Bonds and Freedom

Again and again the sinful people struck at the God-Given City, their formation flawless, every monster among them utterly silent, without so much as a sound, let alone a shout.

But the horror hidden behind that silence, and the weight of it, was far more terrible than any roar could have been.

Atop the city walls, the voices of the defending soldiers rose one after another.

"Kill! Kill them!"

"Hurry, I can't hold my side any longer!"

"Throw the stones down! Crush these god-forsaken sinners!"

"Where's the reserve guard? Where did the reserve guard go?"

"Lord Priest, Lord Priest, where are you?"

By the time the night was over, corpses littered the walls above and below, and one whole corner of the wall had even collapsed.

The most brutal slaughter had unfolded there, and the gap left by the collapse lay heaped with bones and bodies.

But the God-Descended City had held.

King Eli had not let his Ruhe Beast charge straight into the God-Descended City to slaughter without restraint. He meant only to keep the Ruhe Beast under Star's command occupied. In his eyes this was, after all, his own capital.

What was more, with tens of thousands of the sinful people at his command, he had more than enough strength to break through a God-Descended City left without a Ruhe Beast to help defend it.

At daybreak, both sides fell still at once, as though by unspoken agreement.

The sinful people withdrew into the sea to lick their wounds and prepare for what was to come.

The God-Descended City, too, hurried to repair its walls, taking count of its wounded and its dead while readying itself for the battle ahead.

King Eli waited for his forces to rest, meaning to let the sinful people break through the defenders and take the city in a single overwhelming strike.

Star, meanwhile, waited for reinforcements. When the sinful people had struck the day before, she had sent word through a special channel, and the Ruhe Beast alone, at the very earliest, could reach her that same day.

"It's King Eli."

"Someone saw him. It's that tyrant, he's come back."

A wounded soldier came to report, describing what they had seen from atop the wall.

Star had already guessed as much. "I understand."

"Go and rest now! The reinforcements will arrive today."

A few soldiers brought a group of people forward and held them beneath the palace.

"My queen, these people tried to attack the city gate. We caught them."

The Sky City, too, had once been opened from within by a traitor, and Star could hardly fail to guard against the same.

She walked down the steps and looked at them.

"Is this how you keep faith with the king you swore your oath to?"

But the noble kneeling on the ground said, "You are no king of ours. You are king only to those lowborn wretches."

Star did not grow angry. She had heard all this before. "Then what was the oath you swore back then? Was the promise you made before God nothing but empty words?"

She did not wait for a reply. In truth, there was no point left in argument or defense.

Queen Star leveled her scepter at them. "You will stand before the judgment of death. You will pay the price for your sin and your evil."

They were led away. The pride they had only just managed to force back into their bearing vanished in an instant, and they crumpled into a heap.

However, the reinforcements Star had been waiting for, and the three Royal Bloodline families, never came at all. What came instead was the grim news that the Sky Temple and the God-Servant City had both been seized.

The three Royal Bloodline families had betrayed her, just as they had once betrayed King Eli.

"The Sky Temple is gone?"

Star felt her body tremble. This was the second time she had lost the Sky Temple.

"What of the Samo family?" she asked at once, after her own ally.

"The lord of Samo has been killed. There is a new lord now," the messenger answered.

At the news that her most important and most loyal companion was dead, Star swayed for an instant, and had to catch herself on a palace pillar to stay standing.

"Betrayal."

"Betrayal again."

"Is this what becomes of King Redlichia's own descendants, once they leave the paradise God had promised?"

"They want Eli to kill me, and then seize the throne of the King of Yinsai for themselves."

Star grew calm again. She knew it was time to begin preparing her escape.

Tens of thousands of the sinful people surged again and again against the walls, until at last the defenders could hold no longer.

The city fell, and the monsters poured in, one after another.

The former king, leading the god-forsaken people of old, broke into this haven known as the God-Descended City.

Inside the royal palace, chaos reigned. The retreating royal court guards shielded the queen as they fell back toward the city gate on the far side of the coast.

"My queen, go quickly!"

At the same time, many of the slaves Star had pardoned, and the common folk of the lowest rank who had rallied behind her, fled out through the open gate together with her. They knew nothing good could come of staying behind.

Like beasts gone wild, the sinful people scaled the walls and streamed through the gate passage.

King Eli, standing atop the Ruhe Beast's head, crossed into the God-Descended City.

From his high vantage he saw at once the column retreating into the distance, and among them, crowned and scepter in hand, Star stood out unmistakably.

And Star, feeling his gaze upon her, turned her head.

Their eyes met.

King Eli stood high above her, his gaze cold and defiant.

The sight was so familiar.

In Star's mind rose the image of her father's death at King Eli's hands. He had worn this very same look then too.

The nightmare she had once defeated with her own hands had come back again.

Fury and hatred surged up within her chest. "King Eli."

Eli answered her in kind. "Star, of the Xilong family."

"I said this to you once before. A true king is never weak. Even in defeat, he can always rise again."

"But this time I will not give you the chance to rise again."

Star left, taking with her the slaves, the crowds of common folk, and the guards loyal to her, while the ministers and nobles went instead to welcome the old king's return.

Just as they had once welcomed Queen Star herself.

The God-Given Land

In the sea of flowers blooming beneath the pyramid temple, the largest Sun Cup had opened a dreamlike bubble, and dream spirits swam through the dream within, murmuring soft whispers like the mutterings of sleep.

Suddenly, the Dream Sovereign Polo, deep in sleep, heard Star's voice.

"Polo, the tyrant we drove out together has come back."

"It's a pity."

"I'm not as formidable as I imagined. And I'm not as strong as I imagined either."

"The instant I saw him, my first feeling wasn't hatred. It was fear."

"I... I've lost."

In the dream's vision he saw the fallen city, the rampaging monsters, the people of Yinsai locked in slaughter and wailing.

Polo opened his eyes.

The golden Sun Cup drew back in, its flower cup tipping and falling downward, and became a figure robed in gold.

Polo, anxious, floated up into the divine's hall and threw himself down at its very center.

"God, I want to leave the God-Given Land once more."

Yin Shen seemed to have already guessed this scene would come. He had long since seen through Polo's heart, and the choice he had made.

"You would cast aside your freedom? Truly give it up?"

Polo nodded. "These past few years, I think I've come to understand a few things."

"And I've come to understand at last what You meant, God, by what You said back then."

"Loss and gain go hand in hand. People grow older and older. They lose their youth and their years, and in the same moment they gain experience, and wisdom."

"To want to grow is to lose the innocence you once had. To be given your parents' love is to be bound by that love."

"When a person gains companions, they gain bonds too, and they are free no longer."

"Because to be free is to be alone."

Polo looked at God, and a smile broke over his face.

His smile had once been innocent and guileless, like the blazing sun of summer.

But now, it was more like the warm sun of winter.

It left one feeling warmed, and closer to him too.

"I'm afraid of losing my freedom. But I'm even more afraid of being alone."

"I want to be with Star."

Polo left the God-Given Land, and God did not ask him when he would return.

He knew that when the time came, the child wandering outside would find his own way home.

The first time he had left, Polo had been lost, yet full of anticipation.

This time, he was resolute and sure of himself.

He knew what he wanted, and he knew what he had to do.