A God In Chains

THE heavens never spoke in whispers. They roared.

Kael knelt at the edge of the celestial dais, his skin stripped of its golden glow, blackened now with the mark of divine betrayal. The air around him shimmered with judgment, each breath thick with the rancid stench of mortality. Above him, the gods loomed, their faces carved from the cold light of eternity. Their eyes held neither pity nor forgiveness—only a cruelty as infinite as the stars.

“You, the god of storms, who once commanded the skies,” boomed the All-Father, his voice rattling the cosmos, “have desecrated the sacred laws. You dared to love what is beneath us. A mortal. A fleeting ember among our eternal flame.”

Kael’s fists dug into the marble beneath him, cracks spreading like veins through its surface. “She is more than you will ever understand,” he snarled, the words raw, jagged. “More than this hollow existence you call divine.”

The assembly rippled with disdain, a wave of voices sharp as knives. The All-Father stepped closer, his golden spear glinting like a shard of the sun. “Your love is an abomination,” he spat. “And for it, you will be cast down, stripped of your divinity. You will roam the earth as a beast—neither man nor god, but a cursed shadow of both.”

Kael’s breath hitched, the words slicing through him. But worse was the laughter that followed. A soft, mocking sound that pierced him deeper than any blade.

It came from her.

He turned, and there she was: Eira. His mortal love. Her delicate frame, once alight with the warmth of life, now dangled limp between two celestial guards. Her eyes, the very color of the sea that had first drawn him to her, were wide with fear. Blood trickled from her lips, and yet, even in her broken state, she held his gaze, a gaze filled with love.

“Eira…” he whispered, his voice trembling.

She smiled, faint and bittersweet. “I’ll wait for you,” she murmured, her voice fragile as the wind. “In every life. I’ll find you.”

The heavens moved before her voice even faded. A blinding light erupted, splitting the heavens, and with a scream that ripped the skies apart, Kael fell.

Down he plummeted, through clouds and stars, through endless bitter silence, until he crashed into the earth with the force of a dying star. The impact left a crater that bled fire, but Kael barely noticed. Pain like he’d never known burned through him as his bones twisted, his skin tore, and his very soul fragmented.

When the agony finally ended, he became something else. Not a man. Not a god.

A beast.

He was the beast they’d promised.

Above him, the heavens re-formed, their gates sealing shut. And from within their unreachable heights, a voice called down:

“Find her, if you dare. Crawl through the filth of the earth you now call home. But know this: she will never remember you. Every time you claim her, you will watch her die. And you will know this pain for all eternity.”

Kael’s howl echoed through the night, shaking the ground beneath him. His claws tore at the earth, his eyes glowing with the fury of a god and the hunger of a beast.

For centuries, he would hunt her. Love her. Lose her. And curse the heavens with every breath.

But one day, he vowed, he would return. And the gods would burn.