Permeus remained on his knees, paralyzed by grief as the last embers of the explosion that had claimed his family drifted through the night air. The emptiness inside him was so vast, so consuming, that for a moment he wondered if he too had died with them. But the pain—the searing, unbearable pain—told him he was very much alive.

  Slowly, he raised his gaze to where Germaine stood in the entrance of the stable.

  The titan’s form was still familiar and yet wrong—shadows writhing beneath his skin, his eyes burning with a crimson glow that had never been there before. Even his stance was different, the confident posture of the titan now corrupted by a subtle wrongness that made Permeus’ skin crawl.

  “Why?” The word escaped Permeus’ lips as barely more than a breath.

  Germaine’s face contorted—not with remorse, but with a strange conflict, as if two minds warred within him. When he spoke, his voice was recognizable yet tinged with an echo that seemed to come from somewhere else.

  “I don’t know what happened,Your Majesty” Germaine said, his words halting as if each required tremendous effort.

  “What do you mean you don’t know what happened?” Permeus said, balling his fists.

  “You just murdered my family,” he reminded him

  “I did not mean to, Your Majesty” Germaine replied, hoping to ease some of the tension, but Permeus face still clenched in fury.

  “You didn’t mean to?” Permeus asked, vexed by his answer.

  “I didn’t mean to, Your Majesty, I swear it,” Germaine replied

  “How are you alive?” Permeus asked the titan, remembering seeing his fallen corpse along the cobblestone streets

  “What?” Germaine asked, taken aback by the coldness in his voice

  “How are you alive?” Permeus said, re-iterating the question. “I saw Operas kill you. “

  “I don’t know,Your Majesty” Germaine admitted

  “What do you mean you don’t know” Permeus said, his voice low and menacing, holding back his intention to kill

  “I just woke up okay,” Germaine elaborated. “Right where he stabbed me… I just woke up and by some intuition I got here. “

  “To kill my family?” Permeus said with much desperation in his voice

  “That was not my intention, Your Majesty” Germaine reminded him.

  “What were your intentions” Permeus asked. His voice was deadly low.

  “I don’t know if I even had any intentions at all,” Germaine admitted

  “In fact, I am hardly sure that I am in any control of myself right now,” he continued

  “You seem in control of your mouth,” Permeus pointed out

  “Your Majesty, you have to believe me,” Germaine pleaded

  Permeus simply continued to look straight at him, filling up with more rage and fury as the seconds went by. He knew he should attack. Slay him like he slayed the titan horde in the city, but grief was in him too. Grief was clouding his thoughts. He was not even half sure if anything he was seeing was real anymore.

  “Your Majesty, please, I assure it is not me who is in control,” Germaine begged, clearly uncomfortable with the silence

  “Then who is?” Permeus screamed from the top of his lungs. “Who is Germaine? Who if not you just killed my family?”

  “Operas, the man who murdered me. The man who murdered the guards,” Germaine answered.

  “He is controlling me just like he is controlling them. I don’t know how, but you have to believe me,” he assured him.

  “You are not acting like the rest of them,” Permeus pointed out

  “Your Majesty, I assure you I am not acting like them, but I feel like they must feel,” he replied. “I am sure of it.”

  “I can not feel any life within me. Any life at all,” Germaine pleaded.

  “I can only feel the darkness of Operas running through my veins. Not giving me life... but more preventing me from death.”

  “You are not acting like them,” Permeus repeated, his tone unchanging

  “Your Majesty... I do not know how I still have my conscious, but I assure you it was not on when I flung that fireball,” Germaine promised.

  Permeus slowly rose to his feet, his grief momentarily eclipsed by a cold fury. Germaine took a step forward, then stopped, wincing as if in pain.

  “My mind — he has corrupted it. I don’t know how, but he must have, just like he has the others.” His face twisted in what appeared to be genuine agony. “You know me.... I would never do such a thing, especially to my queen and her daughters...to your wife and children.”

  “He made me do it, Your Majesty. You have to believe it. He made me do it.” Germaine pleaded once more.

  The words were spoken with such desperation that for a moment, Permeus almost believed them. Almost felt a flicker of the sympathy that had bound them for so long. But then he remembered the chariot vanishing in flame, taking with it everything he had ever loved.

  “Did you enjoy it?” Permeus asked, his voice dangerously quiet.

  Germaine’s eyes widened.

  “No! How could you think—“

  “Did. You. Enjoy. It?” Each word was punctuated by a step forward, closing the distance between them.

  “I did not enjoy it; I could never,” Germaine replied, but his voice wavered. His eyes darted away, unable to meet Permeus’ gaze.

  “Look at me when you answer,” Permeus commanded whilst grinding his teeth.

  Reluctantly, Germaine raised his eyes.

  “Tell me the damn truth,” Permeus said.

  For a long moment, Germaine was silent. Then,

  “Did it give you joy taking away my family because I failed to save yours?” Permeus asked once more, but Germaine still refused to answer.

  “Did you enjoy it? Answer me” Permeus insisted once more.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “I did not enjoy it,” Germaine repeated.

  “Don’t get it twisted; you deserved comeuppance for letting my wife die when you could have... should have saved her,” Germaine elaborated her “Has Your Majesty noticed that Operas is resurrecting everyone other than the women and children?”

  “She doesn’t even get a second chance at this,” he continued to rant

  “You deserved your comeuppance, Your Majesty, but they never deserved to pay it for you,” Germaine concluded

  The admission hung in the air between them, heavy with an air of resentment, and it didn’t take long for it to be given voice.

  “I deserved it,” Permeus echoed, his voice hollow.

  “Is this how you justify your vengeance?” He asked.

  “This wasn’t my vengeance,” Germaine corrected

  “Yet you were the one who exacted it,” Permeus reminded him

  “They were dead the moment they had to realize you were what was protecting them,” Germaine blurted. “I got angry at you for not defending my family, but turns out you can’t even do the same thing for yours either.”

  “I did not want to kill Your Majesty’s family, but if you are unwilling to delegate the blame onto someone else, pile it on me,” Germaine concluded. “I am used to it.”

  It was that statement that finally broke whatever was not already shattered in Permeus—whatever had been holding back the tide of his fury, gone with a simple flash. With a roar that shook the very foundations of the stable, he drew his sword and launched himself at Germaine.

  The first clash of their weapons sent sparks cascading across the stone floor. Germaine matched him blow for blow, the titan’s strength equal to that of his creator. They moved in a deadly dance, each expecting the other’s moves.

  “Your Majesty, please,” Germaine gasped between strikes, parrying a vicious thrust toward his chest. “This isn’t what I wanted!”

  “You killed them!” Permeus snarled, bringing his sword down in an overhead arc that Germaine barely deflected. “You murderer!”

  “I couldn’t control it! I couldn’t control myself” Germaine ducked beneath a sweeping strike and rolled to the side, coming up with his own blade at the ready. “Operas’ darkness...!”

  “Admit it... admit you wanted vengeance.” Permeus pressed forward, relentless.

  Their blades locked, faces inches apart.

  “I was the only one ever loyal to you,” Germaine hissed. “Your subjects despised you, yet I kept them subservient. I ruled your kingdom and protected your people. If I had wanted vengeance, I would have taken it a long time ago.”

  “Vengeance for you neglecting us and abandoning us,” he added

  With a burst of strength, Permeus pushed him back, sending Germaine stumbling against a support beam.

  “But you did not have the power then, did you?” Permeus asked. ”Not like the one he has given you.”

  “I did not ask for this,” Germaine replied. “All I asked was that Your save Greta.. maybe if you had not let her die, I wouldn’t have either.”

  Pain flashed across Germaine’s face—genuine this time, untainted by Opera's influence.

  “You let her die; she was all I had.” He straightened, his blade lowering slightly.

  “Imara and my little ones were everything I had,” Permeus replied

  “And yet you failed them, like you failed Greta and like you failed me,” Germaine accused him

  Permeus face became red with fury. He was boiling with absolute rage, and Germaine’s words were not helping to quell it.

  “Just admit it, Your Majesty, you are a failure and that you cannot escape despite your Origin status.”

  “Choose your next words carefully.”

  “A failed Origin, a failed King, a failed friend, a failed husband, and a failed father. You are a failure.”

  Permeus swung the sword to decapitate him, but for a moment, he hesitated, a flicker of their old friendship threading through his rage. Times after he had just created Titania and times before governance disputes tainted them. But then the image of his family’s chariot exploding in flame filled his mind once more, and his fury returned tenfold.

  With a cry that was more animal than Origin, Permeus reloaded his arm for a swing. It gave Germaine time to run and put a separation between them. Permeus then charged at him.

  This time, he didn’t fight with technique or strategy—only raw, unbridled power. His blows fell like thunderbolts, each one charged with the light of creation itself. Germaine desperately tried to defend himself, but the sheer force of Permeus’ onslaught outmatched him.

  A vicious sweep took Germaine’s legs from under him, sending him crashing to the ground. Before he could recover, Permeus’ sword was at his throat, the tip pressing just hard enough to draw a bead of dark blood.

  “Your Majesty,” Germaine gasped, his eyes wide with fear, “mercy, please. Forgiveness.”

  “Forgiveness?” Permeus’ voice was barely recognizable, twisted by grief and rage.

  “You killed my family. My daughters. My wife.” His hand trembled on the hilt of his sword. “There is no forgiveness for that. Not in this world or any other you could conjure.”

  He raised his blade for the killing blow, but just as he was about to strike, a shadow detached itself from the darkness of the stable entrance.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” came a voice—smooth, ancient, amused. “He’s still useful to me.”

  Permeus turned to see Operas step into the faint light. The Origin of the Chasm seemed even more substantial than before, as if he were growing stronger with each passing moment. His strawy black hair hung around a face that might have been handsome if not for the malevolence that twisted his features.

  “You,” Permeus breathed, momentarily forgetting Germaine.

  Operas smiled, the expression never reaching his deep black eyes with their red glow.

  “Me,” Operas replied in jest

  “I must say, I’m impressed. I didn’t expect you to defeat my lieutenant so thoroughly.” He glanced at Germaine with something like disappointment. “Though perhaps I overestimated his capabilities.”

  “No worries, he should strengthen in time, as I will,”

  In a flash, Permeus abandoned Germaine and charged at Operas, his sword aimed directly at the ancient being’s heart. Operas made no move to defend himself, simply standing with the same amused smile on his face.

  The blade connected—and shattered; the fragments flying in all directions. Permeus stared in disbelief at the hilt in his hand, then at Operas, who remained completely unharmed.

  “Did you truly think a weapon of this world could harm me?” Operas asked, his tone almost pitying. “I am scared you have made the opposite mistake I did and underestimated me.”

  With a casual gesture, he backhanded Permeus, sending him flying across the stable to crash into the far wall. The impact drove the air from Permeus’ lungs and sent pain lancing through his body.

  Before he could recover, Operas was upon him, lifting him by the throat.

  “I have destroyed countless worlds, consumed civilizations that would make your little kingdom look like an anthill,” Operas said conversationally.

  Permeus struggled in his grip, but it was like being held by iron.

  “I am an Origin,” he gasped.

  “According to the confession of my lieutenant, a failed one at that,”

  Operas replied.

  “I am a creator of worlds,” Permeus said in continued defiance.

  Operas laughed, the sound like stones grinding together.

  “Created? You merely shaped what was already there. The raw materials of creation have always existed—you simply learned to manipulate them. You are nothing but my cheap copy.” His grip tightened.

  “You can’t kill me. I am immortality itself,” Permeus continued.

  “Let’s test that theory, shall we?” Operas countered

  With his free hand, Operas summoned a blade of pure darkness—not shadow, as Darkeus might wield, but something deeper, more fundamental. The absence of light itself given form.

  “I think I’ll start by doing something no one has ever done before. Seeing what an Origin looks like from the inside,” Operas mused, raising the blade to Permeus’ chest.

  “For academic purposes, surely someone like you understands.”

  Just as the blade pierced Permeus’ armor, sending white-hot pain through his body, there was a commotion at the stable entrance. Dark figures swarmed in—ghouls, dozens of them, their skeletal forms chattering and shrieking as they threw themselves at Operas and Germaine.

  Operas cursed, dropping Permeus to defend himself. “What is this?”

  From the shadows emerged Darkeus, his face grim as he directed the ghouls in their attack.

  “A distraction,” he called to Permeus. “Not a permanent one. Move!”

  Despite his injuries, Permeus forced himself to his feet. The ghouls wouldn’t hold Operas for long—already the ancient being was destroying them by the handful, their bones shattering under his fists.

  “Germaine,” Operas commanded, his voice cutting through the chaos.

  “Don’t just stand there! Help me, you fool!”

  Germaine, who had risen to his feet, looked torn—his body taking an involuntary step toward Permeus while his face contorted in resistance.

  “I... I can’t...” he gasped, fighting against Operas’ control.

  “NOW!” Operas roared, his voice shaking the very stones of the stable.

  Darkeus reached Permeus, grabbing his arm. “We need to go. Now.”

  “Darkeus?,” Permeus gasped his eyes meeting those of his brother with stupefaction.

  Germaine turned towards then with a sinister look on his face but for a brief moment, Permeus could see something like the old Germaine flicker in those corrupted eyes.

  “Permeus,” he whispered with an expression of wanting.

  Then his face hardened, and he summoned a spear of flame.

  As Germaine prepared to launch the spear, Darkeus pulled Permeus toward the exit. “We have to go!”

  The last thing Permeus saw before Darkeus dragged him from the stable was Germaine’s face, twisted in anguish as he fought against the darkness consuming him. Then they were outside, Darkeus’ shadowmere waiting for them.

  “Mount up,” Darkeus ordered, helping the injured Permeus onto the creature’s back before swinging up behind him. “The others are waiting at the citadel.”

  As the shadowmere leapt into the night sky, its hooves leaving trails of darkness against the stars, Permeus looked back at the burning ruins of his kingdom. Everything he had built, everyone he had loved, was gone in a single night.