The night after the broadcast of his victory felt almost gentle. The cottage was lit by low amber lamps, rain whispering against the windows like tired applause. Alexia stood at the counter, sleeves rolled up, hair falling loose, cooking while Marc leaned on the doorway with that look of half-sleeping peace he rarely allowed himself.
"Sometimes," she said, stirring the pot, "I forget you're the same man people argue about on television."
He smiled, a little crookedly. "And what's it like—dating the man the world can't decide to love or fear?"
She turned to him, spoon in hand like a teacher caught mid-lecture. "Exhausting," she teased. "You vanish for days, come back looking like you've fought gods, and then you make tea like nothing happened. It's terrifying and… oddly ordinary."
Marc walked over, brushed a curl from her cheek. "Ordinary's what I keep fighting for."
When they'd finished eating, he reached into his jacket and took out something wrapped in dark velvet. He opened it in his palm—a small crescent-shaped amulet, shimmering faintly, carved from lunar crystal. The glow wasn't bright; it pulsed gently, like a sleeping heartbeat.
Alexia's eyes widened. "What is this, babe?"
"Something to protect my favorite person," he said, smiling softly as he slipped it over her neck. "It's tuned to me. If anything comes near you that shouldn't… I'll know."
She leaned forward and kissed him, lingering. "You always act like you're leaving me behind, and then you go and do something like this."
"Because part of me already knows I'll always come back," he murmured.
"I love you, you idiot," she whispered against his mouth.
He kissed her again, slower this time. The amulet pulsed brighter for a second, as if it had felt something it could not name.
---
High above the mortal world, where the air was more memory than wind, the heavens themselves stirred. Tecciztecatl sat upon his crescent throne, the light of the moon behind him fractured like glass. Across the divide stood Metztli—his counterpart, the eternal mother of shadow and light. Her expression was unreadable, a calm lake hiding deep concern.
"You saw it," she said. "The mask. The crown."
Tecciztecatl nodded once, his eyes dim. "He achieved that form with the limiter still on. Even I could not command such autonomy."
"Limiters exist to protect mortals from divine erosion," Metztli said, frowning. "If he's exceeding them, he's not channeling you anymore. He's creating his own current."
Tecciztecatl's voice lowered. "He's no longer a vessel. When the crown turned white, he stopped being a borrowed light. He's making his own moon."
Metztli's hand touched the air, tracing unseen sigils. The cosmic veil rippled, revealing the faint shape of Marc's soul—bright, pulsing, erratic. It flared each time he laughed, dimmed each time he remembered.
"This isn't possession," she said quietly. "It's genesis. He's becoming something new."
Tecciztecatl looked away, the faintest tremor in his tone. "If he grows beyond both of us, even gods will be forced to choose: bend or break."
"And what will you do?"
He smiled, sad and distant. "Pray he remembers who taught him mercy."
---
Far below, in a chamber of black stone hidden beneath London's glass towers, William knelt before his idol. The Dark Lord's presence filled the air like molten iron—heat without flame, pressure without sound.
William's confidence had always been armor, but tonight it felt like skin stretched too thin.
"My lord," he said carefully, "I've seen the footage. Moonveil is… changing. His power—it's brutal. He fights like a god gone feral. Even I felt the pulse of his energy here."
The shadows trembled. A voice—not sound but force—pressed into his skull.
You fear him.
William's hands clenched. "I… fear imbalance, my lord. If he grows beyond your reach—"
You doubt me.
"No!" he said too quickly. "Never. I only question if the vessel of light has become something neither of us can predict."
The idol's eyes glowed, twin suns bleeding into his mind. You speak as if you are my equal. Do you forget who gave you breath, William Lex Webb? You are a merchant with borrowed fire.
William bowed until his forehead touched the cold stone. "Forgive me. I only seek to serve."
The air thickened, claws of unseen energy scraping along his spine.
Then serve. Find the fragments of Sangre de Luna the mortals hoard. The boy's power disrupts the order of gods. His moonlight consumes my shadow. Bring me balance—or I will find a new prophet.
The vision faded. William stayed kneeling, sweat dripping from his temple, his smile slowly curving back into place. "As you command, my lord," he whispered.
But when he rose, his eyes were burning red—not with devotion, but with jealousy.
---
Back at the cottage, the storm had cleared.
Alexia hummed quietly as she cooked again, the little amulet still glowing faintly at her throat. Marc was in his lab, deep in thought, holograms floating above the table—schematics of Aetherian relics, designs overlaying old maps of England's forgotten ruins.
His phone vibrated.
A message from Howard:
I found it. The Aether depot signal. North Ridge, under the quarry. Sending coordinates now.
Marc exhaled, grabbed his coat, and walked out into the cold.
---
The excavation took hours. The quarry was silent but for the crunch of gravel beneath their boots and the whirring of Howard's scanning drone. The night air smelled of rust and earth.
The signal grew stronger as they approached a cluster of buried metal.
"There," Howard said, brushing dirt off a circular hatch half-buried in the rock. "Help me clear it."
Together they pried it open. The scent that escaped was old ozone, metallic and strange. Beneath the hatch lay a corridor of dark alloy lined with faint lights that flickered awake as Marc stepped inside.
Rows of consoles hummed quietly, untouched for decades. Floating above one of the pedestals was a single orb of compressed Aetherium—the same kind Gaidan's people had once used to fuel ships and weapon cores.
Marc's eyes widened. "This one's intact."
Howard nodded, awe in his tone. "Better condition than the Scotland depot. That one was gutted. This… this was a research lab."
Marc ran his fingers over a console. Symbols glowed in response. "They weren't just storing Aether here—they were studying it."
Howard crouched beside a broken display. "You realize what this means, right? The Aetherians didn't abandon us. They built an outpost under our soil. Maybe they were planning to stay."
Marc stared at the glowing core, its pulse strangely synchronized with his own heartbeat. "Or maybe they were hiding from something."
The silence that followed was heavy.
Howard broke it first, voice unsteady. "You don't need more weapons, Marc. You're beyond that now. This—this is dangerous knowledge. You're already stronger than any of them. What if this turns you into something else?"
Marc's gaze lingered on the orb, its light reflected in his eyes like twin moons. "If I don't learn it, someone else will. Maybe William. Maybe worse."
Howard's mouth tightened. "And if learning it makes you what you're trying to stop?"
Marc smiled faintly, that cold soldier's humor breaking through. "Then pray Alexia remembers who I was before I stopped being human."
The Aetherium pulsed again—brighter this time, as if it had heard him.
In the silence that followed, the hum of the orb deepened into something almost like a heartbeat.
Howard stepped back. "It's alive."
Marc looked at the light, the reflection of his own shadow stretching behind him, and whispered, "So am I."
Above them, unseen in the heavens, the gods watched the faint flicker of a mortal man walking into the dark with the light of a new moon burning quietly in his chest.
---