In the highest tower of the Tur Palace, hidden behind curtains of dark red silk, two figures stood inside a glowing circle.
The chalk lines flickered in blue, trembling between stability and collapse. The surrounding was furnished with high quality furnitures.
Reya Tur, daughter of Emperor Moses Tur, tightened her grip on the ritual pendant. "You're sure you drew it right this time?" she asked, voice calm but her eyes weren't.
Fayn Tur, her twin by seconds but opposite in all — wiped sweat from his forehead. "I copied it straight from Father's notebook." he said. "If it fails again, then it's because the world forgot how to listen."
The circle flared for a second. A supreme light stretched, then shattered like glass. Both stumbled back as the symbols vanished. Smoke filled the room.
Reya coughed, waving her hand. "So much for changing appearance."
"Maybe it's better this way." Fayn muttered. "If someone saw us using old-cycle magic, we'd both be exiled."
Silence followed, except for the ticking of the old pendulum clock. The siblings sat on the floor beside the ruined sigils. Between them lay their father's worn leather notebook—
"The Necessity of God in a World That NO Longer Needs God"
Reya flipped it open, tracing a finger over the faded words. "He believed gods didn't vanish…. they were forced into sleep."
"Or killed."
Reya smirked mischievously, " You idle, if God can be killed then how is it supposed to be a 'God'?"
Fayn chews air and ignores her.
"The last page says something about the Christs of Lahari, a group continuing his research."
Reya frowned. "They call themselves a religious order, but I heard they perform experiments instead of prayers. Studying the Pre–Second Cycle Era, trying to find proof that divinity was man-made."
"Maybe that is what Father wanted." Fayn whispered. "To remind people the gods were never above us. They were us, before we forgot how to become one."
Reya closed the notebook gently. "Then maybe that's why he left us."
The candles around them flickered. For a moment, the smoke above the failed circle formed something. An outline of a figure, tall, with eyes burning like coals before fading into nothing.
Reya and Fayn looked at each other. Neither dared to speak anything.
Outside the window, the empire's capital shone. Towers of steel and sanctuaries of marble, built on faith long gone.
And high in that lonely room, the children of Moses Tur sat in the quiet of their failure, unaware that their father's forgotten words had already begun to stir the sleeping gods.
Reya sat cross-legged near the broken circle, notebook open on her knees. The pale inked pages still glowed faintly from the residual mana in the room.
Fayn stood by the window, watching the night wash over the capital. The air was still heavy from the failed ritual, but their curiosity kept them from resting.
"Do you remember." Reya began softly, "What Father used to say about the Cycles?"
Fayn didn't turn around. "The 2nd Cycle, right? The Divine Act that supposedly began our current world."
Reya nodded. "Yes. He called it a recreation, not a creation. Like someone hit a reset switch on existence."
"Cycle," Fayn said, tasting the word. "It's not just time, is it? It's a full rotation. Reality dying, then remade again."
"Exactly." Reya's eyes glimmered with the reflection of the candlelight. "The thing bothers me is that no one knows how it happened. There's not even a consistent theory. Just myths that contradict each other."
Fayn walked back to her and knelt beside the notebook. The page was marked On the 2nd Creation. Beneath it, their father's cramped handwriting read,
'The "HE" blinked, and all imaginations popped up in colourful pages.'
Reya traced the words with her finger. "It said that when the 2nd Cycle happened, everyone who was alive before lost their memories. Entire civilizations forgot themselves. Their names, gods, histories was gone overnight."
Fayn's voice dropped. "I think some didn't."
Reya looked up. "You read that too?"
He nodded. "Somehow a few people, just a handful remembered fragments of images, emotions, symbols from before the 2nd Cycle. At first, everyone thought they were insane. But the early scholars found patterns in their words. Things they couldn't have invented."
"Father possibly believed them." Reya said. "He thought those survivors were living proof that the 1st Cycle existed."
Fayn rubbed the bridge of his nose. "But if it's true.… that means the world we live in isn't the first version of creation. We're just part of a continuation. The 2nd Act."
Reya frowned. "The annoying part is every trace of the 1st Cycle vanished alongside memories. Artifacts, ruins, even languages. It's as if someone deliberately erased it all. All the memories, historical evidences were erased, but people were still alive. There is a theory about the 'spawning' thing out of nowhere. Some researchers say those are actually people who were dead at the time of 2nd Cycle awakening and living second life through the spawning process. But there's no difference. The spawners are memory erased too."
The candle flickered again, bending its flame toward them.
Fayn whispered, "The 2nd Cycle wasn't a gift though. Maybe it was a cover-up of a cosmic event."
Reya's eyes widened. "I am having chills just thinking of how and why that thing happened."
Silence pressed down on the room. The only sound was the rain outside, tapping gently against the window.
Reya spoke out. "If Christs of Lahari are researching the Pre-Second Cycle Era.… then maybe they're trying to uncover what was lost or why it was taken."
Fayn nodded slowly. "Then Father's notebook isn't just philosophy. It's a map to our history."
Reya looked at the glowing ruins of their failed circle and whispered, "However, we were never meant to find out what came before."
Fayn gave a humorless smile. "Right, curiosity is the only divine act left to us."
Reya flipped through the pages of their father's notebook again. There was a passage written in red ink, one she had skipped before. The title read —
"The Constellation of Beru."
She read it aloud. "The Christs of Lahari share dominion under Beru, the Constellation of Flow and Center."
Fayn leaned over her shoulder, eyebrows drawn together. "Beru…. that's the same name the temple priests chant during the lunar recitations. They say it's not a star formation, but a living chain of light holding sky together. Something that binds divine and mortal authority."
Reya nodded. "Exactly. And the Christs of Lahari…. they worship Suez, the God of Flow and Center.
The one who governs the movement of all things, axis where beginnings and endings meet."
Fayn stared blankly at the candlelight. "Then why do they always pray for poverty?"
"What?"
"I mean, you have heard them." Fayn continued. "I mean their chants. 'May our blessings be less, may our pockets be blank, may we return to our original flow.' They want to die. They wish for nothingness."
Reya thought for a moment. "Probably, that's the point. They believe death is just another current — a return to Suez. If all things flow back to the center, then living is just resisting the current."
Fayn rubbed his temple, frustrated. "Strange faith. A religion that worships death not as punishment, but as privilege."
Reya sighed, closing the notebook softly. "You'd be surprised how many sects exist across the Empire. Some worship the Void, others the Dawn, others the Past. Each one claiming to know what happened before the 2nd Cycle."
"Countless sects...." Fayn muttered. ".... yet all of them are looking for a way out."
Reya's gaze softened. "That's what drives them. Exhaustion. Father used to say that once people understand too much, they start wishing for simplicity. To be poor, forgotten, even dead."
Fayn's expression darkened at the mention of their father. "He was connected with the Christs of Lahari, wasn't he?"
"Yes." Reya's voice lowered. "That's what the notebook implies. His signature is next to the Constellation mark. Meaning he wasn't just observing them. He was part of their Sect in a way."
Fayn looked away, eyes hardening. "So our father worshiped a god of flow and cause, sought to erase his wealth, his name, his burden…. and left us with this mess?"
Reya gently placed the notebook down and whispered, "Maybe he didn't want to erase himself. He wanted to find where everything flows back to where it began to fix something. Like a random novel protagonist going in past to solve past mistakes!"
Fayn gave a small, humorless chuckle. "Then perhaps, sister, we'll end up there too following the flow."
The candle's flame wavered again, forming a brief spiral before fading. The room darkened, leaving only the red mark of Beru glowing faintly across the notebook like a constellation reflected in a dying world.