional Seals. She conjures hers metaphysically, an Erdtree seal I taught her when she was still young."
"So it maketh sense that it never crossed thy mind, mine dear daughter." She tilted her head, golden hair falling like liquid light as she placed a hand upon her well endowed chest. "And I, as a Goddess, have never required such mortal foci for mine sorcery."
She looked directly at the Tarnished, a faint smile tugging at her lips. "Perhaps the same holds true for thee, my Champion. Mayhap it is a boon of my Blessings… Or thy Dracúl Aeternum blood."
Maliketh nodded thoughtfully. "That would make sense. Dragons do not wield Seals or staves. They are the conduit. Their blood carries primal power. Perhaps, through some accursed miracle… so doth thine."
He narrowed his eyes slightly. "Tell me, Champion. How didst thou acquire this draconic bloodline? I highly doubt thou wert born with it."
"I ate the Heart of Greyoll."
The silence returned for a moment.
"…The Godbeast? Mother of All Dragons?" Maliketh said slowly.
"Yep."
Maliketh blinked. Once. Twice. "Well, that's…"
"Reckless?" Melina said with an exhausted glare, arms crossed.
"Stupid?" Marika added with a mischievous smirk.
Tarnished only grinned. "Effective!"
Maliketh let out a weary huff, rubbing his temples like a priest dealing with a particularly heretical sermon. "I was going to say interesting, but yes. Both of those are… apt."
…
Some time later…
A crisp chime echoed in Tarnished's mind as a system notification shimmered into view before his eyes:
[New Incantation Learned: Stone of Gurranq.]
Tarnished grinned wide as the message faded. He clenched his fist, raw power pulsing through his veins.
"That'll be enough, Maliketh. Thanks for all your help." He said, still riding the high of another new weapon in his growing magical arsenal.
Maliketh gave a low chuckle, his golden eyes glowing dim in the shadowed sanctum. "Nay… thank thee for coming here. It is good to know that the world I've spent untold eons protecting… may yet have hope once more."
Melina offered him a gentle nod, a rare, warm smile breaking across her otherwise composed face. Even Marika, hovering quietly near the sanctum's threshold, allowed herself a small smile, however bittersweet.
Tarnished and Melina turned toward the exit. As they reached the great obsidian doors, he stepped ahead and pushed them open, muscles straining briefly against their ancient weight. With a soft groan of stone and metal, the way opened once more.
Tarnished stepped to the side, gesturing for Melina to go first. She offered a quiet "Thank you," almost too soft to hear, and passed through.
Just as Tarnished began to follow, a voice called out behind him.
"Marika…"
He and the Goddess both turned. Maliketh had not moved from his seat, but his head was lifted, his expression shadowed with something deep and unspoken.
"I held back the darkness with all of mine being." He said, voice rough with age and memory. "Just as I said I would."
Marika's eyes shimmered faintly. She floated a few inches forward but didn't speak immediately. When she did, her voice cracked beneath the weight of centuries. "…I know."
Her words were thick with sorrow, with gratitude, and guilt that had never truly left her.
Tarnished opened his mouth, ready to relay her message as always, but Maliketh lifted a paw to stop him, shaking his head with a small, knowing smile.
"I know, Child…" He murmured, his tone softer than it had ever been. "But I wish to hear it from her. So go. Continue thy journey. Free her from the Erdtree. Gather the scattered shards of the Elden Ring…"
He leaned back slowly, gaze rising toward the high vaulted ceiling above.
"Become the Elden Lord."
Tarnished stared at him for a long second, then nodded solemnly.
"…I will. I promise."
Maliketh laughed, a low, warm sound that echoed faintly in the dark.
"I believe you."
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Author's Note:
I hope the explanation about what the Elden Ring means and how the Shattering happened made sense to you all. From Soft was about as cryptic and annoying with the details as they usually are, so I decided to do my own thing as it were.
I hope you enjoyed it!
Also, stones, bag, you get the point.
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Next Chapter Title: …She's Malenia's WHAT?!
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