Night bled into morning. Dr. Toram woke to the twin suns of Rama, their light filtering through the high arched windows in a kaleidoscope of violet and gold. She had spent the night curled on the floor beside the bed, still trapped in that crimson suit—an organic second skin that felt less like a protective armor and more like a living curse.
As the rays of the two suns touched her face, Toram stirred, her body aching with a visceral fatigue. She sat up, her eyes still clouded with sleep, and for a moment, she forgot where she was. Then, she saw her own reflection in the polished marble floor. She scrambled to her feet, her heart lurching.
"Agh!" A sharp, rhythmic throb pulsed behind her temples. "What is the end of this?" she muttered, her voice cracking in the silence of the room.
The guest wing of the Palace of Rama was a masterwork of celestial luxury, but to Toram, the silence was predatory—it ate at her nerves, piling weight upon her chest. The walls were carved from milk-white marble, inlaid with veins of sapphire that shimmered with an eerie, internal glow. Overhead, crystal chandeliers hung like frozen constellations, casting long, strange shadows across the floor.
In the Great Hall of the palace, Saruel sat upon his throne. He was a portrait of defeat. Before him stood the Sovereigns of the other tribes—those who had been slain by Daruel and had undergone a hollow Second Birth. Saruel watched them with glazed, weary eyes. Kaduel stood at his right, his face tight with an unspoken question.
The two resurrected gods were clad in their full ceremonial regalia, their tribal emblems glowing with a restored but shadowed power.
"I have no answers for you, my brothers," Saruel said after a long, suffocating silence. His voice was hollow. "I never knew the suit was buried within the realm of men. To think that our ultimate legacy has fallen into the hands of a fragile human girl… it has placed us all in the path of extinction."
He fell silent, his gaze dropping to the floor.
The Sovereign of Fire stepped forward, his eyes burning with an orange intensity. "Daruel will come to finish what he started, and you know it. There will be no Second Birth for us here in Rama if he breaks these walls. High Sovereign, you must find a way."
Saruel tilted his head, looking at them, but his mind was elsewhere. For a terrifying second, a vision of the future flashed before him: the spires of Rama toppling, the screams of his people as Daruel's shadow consumed the light, and himself—standing in a sea of ash, his hands stained with blood and his spark extinguished.
"My Lord! They are waiting for your word." Kaduel's voice cut through the nightmare.
Saruel fought to hide the tremor in his soul. "I… I believe I need rest," he said, rising abruptly from the throne. The other gods exchanged looks of concern and doubt. "Forgive me. I need time to think." He walked past them without another word, leaving them standing in the center of the hall.
Kaduel offered a quick, respectful bow to the Sovereigns before hurrying after his king. The two gods of the hall flickered and vanished in a surge of light.
Back in her quarters, Toram paced the floor. The beauty of the room meant nothing to her; to her, this wasn't a palace, it was a gilded cage of gold and pearl.
She sat on the thick wool rug, her hands shaking. She stared at a massive, floor-to-ceiling mirror. The woman looking back at her was a stranger. The dust and soot from the battlefield still smeared her skin. Her hair, once a sharp, professional cut, was now a matted mess of sweat and grime, making her look like a wild woman of the woods.
But it was the suit that terrified her the most. The white lab coat of her former life was a ghost. In its place was this crimson organic plating that clung to her muscles with terrifying precision. It pulsed with a rhythmic life of its own. When she looked at her hands, she didn't see the delicate fingers of a scientist; she saw limbs hardened by battle, her skin a deeper, sun-kissed hue.
She pulled at the collar of the suit, looking down at her chest. Her breath hitched. Beneath the plating, she could see tiny, vein-like filaments—roots—sinking into her skin, as if the suit were drinking from her. They looked like glowing nerves woven into her own biological system. Panicked, she closed the suit and recoiled.
"What is this? What is it doing to me? This isn't me..." she whispered. "You... you suit... what kind of formula created you?" She took a long, shaky breath.
She touched her throat, feeling her pulse drumming like a war-drum. She felt as if the entire palace could hear her heart. She wished for it all to end, for the nightmare to evaporate. She leaned into the mirror, searching her eyes. They were the only things that remained the same—wide, intelligent, and filled with a very human fear.
In her mind, she tried to summon the sterile safety of her laboratory in Addis Ababa—the scent of roasted coffee, the hum of servers, the logical comfort of a computer screen. But here, the air didn't smell of coffee; it smelled of sharp ozone and a cloying, sickly-sweet floral scent from the palace gardens that made her stomach turn.
Suddenly, the heavy doors of the room swung open without a sound. Toram scrambled back, her hand instinctively flying to the hilt of the sword on her waist. But she wasn't a warrior; her fingers fumbled with the grip, not knowing how to draw the steel. She pulled her hand back in a panic. Saruel stood in the doorway.
He didn't look like the God of Lightning who had commanded the heavens. The aura of invincibility was gone. He had stripped off his golden armor, wearing only a thin tunic of white and gold silk. His massive wings were folded tight, dragging slightly. He looked like a man who had died twice and was forced to keep walking. He kicked the door shut behind him.
Saruel didn't even look at her. He moved like a ghost, stumbling toward a black stone table in the center of the room. He grabbed a crystalline pitcher of water, his hands trembling violently.
He drank directly from the pitcher, the water spilling down his chin and soaking into his tunic. He didn't care. It was the thirst of a man trying to wash away the taste of failure.
Toram backed against the wall, her voice trembling. "What... what are you doing? Why did you bring me here? What do you want from me?"
Saruel slammed the pitcher back onto the table. The sound cracked the silence. The crystal shattered, and the water spilled across the table like transparent blood.
He turned to her. His eyes were hollow, the skin beneath them dark and bruised with exhaustion. He didn't look like the sovereign of the Twelve Tribes; he looked like a broken merchant who had lost his entire world in a single night.
"Dr. Toram..." His voice was a raspy grate. "This water... it is not like the water of your world. It is the Water of Life. A single drop can revive the dead. But..." He let out a bitter, jagged laugh. "Tell me, what does your 'science' say about despair? Is there a water that can wash away the poison of a broken spirit?"
"No," she replied cautiously, her eyes fixed on him. "Science can offer theories, but it has no cure for what you're describing. We don't have 'miracles' like you do."
Saruel stared at her—first at the suit, then at the twin blades on her back. A flicker of envy crossed his face. He wished the power within her would leave her fragile frame and merge with his own. He wished he were the one the prophecy had chosen.
Toram felt a chill. Sensing his gaze, she reached back and touched the hilt of her sword. A sudden, visceral warning flared within her mind, a dark instinct blooming in her gut. The suit was telling her: *Danger.*
To be continued….