Memory: The Summit of Loneliness
His death was a quiet, lonely thing.
It should have been grand. Zaireon, the First Dawn Sovereign, had shattered the sky to save a world that never knew his name. He had severed the chains of a falling star with a sword of pure will, and in the cataclysm that followed, he'd been unmade.
He did not regret the act. He regretted the silence that came after.
No final words to comrades. No proud last stand witnessed by kin. Just the cold, empty vacuum of the void, and the fading echo of his own power. A god's death, with no one to mourn, no one to remember.
His final thought was not of glory, but of a profound, simple ache: I never learned what a full stomach felt like.
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Present: The Depths of Disgrace
Pain, of a different and profoundly petty sort, dragged him back.
A sharp kick connected with his ribs. "Get up, you useless lump! The dawn chores aren't going to do themselves, Ian."
The name was a ill-fitting shroud. The voice was young, dripping with a bitterness that belonged to a boy who'd seen his dreams rot. Kaelen.
Zaireon—now trapped in the starved, fifteen-year-old body of Ian Lynch—opened his eyes. Not to the majesty of cosmic threads or the architecture of creation, but to warped floorboards, dust motes dancing in stale air, and the scuffed toe of a cheap sneaker aimed for another kick.
He caught it. His new hand, small and calloused, moved with an instinct older than the country they stood in. He didn't grab with force, but with a precise pressure on a nerve cluster. Kaelen yelped, more in surprise than pain, and stumbled back.
"The cost for waking me," Zaireon's voice, Ian's voice, scraped out, parched and quiet, "is breakfast. A good one. Eggs. Meat. Negotiable interest if you're late."
Kaelen gaped, his bully's bravado replaced by confusion. This wasn't the cowering, stammering ghost of Ian he tormented. The eyes that held his were the colour of old, hard amber. They held no fear. Only a weary, ancient assessment that made Kaelen feel like a bug under a magnifying glass.
"Have you lost your mind? Heatstroke finally fry your brain, Vance?" Kaelen spat, but he didn't advance. The grip had been… wrong.
Zaireon sat up, ignoring the symphony of complaints from a body malnourished and weak. He took in the "Astral Fringe Monastery." It was a crime to call it that. It was a crumbling wooden observatory on a weed-choked hill. The only thing it observed was the neglect of the world. The air didn't hum with latent energy; it smelled of dust, mildew, and despair.
He saw the others through the grimy window. Aeliana, barely older than this body, was trying to mend a torn practice dummy with hands that shook from stress, not effort. Lyra was earnestly, uselessly, trying to practice a basic stance in the overgrown yard, her form a heartbreaking mess of good intention and zero foundation. Ben was hunched over a cracked tablet, probably hacking into some low-level network to scrounge digital coupons for instant noodles.
This was his inheritance. Not a sect. A hospice for the terminally mediocre.
A wave of nausea hit him, part hunger, part soul-deep revulsion. This was worse than the void. The void was clean. This was a slow, ignoble death by irrelevance.
"Where," he asked, his voice still low, but now cutting through the dusty air like a shard of glass, "is the kitchen?"
Kaelen blinked. "Why? Gonna clean it? It's your turn, maggot."
"No," Zaireon said, pushing himself to his feet. A wave of dizziness threatened to topple him. He locked his knees. A primordial sovereign did not faint from low blood sugar. "I'm going to raid it. And then," he looked past Kaelen, out at the dying institution, "we are going to have a very expensive conversation."
He walked past the stunned senior, his steps deliberate. Every cell in this pathetic vessel screamed in protest. His new mind, a fusion of divine calculus and a teenager's fractured memories, presented him with the balance sheet of his new life:
· Assets: 1 crumbling shed on a worthless hill. 4 broken disciples. A name synonymous with failure. A soul containing the blueprint of creation itself.
· Liabilities: Crippling debt (financial, spiritual, reputational). A body weaker than a newborn kitten. A world that had moved on and built empires on the graves of gods like him.
At the door to the filthy kitchen, he paused. Lyra saw him, her practice faltering. She offered a small, hopeless smile.
Something in his chest, a relic of Zaireon's final regret, twisted.
He didn't smile back. He looked at her, at the dead-end devotion in her eyes, and made a decision.
Loneliness was a luxury he could no longer afford. He had a kingdom of rubble and paupers. But even rubble could be the foundation for a palace. Even paupers could become kings, if they were taught how to tax the heavens.
He shoved the kitchen door open. The first order of business was calories. The second would be chaos.
The Gilded Tempest had made landfall. His first decree was simple: Someone was going to pay for this.