Apollo stepped forward first, the hem of his radiant cloak brushing the wounded stones.In his outstretched hands he bore a crown, no mere circlet of gold but a diadem wrought of pure starlight — each point a living comet, each band a slice of heaven's very firmament.
His voice, sonorous as a thousand choirs, unfurled across the silence:"Kael, Crownless One, bearer of burdens not yours to carry — kneel.Take this throne of starlight.Rule from heights unseen by mortal flesh.Command the courses of suns and moons.Become not a king of men, but of creation itself."
The heavens leaned forward, breathless.
Yet Kael did not kneel.He did not even glance at the shimmering crown.
He stood as he had stood against Theron — bruised, bleeding, mortal — and shook his head once, solemn as a bell tolling over a battlefield.
A shiver ran through Olympus.
Athena came next.No gaudy splendor adorned her — only the quiet, terrible weight of knowledge.In her left hand she bore a tome bound in the skin of fallen stars, its pages inked with the breath of time itself.
She spoke, voice sharp enough to carve mountains:"Kael, I offer you knowledge of all things, both seen and unseen.You shall fathom the mysteries of birth and death, the weaving of fate, the undoing of worlds.No shadow shall fall beyond your sight.No riddle shall mock you.You shall know all — and, in knowing, rule all."
The air itself thickened, trembling under the enormity of her offer.
But Kael, the man of mud and sorrow, did not reach for her book.He did not hunger for the power to unravel secrets or command destiny.
Instead, he spoke — softly, but with words that shook the pillars of Olympus:"I was born in mud.I will die in dust.Between those two silences, I choose to walk among the broken and the bleeding — not above them."
The mist around the dais recoiled, as if struck.
Ares approached then, slow and grinning, a jagged smile splitting his weathered face.In his hands he cradled a sword not of steel but of sheer will, a blade that thrummed with the birth-cries of wars yet unborn.
He lifted it high, its edge singing of conquest, rebellion, empire.
"Kael!" he roared, the sound cracking the sky."Take dominion over all wars to come!Lead armies that would make the gods themselves tremble!Crush those who oppose you beneath iron and fire!Become not a king, nor even a god — become legend!"
The earth shook, hungry for blood.
But Kael — Kael, who had refused the gods at every turn — only smiled, sad and knowing.
"No," he said."War has enough lords already.I have seen the face of conquest, and it looks too much like sorrow."
The gods recoiled as if struck by unseen hands.Not because he insulted them — no, Kael's voice carried no mockery.Rather, he wounded them in the one place even immortality could not shield:Memory.
He made them remember what they had abandoned in their endless ascent —Mortality.Choice.Sorrow.
The gods, who had crowned themselves rulers of creation, who had long forgotten the chill of fear and the ache of yearning, felt — for one terrible, beautiful moment — the sharp sting of humanity once more.
And they wept.
Some wept in rage, their pride blistered beyond bearing.Some wept in awe, their ancient hearts breaking open at last.
Kael turned his back upon Olympus.
Not out of spite.Not even out of anger.
But because the path of gods — lofty, untouchable — was not the road he had fought and bled to defend.
He stepped into the mist that gathered at the edge of the dais, a mist thick with the smell of rain and soil and life.Each step was a prayer, a rebellion, a promise:I am of the earth, not above it.
The gods watched, silent as tombstones.No thunder roared.No lightning fell.
Only the wind whispered, a song too soft for gods to hear but loud enough to carry Kael's name across every corner of the waking world.
The mist swallowed him.
He did not look back.
And behind him, Olympus stood — vast, eternal — weeping for what it could no longer claim.
Weeping for what it had lost when it chose immortality over humanity.
Weeping for Kael, the Crownless One, who had refused crowns, thrones, and dominions.
Weeping for itself.
—
In the years to come, stories would bloom like wildflowers from the ruin of that battlefield.
Some said Kael vanished into the mist and became the first wandering saint.Others swore he laid down his sword and lived a quiet life among farmers and widows, teaching their children songs older than language.A few whispered that he became a shadow, watching over mankind unseen, the final defender when no hope remained.
But all agreed on this:When the gods remembered their own grief, when thunder rumbled without reason, when mist crept silent across the fields, it was because they mourned.
Mourned a man who dared to say no.
Mourned a man who had faced eternity — and chosen to carry today instead.