I'm surprised you don't have the Pilgrims of Dark worshiping the very ground you walk on if that's what you truely look like.

"Well, I don't exactly let people find out. Honestly, I had far more problems with worship from the other side. People knew that I had taken the treasure of the Ringed City. They didn't know what it was or anything about the Ringed City. But they felt the urge to kneel and worship in its presence.

So we dumped it in the east. Far, far away. It's their problem now."

Mytha sighs and says "Honestly, dear, must you be like this? That's not what happened, and beside that, you get ahead of yourself. Finish the story before speaking of the epilogue."

So, if I'm getting this right, you were in a state similar to Syan's, except you weren't able to drive back the Dark.

"Close enough. Academically, they're quite different, but an Abyssal monster's an Abyssal monster. Mainly, my body is a human one that's trying to become a monster while Syan's is a monster forced into human shape. The Abyss wants to make me a part of it, while Syan is someone who was dragged out of it."

Once Bel has finished answering questions, Mytha continues her perspective.

We found ourselves – as per typical use of the Heart – in a place somewhat removed from the origin of the memory. Not by far, however. Before the courtyard of that cathedral is a fortress passage which leads to secret paths. We were at a crossroads there, and I could spy the cathedral through an arch.

Likewise as typical with the use of the Heart, the Ringed City was yet still in uproar. It was not our fault this time, mind. As such, the panic, anguish, and wailing helped to hide us instead. I dared not move Bel from the passage, lest we be seen and attacked as intruders or Abyssal creatures. The passage was empty, with only a statue of an old king and pitiful pygmy to watch as I failed to restrain Bel's growing corruption.

I unfixed the blade from my spear to use as a poor man's knife. Surgery is all the more terrifically difficult with only one hand, so I tied my hair to the old king and let my head hang there as I started cutting one of Bel's steel legs free of the Abyssal growth. Sabela started hissing and grinding her teeth, so I gave her the spear haft to chew on.

I suppose that I ought to mention that I had no training as a surgeon at this point. I was quite literally operating from instinct. Unsurprisingly, I made a mess of blood and Abyssal ichor without making any progress cutting away the regenerating Dark flesh. I became obsessively focused on the task – quite unwise in foreign territory.

I do not know how long I labored. It seemed nothing I did had any effect. I watched the gray mist fluctuate at the edge of my vision, always fearful that the memory would fade.

I was certain that if I could but clear away Bel's growing corruption, I could reattach her limbs. I was confident in my golem designs, but none of my sorceries were useful here. True, I had woken the Dark just minutes before, and I knew the song of Amana which set it to sleep once more. Perhaps there was a hex which could be of use. Yet I knew nothing at all about hexing.

What of the song of slumber? How well do you sleep when someone is cutting off your legs? No, I was quickly taken to my wits' end. Again, I could do naught but pray.

"Lord Dragonborn, o God of War, God of Strength, grant me your skilled hand. Grant me the understanding of the dragons which stand outside this world of Light and Dark. Grant me the courage of your Warriors, that I might see this through. Help me to save this woman – or if it is not within my power, help me to slay her before it is too late to save her spirit."

I tried one last cut, to no avail. Mere steel was of no aid against the writhing Dark, certainly not in the Ringed City of the Primeval Man. I looked at my blade, which was nearly more slicked with my own blood from gripping it than with Bel's Dark. I looked at Bel's face for what I feared might be the last time. She had resisted the transformation for longer than most, but we were reaching the end of her endurance.

The question was no longer whether I could save her; rather whether she would revive at the bonfire if I killed her. Perhaps a slow poison. I was quite skilled at poison, if naught else…

Once more. One more time. I would try again until the last moment. I would not be alone again. I would not go back to that tower. I would save Bel, or…

I took my knife to the Abyssal flesh once more. It cut. I looked down, and the blade sparked with lightning.

"Cut along with the flesh," a stern voice said. "The Dark is fluid. Follow it, and it won't resist."

My field of view was limited. My head was tied to the statue, and I could look at nothing much further than Bel's body. A man in sea-blue robes appeared in my peripheral vision, grabbing Bel's devolved arm. Thunder cracked, and in a flash, the arm was gone. More Abyssal tendrils began to grow from the stump, but the fire-glow of a healing miracle pushed them back into her body.

"Do you have the time to watch me?" he said.

I quickly started on the first leg. With the electrified knife, I had a much easier time. It still took several strokes, pulling along with the slow ebb of the Dark in order to cut away most of it.

"The fidelity of this golem-arm is really something," the man said as he leaned back over Bel.

He'd already boiled the Abyss off the steel. He snapped the leather straps of Bel's armor with just his fingers, too large to easily undo the buckles. He tore the thick cloth beneath as if paper and set the arm back in place. He bent the steel back into shape and healed Bel's human flesh around it. I resigned myself to uselessness once more and handed him the leg I'd freed. Instead of starting on cutting the second, I removed Bel's lower armor to save her the indignity of being so roughly stripped.

I merely held Sabela steady while the God of War, master of golems, performed his work. Once he'd finished, I tried to think of how to thank him. How do you thank a god who answers your prayer by appearing to perform you a service with his own hands? He stopped me before I got anywhere. He cut my hair and took my head, holding it aloft to inspect the wound of my decapitation.

"Slave Knight Executioner. Efficient. Well, I'm sure you've suffered enough."

He set my head back atop my neck. I almost screamed from the burning pain, but then I grasped my throat as I made eye contact with the god. I was whole. The pain was air traveling down my throat. Before I could think, I had raised my arms to praise the sun.

My god set a hand on my shoulder and smiled faintly.

"You have come for pilgrimage at a poor time." His voice darkened as he said, "The Filianore is betrayed." Then he looked through me. "No. You are not that kind of pilgrim. Not from a place. From a time. You prayed for the understanding of the dragons, but you already understand more than I do. Come with me, if you would."

I started to reach for my head out of reflex, then realized what a fool I was. I abandoned my spear there and picked up Bel.

By the by, her hair looks absurd when she's full of static electricity.

I followed my Lord Dragonborn to the cathedral. The statues of the "knights" were unnerving, but I continued into the main hall. There was a gathering there. The discussion had a gravity as if it was meant to be a council, yet the speakers were hardly cogent. I'd seen it so many times before. Useless men clinging to power and glory which belonged to another or to a former, worthier self.

They were all pale, ghoulish Men from whom vim and Want had fled. Each pushed ahead of his brothers like bickering children, as if that would earn their opinion greater esteem in the eyes of their father. There he stood opposite them, the old king from the statue – the First Lord.

I know not what they discussed, but all went silent as my god approached. I will not elaborate on the conversation, as I did not have sufficient context to understand it then. In summary, the Lord's daughter lay dying. The Lord Dragonborn suggested that she might be saved by the wisdom of the dragons and spoke in broad terms of a power like the Ashen Mist Heart. Bel and I were proof that time itself was not inviolable. This plan was rejected at once, and the Overlord demanded all leave, save his son and we intruders.

The Overlord looked nothing special. An old man with a crown of stone. Yet when he looked at me, I felt afire. Bel awoke at once, gasping. The Overlord turned away, and we relaxed. I set Bel on her feet.

Mytha turns.

"Dear, do you wish to continue from this point?"

Bel leans back in her chair and shrugs.

"Honestly, I was pretty engaged. You definitely had more of an arc than I did. Do you trust me to actually finish it?"

"I will entrust it to you, yes. Let us see that you do not disappoint."

So imagine coming out of a drugged sleep, and the damned King of the Gods is glaring at you. Let me go ahead and say again that the gods aren't anything special. God of the Sun, God of War, whatever. They're just people. Really tall people.

No, what was special about the Lord of Sunlight is that he was just like King Vendrick. He was more King Vendrick than King Vendrick. There was a certain uncertainty that you could sometimes feel about the King. He was still human, you know. He still got scared or angry or… hungry. Maybe it was just a front, but I didn't feel that from the Sun.

What I did feel was power. This man was everything the Iron King pretended to be. You could probably power a golem just using the sheer energy that radiated from him. Standing near him was oppressive, and meeting his eyes probably would have sent me to the ground if my legs weren't metal. Little wonder he was worshiped if trying to look him in the eye makes you kneel.

He turned to the war god and said, "Go. Do whatever you need."

The war god saluted and turned to leave. Before he did, he pressed a Sunlight Medal into Mytha's hand. She almost started crying.

Well, now it was just the two of us heretics and the boss god himself. I didn't fancy my chances, but I wasn't really expecting great odds of killing a dragon either. He looked down at us – not out of arrogance (but probably also out of arrogance) but simply because he was so tall.

"How long has it been," he said. "How long since my death? How many others?"

"Others?" I said.

"Light is Time."

So that's where the saying came from.

"Ages bend at my touch. Yet all I have wrought will one day end. Even I cannot grasp eternity. Even I cannot stop Time, nor reverse its flow. Yet here you are, smelling of cinders and ash. How many more joined my pyre?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about. I came here to kill a dragon."

He chuckled deeply.

"Knighthood's highest calling."

"No, I'm just pissed that it shot off my arm and legs when the King attempted an invasion without realizing there was a damned dragon. Wait, that's not the point. Wasn't there something important you were doing?"

The god paused, and a deep sadness fell upon him. It was like a second person. The shift in the temperature of the room was tremendous.

"Yes. That is why your arrival is a blessing. You have proven that even Time can be bested. I need only wait. One day, in one world, none of this will happen. On this day, in this world, I ask a favor of you."

"I promise nothing."

"No matter who you are, this is to your advantage. I give you a gift more precious than any other. All I ask is that you take it far from this cage.

My daughter, the Goddess of Men, is betrayed. Her spirit falters, and her body will perish. Her body, I have set in enchanted slumber. Rats will come for her soul, and one day soon, I will no longer be here to fend them off.

Ascend to her chamber. Take her soul to that faraway time, away from these dregs. Give her another life, as one of the humans she so loved. Take the fate of my kind from her."

"Nice try," I said. "King Vendrick kidnapped her all those years ago, and your monsters ground the kingdom to ruin getting her back."

"Her body. A worldly relic. They care only that it returns to the earth. They will not notice her soul. So too, your own Lords of Men have lost their sight. You have already faced the hopelessness of battling the dragon Midir, have you not? Take her soul, and I will command the dragon allow you leave."

"I don't intend to leave without–"

I stopped there. Mytha had squeezed my hand. It's like I said before. I wasn't really that focused on killed the damned dragon. I was looking for a place to die. Now? Now I had friend (or more), and I had the King of the Gods himself asking a favor. Life doesn't give you a lot of direction most of the time, but that was pretty clear.

"Alright," I said. "Are you going to lead us? Say your goodbyes?"

"No. I could not bear it."

Well, I won't bore you with the rest. We went upstairs. You know how the Mist Heart gave you giant souls for completing memories? We walked away with the real "prize" King Vendrick had wanted. The soul of the Goddess of Humanity.