 The woman walked with quiet resolve, her feet brushing against the cold, uneven cobblestones as she moved toward the temple of Luceris. The morning mist clung to the air, shrouding her path in a veil of uncertainty, yet she pressed on, the weight of her journey heavier than the silence surrounding her.
Among her people, she stood alone, a marked woman. Her body had betrayed her in ways that would haunt her forever—the birth of her child, once a dream she held close, had become a nightmare that no one could understand. The pain, the loss, the whispers—each step forward was a reminder of the curse that had been bestowed upon her.
As the sun's rays pierced through the mist, casting long shadows on the road, she could feel the weight of their gazes—furtive, judgmental, filled with pity and fear. Her fellow women had borne children with ease, while she… was different. The gods had cursed her, they said. She knew the rumors. They spoke of her in hushed tones, as if her very name carried an omen.
But none of that mattered. She had a singular purpose now. The temple loomed ahead, its spires rising like the fingers of a forgotten deity, stretching into the heavens. Luceris was her last hope, the god who could mend what was broken within her. Whether he would answer her plea or not, she didn't know. But she had no choice but to seek him out.
Her heart, heavy with the past, began to beat with a glimmer of hope. If there was any chance of redemption, any chance of erasing the curse placed upon her, it would lie within the cold, stone walls of that ancient temple.
The whispers had never left her.
"You're cursed."
"The gods have forsaken you."
"No child will ever bless your womb."
They slithered through the cracks of her mind, venomous and relentless, long after the mouths that had spoken them had fallen silent. She had once believed those voices belonged to the women of her village, but now, she wondered if they had become her own. A lingering echo, a wound too deep to heal.
The cobblestone path was uneven beneath her feet, worn smooth by centuries of pilgrims who had come before her, seeking mercy, seeking miracles. She was no different. Yet, unlike them, she carried something unseen, something no priest or healer had been able to mend—the weight of a body deemed broken.
Among her people, she was an anomaly. A woman who could not do what every other woman could, whose existence defied the natural order. The stares had once burned, the avoidance had once stung, but now… she felt nothing. Nothing but the cold certainty that had brought her here.
She stopped in her tracks.
The air was still, yet something unseen pressed against her chest, a weight that made it suddenly hard to breathe. Her hands trembled against the smooth silk of her gown, the fabric cool beneath her fingertips, as if untouched by the warmth of her body.
Slowly, her gaze lifted.
Before her, the temple of Luceris towered into the heavens, its ancient stone bathed in the golden light of the setting sun. Majestic. Unyielding. A place where gods listened—if they chose to.
She swallowed hard.
How many had stood where she stood now? How many had walked these same steps, hearts heavy with desperation, their prayers hanging in the air like unfinished sentences?
And how many had left with nothing?
A chill whispered down her spine, but she did not move. She couldn't. Not yet.
Until a presence stirred in the silence.
Soft footsteps echoed against the stone, unhurried yet absolute, like the turning of fate itself. The scent of myrrh and sacred oils wove through the air, thick and cloying, as if the temple itself demanded reverence.
She did not move. Not yet.
"The gods do not summon the uncertain."
The voice was smooth—calm, but edged with something ancient, something unshaken by the fears of mortals.
Slowly, she looked.
The priestess stood before her, draped in pristine white robes, embroidered gold catching the dying light of day. She was neither young nor old, neither warm nor unkind. Her presence carried the weight of someone who had stood at the threshold of the divine too long to belong to the world of ordinary men.
Dark eyes swept over her, unreadable. Measuring. Judging.
"You seek Lord Luceris." It was not a question.
She forced a breath past her lips.
"Yes."
A pause. Not hesitation—something else. Something that felt like the shifting of unseen forces.
Then the priestess turned, her robes whispering against the stone, her voice soft but absolute.
"Then step forward. And may the god find you worthy."
The doors of the temple loomed before her, carved from stone so ancient it seemed to breathe with the weight of time. Every inch of it was etched with symbols older than memory—stories of gods and mortals, of prayers answered and ignored.
The priestess did not look back as she moved, her presence effortless, her pace unhurried. As if she had walked this path a thousand times before and knew exactly how this would end.
She hesitated at the threshold.
A single step. That was all it would take to cross into the realm of the divine.
And yet, something in the air shifted. The temple was silent—too silent. Not the peace of hallowed ground, but the kind of silence that waits. That watches.
Her fingers curled against the silk of her gown.
Then, with a quiet inhale, she stepped inside.
The world swallowed her whole.
Darkness. Not complete, but vast. Shadows curled around towering pillars, flickering torches casting an eerie glow against the cavernous walls. The scent of incense was heavier here, clinging to her skin, thick enough to drown in.
Ahead, the priestess moved like a wraith, her white robes untouched by the dust of time.
"You will kneel."
The words were soft, yet absolute.
She did not argue. Slowly, she lowered herself onto the cold stone, the chill seeping through her gown, grounding her in a reality that no longer felt like her own.
The priestess raised her hands, fingers moving in a silent prayer.
Then—silence.
A stillness so profound it felt unnatural. The air itself seemed to hum, charged with something unseen, something waiting.
Then, the flames of the torches flickered—once, twice—before surging upward, burning hotter, brighter. The shadows stretched, twisted. The temperature dropped, a sharp contrast to the fire licking at the walls.
And then, she felt it.
A presence.
Not warm. Not cold.
But vast.
Something unseen pressed against her skin, her bones, her soul. The air grew thick, her breath shallow, her pulse hammering against her ribs.
Luceris was listening.
The question was—would he answer?
The silence pressed in. Heavy. Absolute.
The temple no longer felt like a place of worship—it felt like a threshold, the fragile space between the mortal and the divine. And she stood at the edge, waiting to see if she would be pulled across… or cast aside.
The air shuddered.
Not with wind, not with sound, but with something deeper, something unseen yet suffocating in its vastness. It coiled around her like invisible hands, tracing over her skin, her bones, her very essence.
Testing. Measuring. Deciding.
She could feel him now.
Not in the way one felt another presence in the room, but in the way the sky knew when a storm was coming. A force too great, too unbound by human understanding, pressing against the fabric of reality.
A whisper curled through the air—not a sound, but a feeling. A voice.
"Why have you come?"
The words did not echo in the temple, but they crashed through her mind like a thousand waves, relentless and absolute. They stripped her bare, peeled her down to the raw, trembling truth of her existence.
She gasped. Her fingers dug into the stone beneath her, the cold seeping through her skin, grounding her in a world that suddenly felt too small, too fragile.
The priestess did not move. Did not speak. This was not her moment—this was hers. And hers alone.
She had spent years carrying this request in her heart, shaping it, refining it. But now, under the weight of his presence, the words tasted like dust on her tongue.
Still, she forced them out.
"I…" Her voice wavered, too thin, too human against the divine. She swallowed hard.
"I seek your mercy."
Silence.
Not absence, but something worse.
The air thickened, heavy as iron. The torches did not flicker, the shadows did not shift. The world itself seemed to be holding its breath, waiting.
Then—movement.
Not seen. Not heard. But felt.
A force swept through the chamber, neither warm nor cold, neither gentle nor cruel. It did not touch her, yet it sank into her bones, into the very marrow of her being.
And in that moment, she understood.
Luceris was not simply listening.
He was watching.
Weighing her.
And deciding whether she was worth answering at all.
The silence was suffocating.
Not empty, not absent, but thick with something unseen. Something watching. Judging. Weighing the worth of the mortal who dared to ask for more than what fate had given her.
Her breath came shallow, uneven. She could feel the temple walls closing in, though they had not moved. The air was charged, humming with a presence that was both nowhere and everywhere at once. It pressed against her skin, seeped into her bones, coiling in the hollow spaces of her soul.
"Speak."
The word was not heard—it was felt. A single command, threading through her mind like a whisper of flame, searing, inescapable.
She swallowed, forcing the tremor from her voice. "I seek… to bear a child."
The torches flared.
A great, unseen force rippled through the chamber, distorting the very air around her. The stone beneath her knees trembled, as if the temple itself had drawn breath.
And then, silence.
A waiting silence.
She dared to continue.
"I have waited," she whispered. "I have cried out to the heavens. And yet, no life stirs within me." A pause, a breath, heavy and raw.
"The others say I am cursed."
The words left her lips like a confession, fragile and exposed, as if by speaking them aloud, she had carved open her own chest and laid her fears bare before the god himself.
The silence stretched impossibly long.
It slithered through the air like an unseen tide, something vast and unrelenting pressing against the edges of her mind. Not a touch, not in the way mortal hands might brush against skin—but something deeper. Inside her. Through her. As though fingers of divinity had reached into her very essence, prying her open, searching through the marrow of her bones for something unseen.
Testing. Measuring. Deciding.
And then—pain.
Not physical. Not something she could name. But it was there, deep and shattering, as if she had been split open without a single wound to show for it.
A soundless exhale filled the temple, vast and consuming.
"You ask for life."
The words wrapped around her, not cruel, not kind. Simply true.
Her heart stilled.
"Yet do you understand what it is you ask?"
Her lips parted, but no sound came.
Did she?
She had spent years aching for this, praying for this. But standing here, beneath the weight of something beyond human comprehension, she realized she had never truly considered what it meant to ask a god for something so sacred.
A child was not just life. It was fate. A thread in the great tapestry of existence, one that could alter the weave of the world itself.
Luceris was not asking if she wanted a child.
He was asking if she was worthy of one.
She forced her fingers to unclench from the stone, her body trembling as she drew in a steadying breath.
"Yes." The word was barely a whisper, but it did not waver.
The air shuddered.
The god's presence thickened, like the sun growing too close, searing through her, past flesh, past thought—into the deepest parts of her that she had never dared to lay bare.
"Then prove it."
The torches roared to life.
The chamber shifted.
The walls were no longer stone but something else—something endless. Something vast.
And in that moment, she immediately knew her fate.
The air inside the temple was wrong.
It did not move, did not shift—not a single whisper of wind stirred the torches lining the ancient walls, yet the flames twisted unnaturally, contorting as though writhing in agony. Shadows stretched impossibly long across the stone floor, dark tendrils creeping and curling, reaching for her like the fingers of something unseen.
Her breath hitched.
Her white silk gown, once pristine, clung to her trembling form, damp with the cold sweat of fear. She had knelt before altars before—she had whispered prayers to the gods in the dead of night, wept into her hands when no one was listening.
But this—this was different.
The presence in the temple was alive.
Not merely existing. Not merely watching.
It saw her.
And it was weighing her down, pressing against her skin like the unbearable weight of an ocean, dragging her deeper into something inescapable.
She swallowed thickly, forcing herself to breathe.
She had come this far.
She had suffered long enough.
The whispers of the women in her village clung to her memory like thorns—cursed, cursed, cursed. Their pitying glances, their hushed voices behind closed doors, the way they clutched their own swollen bellies when she passed by, as if to protect their unborn children from whatever affliction plagued her.
She was the only one.
The only one who had never carried life within her.
The only one whose womb remained as barren as the cracked, sun-scorched earth outside the village walls.
It wasn't fair.
Her fingers dug into the temple floor, nails scraping against stone.
It wasn't fair.
She had requested. She had waited. And yet, nothing.
So now, she had come to the only god who would listen.
Luceris.
The god of Creation.
The god of Sacrifice.
The god of Debt.
She pressed her forehead against the cold stone, the tremor in her voice betraying the desperation that curled in her chest.
"Please."
Nothing.
She closed her eyes, forcing herself to continue.
"My lord," she whispered, voice hoarse. "I come before you as your servant. As a woman of faith. As a woman who has given you every offering I can—"
The torches flared.
A shock of heat roared through the temple, the flames exploding upward, licking the high ceiling like hungry, grasping hands.
She gasped, nearly losing her balance.
And then—
The voice.
"You have given me nothing."
It was not a sound.
It was not a whisper.
It was inside her.
Inside her ribs, inside her veins, rattling against her skull like an unrelenting truth.
Her mouth went dry.
The temple shifted.
The air folded inward, thick and suffocating, pressing against her chest until her ribs felt like they might shatter beneath its weight. Her pulse thundered against her skin, her breath turning ragged as the unseen force tightened around her, pulling her spine straight, dragging her face upward—
Toward nothing.
No form. No body.
Only a presence so massive, so colossal, that her mortal mind could barely comprehend it without breaking apart.
"You speak of offerings," the voice slithered through her, vast and ancient. "You bring your tears, your prayers, your worthless cries into my temple and believe they hold worth?"
A searing heat coiled around her lungs, squeezing, twisting.
"Do you think the gods owe you for your suffering?"
She choked, lips parting, her vision swimming.
"Do you think the world is unjust? That fate has wronged you?"
A sound tore from her throat, something between a sob and a plea.
"I—I seek only to bear a child," she rasped. "To—"
Pain.
Not a strike, not a wound—but pain.
A deep, unraveling tearing sensation, as though invisible hands had reached into her body, pulling apart her very being.
She screamed.
The temple walls stretched and warped, the ceiling twisting into something unrecognizable—stone no longer stone, shadows no longer shadows.
Everything around her moved.
Not in the way the earth shifts beneath the feet, but in the way something immense, something unfathomable, breathes.
And Luceris was breathing.
"You come to me now, in desperation," the god's voice burrowed through her skull, reverberating through every cell in her body.
"But do you really understand what it is you ask, woman?"
Her body shook.
She forced her head up, forced herself to look into the void of his presence, though it burned against her mortal gaze.
"Yes," she whispered. "I—I will do anything. Just—"
"Anything."
The word echoed, stretching impossibly long, sinking into the temple walls, into her bones.
The air tightened.
The torches died.
Darkness crashed over her like a tidal wave, swallowing her whole.
For a moment, there was nothing.
No breath.
No temple.
No sound.
Just the sensation of something vast and endless, something cold curling around her very existence.
And then—
"You will bear her."
Her. She will have a daughter.
A flicker of warmth. A strange, feeling stirring inside her.
"You will raise her."
Her world shook.
"But she is mine."
Her chest seized.
"And one day…"
A hand—not mortal, not flesh, but something ancient and final—pressed against her stomach.
"I will take her back."
The words seared into her skin, branding themselves into the very core of her being.
A scream clawed its way up her throat.
But Luceris was already gone.
The torches flared to life once more.
The temple was as it had been.
Still. Silent.
As if nothing had ever happened.
As if she had imagined it all.
But she knew.
Because deep within her—where there had once been only emptiness—
A child had begun to grow.
And one day, she would lose her.