Chapter 57: The Light Reveals (Luxor POV)
Glass requires patience. I shape it most nights. Not for art. Not for worship. Certainly not for display. I do it because it is one of the few acts left to me that is not governed by Law, petition, or expectation. Heat, sand, pressure. A conversation between my hands and something that wants to become more than it was. Tonight, the chamber is quiet. The light cycles are low and steady, a warm gold instead of brilliance. I begin with clean sand. No color, no memory, no impurities. I let it rest in my palms, feel its weight, feel how easily it could scatter if I chose violence instead of patience. I warm it slowly. Light answers me without resistance. It always has. The grains soften, melt, surrender. Glass is honest. It does not pretend heat is painless. It simply transforms or it breaks. I roll the molten shape gently, letting gravity suggest form before I interfere. A small animal, perhaps. Something simple. A creature that survives by instinct rather than meaning. I don't chase symbolism anymore. Meaning comes whether invited or not.
The glass is halfway there when the light tightens. Not blooms. Tightens. I still my hands immediately, suspending the shape between states as the chamber responds. Columns adjust their angles. Reflections skew. The light recoils inward like breath caught in a startled chest. Something has crossed my threshold that the realm does not know how to receive. I know who it is before she appears.
When she steps into my realm, the brilliance strikes her head-on. Most beings flinch. Even gods pause when they enter fully into my domain. Light demands acknowledgment. She does not give it one. That is the first wrong thing. The second is how the light behaves against her skin. It should have kissed. It should have recognized its own. Instead, it snags. Catches on layers of power stacked too closely together, harmonics colliding where harmony should exist. I feel it immediately. Interference. Accumulation. Weight that does not belong on a single soul. She has been gathering. I set the glass aside carefully, letting it cool unfinished on the worktable, and dim the chamber before the radiance can harm her. She walks barefoot across the golden floor as if sensation has long ago stopped petitioning her attention. Her posture is straight, defensive, and on high alert.
I have seen one mark on her before. At my celebration, chaos threaded delicately beneath her ribs. Malvor's work. Bright enough to see even through concealment if you knew what you were looking for. I said nothing then. Silence can be respect. Silence can also be cowardice. I told myself it was the former. At Yara's gathering, I had seen it again. She was taken from that party. I knew it. I did nothing. Now I see the rest.
Malvor, unmistakable, alive beneath her skin like restrained laughter. Aerion, sharp, invasive, wrong, pressed too close to her center. Navir's mark flickering with controlled voltage, restrained brilliance. Ravina, whisper-thin and coiled, a pressure behind the eyes. Maximus, heavy and indulgent, a weight that should never have touched her. Vitaria, deliberate and cold, etched with consequence. Calavera, ancient and still, death's patience wrapped along her spine. Leyla, brutal and foundational, the first wound that never healed. Yara, fluid and sharp, salt in old scars.
All blazing. All active. She has been very busy. "You're holding more than you should," I say quietly. Not accusation. Observation. "Is that why you've come? To take my power as well?"
"Yes." No hesitation. No negotiation. Her eyes do not meet mine. They don't wander either. They fix on a point just past my shoulder, like she is already braced for impact.
I move closer, slow enough not to startle her. "I don't need to touch you to do this. The runes will answer magic alone. I can activate what you carry without pain. Without—" I gesture vaguely between us. "This."
"No." The word is flat. Final.
Understanding settles in my chest like cold ash. This is not about power. This is not curiosity or ambition. This is self punishment. Control disguised as choice. I have seen this before, in mortals and immortals alike. Light does not heal this kind of wound. It only reveals it. "This won't make you feel better," I say gently. Gentleness is the only rebellion left to me. "It will only show you what's already there."
"I know."
I believe her. I consider refusing. Old Law allows it. A god may deny a Divine favor. But denial does not dissolve a favor. It redirects it. The recoil folds back on the one who asked. The Law never punishes the powerful first. If I refuse, she will pay. I will not let the Law hurt her for asking.
"I'm declaring my Divine favor," she says. The words strike like a bell rung too close to the ear.
The Law answers immediately. It is not warmth. Not light. Not generosity. Divine favors usually feel like alignment. Like giving someone something they need or want and feeling the universe settle afterward. This feels nothing like that. This feels like compression. Light folds inward, my power pulled tight and caged inside my own being. Gravity without mass. Command without voice. No anger. No malice. Just inevitability. Complete the act. I ground myself as the Law presses for urgency. I slow where it demands consumption. I refuse spectacle. I keep the light warm instead of brilliant, steady instead of overwhelming. I choose kindness where the Law allows none.
She is already far away. Her body responds perfectly. Too perfectly. Timing every breath, every movement as if following instructions written years ago. Her eyes never quite focus. Dissociation with the precision of long practice. I hate that I know the difference. Every instinct in me screams to stop. Every rule forbids it. So I stay. Not as a god claiming tribute. Not as a lover seeking connection. But as something solid enough that she does not disappear entirely. When the rune ignites, it is not triumphant. Golden geometry traces her arm, shoulder to wrist, hand to fingertip. Light etched into flesh with exquisite cruelty. Beautiful. Precise. Permanent. The Law loosens its grip the moment the mark settles, satisfied.
She goes utterly still. I pull her against me then. Not possessive. Not intimate. Just holding her like you hold someone through an earthquake when the walls are still shaking. Her mind lags behind her body; I feel the delay, the moment where awareness struggles to catch up. I sing. Not words. Never words. An old melody, older than language. Cyclical and low. A song meant to tell a nervous system: You are here. You are contained. You are not required to perform. She does not respond. When awareness returns, it comes all at once. She stiffens. Rolls away. Sits on the edge of the bed as armor snaps back into place.
"You came," I say softly, truth without judgment. "But you didn't feel."
"I didn't want to." She dresses with mechanical grace. The light dims as she moves, like a sunrise swallowed by storm. She does not look back.
I let her go. The chamber feels wrong after. Too clean. Too quiet. The Law is satisfied. The favor fulfilled. Something lingers. An afterimage the light cannot erase. I lie back where she left me, staring at the ceiling, letting the echo settle. No rage. No despair. Just the quiet cost of choosing mercy inside a broken system. The realization that the Law protected me from consequence and abandoned her entirely.
Eventually, I rise. The sand waits where I left it, still warm, still willing. I take it back into my hands and try to shape it again. The heat won't stabilize. The form refuses me. What should have been simple slumps, unfinished, cooling into something incomplete. I set it on the shelf without fixing it. A half-formed animal. Left exactly as it is. Some things cannot be made whole by light alone.