Light.
Warm, soft, golden light.
It filtered through thin silk curtains, danced across polished stone, and rested on the smile of a young woman cradling a newborn. She hummed a gentle, sacred melody. It trembled with wonder. Her joy felt endless.
Roy felt it.
It wasn't memory. It was presence. He was her. He could feel the ache in her arms from long hours of temple duties. The scent of oils and incense clung to her skin. Her fingers trembled, not from weakness, but from awe.
"He's beautiful," she whispered to herself, to the stars, to no one.
"Even if the heavens forget me, they will not forget you."
Roy wept and didn't know why.
But joy never stays in temples. Not untouched.
She was a temple maid, barely more than a child when chosen.
Taken from a quiet home where her laughter once echoed through mango trees. Promised a future of purpose, of purity, of proximity to divinity.
They never said purity would mean silence.
Or that proximity would mean sacrifice.
She served the great god's halls polished marble with bloodied knees, prayed until her lips cracked, bathed in chants older than stars. She did it all with devotion, never knowing that holiness was only skin-deep in the eyes of men.
And one day, a man in gold and fire came, not from the heavens, but from the crowd.
"I am god," he declared.
And no one stopped him.
He wore no divinity, but he wore power. He believed in himself enough that others did too. And in that belief, he stole.
Stole blessings. Stole faith. Stole beings.
He came for her during the night rites, when the altar was quiet and the real god was far away, deep in the 7th heaven.
Roy felt her fear, her resistance.
Felt the moment her hope shattered.
"Please," she whispered.
He laughed like a priest delivering a sermon.
He violated her, searching for divine blood to leech from. But she had none. Only the virtue of her womb; blessed, sacred, human.
And when it was over, the silence returned. But it was not the kind found in prayer halls, it was the kind that filled graves.
Roy watched helplessly through her eyes.
And then, through his own. A baby, crying, wrapped in borrowed cloth. Cradled by trembling arms.
Then, again, through hers…days later, then weeks.
The temple walls began to whisper.
The other maids snickered behind hands and incense.
"She seduced him."
"She was always too proud."
"Maybe she wanted the attention."
Holiness meant silence.
And silence became a noose.
Months passed.
Her laughter faded completely.
She no longer sang.
Only hummed quietly, shakily to the child, whose eyes gleamed faintly with divine potential.
She loved Roy. Even when no one else did. Especially then.
But love does not feed the body. Or heal the soul.
One morning, while the sun still stretched across the temple's highest tower, she kissed the child's forehead.
Held him a little too long.
Then walked into the holy pool beneath the altar, still clothed in the white linen of her station.
"May the gods forgive me," she whispered.
"May my son live long enough to forget me."
She sunk.
Roy saw it all, and felt it all.
The last moments from her eyes calm, resigned.
And then... he saw her from the outside.
Her cold body.
Her pale lips.
The ripple of water around her unmoving frame.
The baby's cries echoed in the chamber.
And no one answered.
He woke with a scream lodged in his throat.
But no sound came out.
The Room of Ascension was still.
And from the corner, that same voice returned.
"So much pain...."