Fading Gods

Chapter 2

It wasn’t a sound so much as an impact. A thunderclap inside her chest. The altar split with a noise like stone screaming, the fissure tearing across the marble in a violent flash of white light. Dust exploded upward, filling the air, stinging her eyes, scraping her throat. She staggered back, the coin slipping from numb fingers as the floor seemed to tilt beneath her feet.

For a heartbeat—maybe longer—everything was wrong.

The shrine pulsed in time with her racing heart. The crack in the altar glowed, jagged and raw, like a wound torn open. Her vision tunnelled, edges darkening, the world narrowing to the violent line splitting sacred stone and the burning gold spreading across her wrist.

She couldn’t hear herself breathe. She couldn’t feel the floor. Only the mark—forming, twisting, alive—anchored her to anything real.

Footsteps echoed.

The sound cut through the ringing like a blade.

The world snapped back into place as the doors swung open. Cold air rushed in, carrying the familiar scent of dust and linen and sweat—real scents, grounding and sharp. The hum dropped to a faint tremor before it stopped completely. The light steadied. The shrine stopped breathing.

“Lyra?”

Grace’s voice pulled her fully into herself. The marble was solid again beneath her boots. The altar was just stone—cracked, broken, real. Dust hung in the air like fog, settling slowly over offerings and floor alike.

Lyra sucked in a ragged breath, her lungs burning. Her senses reeled, trying to realign, trying to convince her that what had just happened was real and not a vision, not a dream.

Grace stood frozen in the doorway, grey tunic rumpled, eyes wide as they took in the shattered altar and Lyra’s pale face.

“What happened?” Grace whispered in awe

Lyra looked down at her wrist, Faint lines of gold glimmered under her sleeve, curling into symbols she didn’t recognize. They pulsed like a heartbeat she could feel in her bones. The mark was delicate, a web of interlocking arcs and lines, almost floral in some places, geometric in others, tracing the curve of her veins. In dim light, it shimmered faintly; in darkness, red streaked through gold whenever pain or fear surged. It was alive and Lyra knew—knew—that nothing in the shrine would ever feel ordinary again.

For a long moment, Lyra was frozen, staring at the cracked altar, at the faint glow of the mark on her wrist, and trying to make sense of what she had just done.

The low hum of the shrine, which had always comforted her, was gone. Only the faint drip of water and the distant rustle of rats remained. Her chest tightened.

Graces sharp eyes scanned the room as she awaited an answer. She froze as her gaze landed on the cracked altar, her hands instinctively rising in shock. “By the gods…” she breathed, voice trembling between awe and fear. Her usual composure—the one that had guided them through so many minor scrapes—was gone, replaced with raw disbelief. She leaned closer, studying the fissure, fingers twitching as if to touch it, to confirm it was real. “Lyra… what… how?” Her words hung, unfinished, heavy with unasked questions.

Grace’s eyes flicked to Lyra’s wrist, realising Lyra was entranced with something else. Recognition, fear, and a flicker of something else crossed her face. She stepped back slightly, still wide-eyed, letting the weight of the moment settle between them.

Marks were meant for heroes or for the cursed, for those whose names ended in songs and were worshipped alongside the gods or they were for people whose names were soon to wind up on a tomb. Not for simple temple attendants.

Lyra had grown up in the winding alleys of the temple district, the daughter of a clerk who catalogued offerings, and a mother who tended the sacred gardens. They had been careful people, devoted but quiet, never asking for anything beyond the temple walls. Lyra had learned early how to move unnoticed, to listen without being heard, to obey without questioning. That life had suited her—it was what she envisioned her future to hold; not this.

“What… what did you do?” Grace asked finally, voice trembling.

“I… I touched it,” Lyra whispered, her fingers tightening around her wrist. “ The coin, I...I shouldn’t have… I didn’t know…”

Outside, the bells began to toll signalling the closing of the temples.

Grace gave Lyra one last glance with worry and sadness etched across her features. “We need to go”

Lyra nodded at her friend and stood up tall, pulling her sleeve down over her hands to hide the mark. “They will know something is wrong if we miss dinner” Grace told Lyra as she pulled her arm towards the door.

The two girls rushed down to the mess hall in silence, both lost in thought. They slowed as they reached the towering wooden doors and joined the queue for food. stumbling ahead until they were sat at their usual table, a steaming pot of beef stew and buttered bread in front of them both. Lyra turned to Grace at last “what am I going to do” she whispered desperately. Grace shook her head sadly “ I...I don’t know”

Both girls turned back to their meals and ate robotically until the bowls were empty, neither one of them tasting the food on their spoons.

That night Lyra stared at her ceiling, trapped in the temple attendant's dorm room, bunk beds filled with snoring girls as Lyra tossed and turned. Her mark flaring with pain. At three AM Lyra decided she had had enough, she rolled quietly out of bed and tiptoed to the door, being careful not to wake anyone in the room. Once in the corridor Lyra pulled her Nightgown tightly around her body hiding from the cold breeze as her bare feet pattered across the cold marble floor of the hallway.

Lyra went back to Theros temple, Turning the handle with bated breath and pushing the heavy oak doors open. Inside the room remained as she had left it, offerings scattered across the floor, the crack no longer seemed to pulse, a heavy silence filled the room, suffocating the usually magnetic atmosphere.

“You shouldn’t have touched that,” a deep unfamiliar voice rasped, scraping the air like stone on stone.

Lyra spun. Beside the altar, the space shimmered and folded inward. A figure stood beside the altar, taller than any human should be, his black-and-white hair tumbling over broad shoulders, robes shifting like living shadow, faint runes glowing along the fabric. His amber eyes burned with intensity, piercing and eternal, and yet they were tired, frayed around the edges.

“You broke the oath,” he said.

“I…What are you?” Lyra whispered.

“That,” he said bitterly, “is the problem.”

Her wrist flared. The mark pulsed brighter in tandem with the crack in the altar, coiling and stretching.

“You touched what must not be touched,” he said. “You broke a sacred binding, and now the thread that holds me is frayed.”

“I didn’t mean to” Lyra said shaking in fear.

“The intention matters little,” he said, amber eyes fixed on her. “The law is unyielding. The moment the oath was broken, it chose you as its vessel.

The figure stepped closer, and the air seemed to press in around her. Heat pricked her skin—not fire, not wind, but something alive. Her pulse quickened.

“My name,” he said, “is Theros. God of oaths and choices people pretend they do not make.”

Lyra swallowed. Her throat was dry.

“You are bound to me now,” he said. “Whether you like it or not.”

“I… I don’t,” she whispered.

A corner of his mouth twitched. “Good. Neither do I.”

Lyra’s breath caught in her throat. The god’s presence was a weight pressing down, filling the shrine with tension she could feel in her bones.

The mark pulsed hotter, coiling and stretching across her veins. Its warmth was insistent, alive, guiding her, whispering that this was her burden, her responsibility.

“You are bound to me now,” Theros said, voice low, like wind scraping across stone. “Whether you like it or not. The mark is not a gift. It is responsibility. Danger. And choice. Your actions from this moment forward will sustain or sever the last thread of my power.”

Lyra pressed her palm harder to her wrist. The gold arcs shimmered and twisted faintly, almost quivering under the pressure, as if alive and aware of Theros’s words.

“Why me?” she whispered, voice trembling.

“Because you acted,” Theros replied, amber eyes unwavering. “Because the oath chose its vessel in the moment it was broken. The mark could not wait for birth or preparation. It chooses necessity, and necessity chose you.”

Outside Light spreads across the city below, crawling its way steadily up the walls of the temple, spilling into the room with urgency. Noise starts to emerge, pots and pans banging in the kitchens below. Lyra glances down the empty corridor and slips out of the room, locking the door behind herself. Quickly winding down the twist and turns until she is back in her dorm room. Girls scurry around preparing themselves for a long day ahead and Lyra joins them.