The golden castle floated impossibly above the clouds, its towers gleaming like molten sunlight even on this overcast day. A nameless peasant boy paused in the middle of tilling his father's field, craning his neck until it hurt, wondering—not for the first time—what it would be like to live somewhere that defied the very rules of earth and sky.
"Boy!" His father's voice cracked like thunder across the field. "Those turnips won't plant themselves!"
The boy blinked, the ache in his neck bringing him back to reality—to dirt under fingernails and blisters on palms. He returned to his work, pushing the wooden plow through soil that seemed determined to yield nothing but rocks and weeds. Still, he couldn't help stealing one more glance at the castle in the sky.
He knew better than to ask about it aloud. Some questions weren't meant for people like him.
---
In the village tavern not two miles from where the boy worked, laughter erupted from a corner table where two mud-splattered adventurers sat surrounded by empty tankards. The taller one—a woman with a jagged scar running from her temple to her chin—wiped foam from her mouth.
"So there I was," she slurred, "face-to-face with the beast, nothing but a broken sword and my wits!"
Her companion, a stocky man with a patchy beard, leaned in. "And yet here you sit, alive to tell the tale." He reached for his drink. "Unlike poor Varen and his company who ventured too far north."
"The Northlands..." the woman murmured, her smile fading. "They say no one returns from there anymore."
"Not since the King sealed the border," the man agreed, his voice dropping. "Our illustrious, all-knowing, ever-benevolent King Xeos." He hiccupped and grinned sloppily. "Who probably can't even take a proper shit without turning it to gold!"
The tavern fell silent. Every face turned toward him, eyes wide with horror.
"Have you lost your mind?" the woman hissed, already pushing back her chair.
The man opened his mouth to answer, but his words were replaced by a scream as a brilliant golden light pierced through the ceiling, engulfing him entirely. It lasted mere seconds, but when it faded, there was nothing left of him but a pile of ash and a scorched chair.
The scarred woman stared at what remained of her companion, then quietly laid a silver coin on the table and walked out, careful not to look up at the sky.
---
Lord Hathrin adjusted his collar in the shadowed corridor of the provincial palace, its grand architecture diminished by the looming silhouette of the golden castle overhead.
"The northern situation continues to deteriorate," Lady Melene said quietly, falling into step beside him. Her silk dress whispered against the stone floor. "Three more villages abandoned this month."
"We dare not speak of it," Hathrin replied, barely moving his lips. "You know the King's laws on such matters."
"And yet we cannot pretend all is well," Melene countered. "The Treasury demands the same taxes despite half the province lying fallow. The people grow restless."
"The people," Hathrin said with disinterest, "will do as they have for three thousand years: obey." He paused, glancing at a window that framed the golden castle perfectly, sunlight catching its spires. "Some things cannot be changed, Melene. Some powers cannot be questioned."
"Even gods can fall," she whispered, so softly he nearly missed it.
The look he gave her was a mixture of fear and warning. "Kings can hear, Lady Melene. Especially ours."
They continued down the corridor in silence, both pretending they hadn't just committed treason with their thoughts.
---
The throne room of the golden castle stood empty save for the man seated upon a massive throne of twisted gold. Not a servant, not a guard—only silence attended him.
Xeos did not need attendants. He hadn't for millennia.
He appeared unremarkable at first glance: a man of indeterminate age with features neither handsome nor plain, his skin neither pale nor dark. Only his eyes betrayed his inhuman nature—pools of molten gold that had no whites, no pupils, only an endless swirling metallic gaze that never blinked.
The great doors swung open, admitting a thin man in flowing robes who approached with deference. Tarrien, his advisor, one of the few humans permitted to speak directly to him.
"My King," Tarrien said, bowing low, "I bring the daily accounts of your kingdom."
Xeos said nothing, merely tilting his head slightly in acknowledgment.
"The southern continent remains stable under your direct rule," Tarrien began. "The eastern farmlands report abundant harvests, though the monster incursion in the badlands grows concerning. Reports suggest the horde numbers in the thousands now—mostly low-tier beasts, but with several apex predators among them. I've dispatched messages to the Archmage College; they can send their strongest practitioners within two months."
Xeos's expression didn't change.
"The western seas remain calm, with trade flowing from the islands as expected. The tribute ships from the Coral Kingdoms arrived yesterday—quite a magnificent offering this year."
Tarrien paused, clearing his throat before continuing.
"The northern continent... remains problematic, Your Majesty. The situation beyond the mountains worsens. The darkness spreads, consuming more territory each month. The barrier you established holds, but the refugees grow in number, despite your... discouragement of migration."
At this, Xeos finally spoke, his voice oddly soft for a being of such power. "The northern lands are no longer part of my kingdom."
"Yes, Your Majesty, as you have decreed. But the people—"
"Are no longer my concern." The temperature in the room dropped perceptibly. "What else?"
Tarrien swallowed. "The remaining continent, the western one under King Vareth's stewardship, sends word that the grand temple to your glory has been completed. They request your presence at the dedication ceremony."
A ghost of a smile touched Xeos's lips. "Vareth always had a flair for the unnecessary. Tell him I am pleased but will not attend."
"As you wish, Your Majesty."
"The monster horde in the east," Xeos said abruptly. "Where exactly?"
"The Red Wastes, sire. Near the ancient ruins of Kaldar."
Xeos rose from his throne in one fluid motion. "I will attend to it personally."
Tarrien blinked in surprise. "But sire, there's no need—"
"Tomorrow," Xeos said, already walking away. "You're dismissed."
---
That night, Xeos stood at the balcony of his private chambers, naked beneath the light of three moons. His golden eyes reflected their glow as he studied them—three celestial bodies in perfect alignment, a rare occurrence even in this world of impossibilities.
They had no names. Xeos had forbidden it long ago. Names gave power, identity, significance. These were merely rocks in the sky, useful for tides and light, nothing more.
And yet tonight, the middle one annoyed him. Its position was imperfect.
Xeos blinked.
And the moon was gone.
Where three had hung in harmony, only two remained. No explosion, no fragments—simply absence where presence had been a moment before.
Xeos tilted his head, considering the new view. No, it wasn't right either. The balance was wrong now, the light insufficient.
He blinked again.
Three moons returned to the night sky, exactly as they had been.
But where Xeos had stood, there was now only empty air, the balcony deserted as if he had never been there at all.
---
Dawn broke over the Red Wastes, a desolate landscape of rust-colored soil and jagged rock formations. No birds sang; nothing grew here—nothing had for thousands of years. At the edge of a vast, cracked plain stood Xeos, alone and unarmored, wearing only a simple robe of white linen.
Before him stretched the monster horde—a churning mass of nightmarish creatures. Scaled beasts with too many limbs, insects large as horses, winged abominations that blotted out patches of sky. At their center loomed giants with skin like granite, crushing smaller creatures underfoot as they lumbered forward.
Thousands upon thousands of them, moving as one seething entity toward the fertile lands beyond the wastes. Toward villages filled with people who would never stand a chance.
Xeos watched them dispassionately. Under normal circumstances, he would have let nature take its course. The strong devoured the weak—it was the way of the world before humans, and would be long after they were gone.
But these creatures were trespassing in his domain. They had no right to hunt here.
He raised one hand, palm forward.
Golden light began to gather, first as a pinprick, then expanding—not from the sky or the air around him, but from within his flesh itself. It poured from his palm, his fingers, spiraling outward in ever-increasing waves.
The nearest monsters sensed the power building. They turned, bellowing challenges, accelerating toward the lone figure that dared to stand against them.
Too late.
The light exploded outward in a silent shockwave, a perfect hemisphere that expanded at impossible speed. Everything it touched simply... ceased to exist. Monsters, rocks, sand—all converted to pure energy before dissipating entirely.
The wave expanded for exactly six kilometers in every direction before stopping as precisely as if it had hit an invisible wall.
Where there had been a plain filled with monsters, there was now a perfectly semicircular crater. The edges were not ragged but smooth, as if cut by an impossibly sharp knife. At the bottom, bubbling lava filled the depression, steam rising in great clouds.
Xeos studied his work for a moment, then turned and walked away, already thinking of other matters.
Behind him, the ground solidified instantly, the lava cooling to obsidian in seconds rather than centuries. A permanent monument to his power, though no one would ever be foolish enough to study it too closely.
---
Back on his golden throne, Xeos found himself uncharacteristically restless. His fingers tapped an irregular rhythm on the armrest—a distinctly human gesture he'd thought he'd abandoned centuries ago.
Something was changing. He could feel it in the weave of the world, a subtle shift that disturbed patterns established for thousands of years.
He stood abruptly and began walking, his feet carrying him through corridors where servants flattened themselves against walls as he passed. None looked directly at him; they knew better.
Deeper into the castle he went, past opulent chambers and grand halls, descending staircases that grew increasingly narrow and unadorned. The air grew colder with each level he descended, until his breath should have fogged—had he been breathing like a mortal man.
Finally, he reached a corridor that ended at a massive pair of doors. Unlike the rest of the castle, these were not gold but a strange, luminescent metal that seemed to shift colors as he approached—gold one moment, silver the next, then colors that had no names in human tongues.
Symbols were etched into their surface, forming eight concentric circles of increasing complexity. The outermost contained simple runes that any apprentice could comprehend. By the seventh circle, the symbols became so intricate and alien that only a handful of mages in the world could begin to understand their meaning.
The eighth circle was known to none but Xeos himself.
Even now, after all these years, he paused before these doors. What lay beyond rarely brought him comfort.
His right hand began to change, the flesh flowing like molten wax, reforming into a delicate golden key no larger than his smallest finger. The transformation was painless; his body had long since forgotten how to feel physical discomfort.
He inserted the key-that-was-his-finger into a lock invisible to any eye but his own. The door swung inward, releasing a wave of pressure and light that would have annihilated any other living thing.
Xeos stepped through unfazed.
Inside was a chamber that defied physical dimensions. It seemed both vast as a cathedral and confining as a prison cell. The walls, floor, and ceiling—if such terms even applied—pulsed with golden energy that formed constantly shifting patterns.
At the center of this impossible space hovered a being of pure, concentrated light.
To call it a giant would be an understatement, as inadequate as calling the ocean "wet." Its form was vaguely humanoid only in the sense that it possessed limbs and what might be considered a head. But any resemblance to humanity ended there. Its proportions warped and twisted in ways that hurt the mind to follow. Limbs bent at impossible angles, fingers elongated into writhing tentacles of light, and its face—or where a face should be—was a swirling vortex of golden energy that contained what looked disturbingly like hundreds of screaming mouths.
"The Lose," Xeos said, naming the entity. One of the thirty-four lesser gods of the world. A fragment of divine power that had once represented the concept of golden loss—of sacrifice made for greater gain, of calculated diminishment.
Now it represented nothing but power, sealed and contained, harvested like a crop.
The entity shuddered at the sound of its name, the light pulsing brighter in what might have been anger or fear or both. Chains of pure magic—visible only as distortions in the air—wrapped around its form, anchoring it to this pocket dimension within Xeos's castle.
"You feel it too," Xeos said, more statement than question. "The change coming."
The entity made no sound, but the pressure in the room intensified. The countless mouths within its face-vortex opened wider in silent screams.
"I thought I had more time," Xeos continued, circling the imprisoned god. "But perhaps it's better this way. Three thousand years is long enough, don't you think?"
He reached out one hand, and a tendril of golden energy flowed from the entity to his fingertips. Power—raw and divine—that he tapped for his most godlike feats. The destruction of the monster horde. The temporary erasure of a moon. Countless other miracles and terrors throughout the millennia.
All fueled by this captive deity that he had defeated and bound when his kingdom was young.
"Do you remember Azazel?" Xeos asked abruptly.
The entity's light flickered in what might have been recognition.
"Of course you do. He was magnificent, wasn't he? Terrible and brilliant." Xeos's golden eyes stared into the swirling vortex before him. "He realized what I didn't want to admit—that there are limits to what even we can achieve in this realm."
Xeos turned away from the entity, his expression troubled in a way no mortal had seen for thousands of years.
"Sometimes I think I can see him," he said softly. "In dreams, or between moments. Just glimpses. His face. His voice calling to me from beyond..."
A memory surfaced unbidden—Azazel standing on the precipice of the highest tower, his empire spread beneath him like a map. His voice, always so certain: *"We conquered the world, old friend, but we remain its prisoners."*
Xeos shook his head, dispelling the vision. Those final days, when Azazel spoke of transcendence, of godhood beyond the mortal realm, of powers that mortal flesh could never contain... they had seemed like madness then.
Now, three thousand years later, they seemed like prophecy.
"He found a way," Xeos whispered. "I know he did. And soon, I'll join him."
Behind him, the entrapped god's light pulsed frantically, as if warning or pleading. Xeos didn't turn back. He had a purpose, even though he didn't wanted to admit it.
"Soon," he repeated, as if promising both himself and the divine prisoner. "But firstly..."
The door closed behind him with finality, sealing away the god of Lose.
Some prices, even kings must pay.