The temple bells tolled midnight. Each echo rolled through the stone halls like a warning. Most of the children were asleep, curled in their straw pallets. The priests would be deep in their nocturnal chants - hollow prayers to hollow gods- their voices echoing down the obsidian corridors.
Ares moved like a shadow.
He'd waited for this night. Studied the temple routines for weeks. He knew when the guards changed, when the kithens were empty, where the outer wards flickered weak. He had nothing but a small satchel, a skin of water, and a stolen map - half-burnt - and incomplete, but better than blind wandering. The map was to guide him his way down the valley.
His heart thudded against his ribs as he crept down the service corridor behind the kitchens. Dust coated his sandals. The iron gate that led outside - the one only used by coal merchants - was just ahead.
He knelt, breath shallow, and began to undo the boulds.
Clink.
A sound echoed behind him.
He froze.
Footsteps. Too light to be a priest. A child?
No, he knew that pattern. A delibrate rhythm, not curious - searching.
A Temple Watcher.
Ares ducked into the alcove area of the service corridor. Tge stone was cold against his back. He held back his breath as a figure passed - lantern raised.
The light almost touched his face.
His black eye pulsed.
Ares felt something cold ripple through him - not fear, not entirely. Stillness. A presence, like the eye was watching for him. The guard slowed... frowned... and then, strangely turned the other way.
Gone.
Ares didn't wait to wonder why. He slipped back to the gate, forced ut open, and crawled out in the night.
The wind outside was sharp and dry. Ash blew across the temple cliffs, ghost grey under tge moonlight. The valley spread out below endless dark hills and thorn choked paths.
He paused only once, turning back.
The temple of oracles loomed like a tomb behind him - black stone and red glass, lit by dying lanterns. For the first time, he saw it for what it was:
A graveyard of gods.
And he had just escaped it.
He didn't know if he would survive a single day from here on.
But he knew this:
He would rather be hunted by monsters than buried with piests.
Ares adjusted the strap of his satchel and stepped off the temple's rear platform, descending into the wild dark.
There was no path.
Only stone ridges slick with lichen, thorn-choked crevices, and roots clawing though earth like black veins. The cliffs behind the temple of iracle were never meant for passage. That's why he chose them.
His sandals slipped more than once on the jagged slope. At one point he fell, elbows striking hard rock, breath ripped from his lungs. He lay still, chest heaving. Far above, the temple bells had gone silent. But he knew silence didn't mean safety.
He rose and kept moving.
Down through bramble paths where no firelight reached. Down past the old animals pits where broken statues of forgotten saints had veen thrown to rot. He passed them one by one - limestone face cracked, their eyes worn smooth by centuries of rain.
When he dared glance back, the temple still loomed above like a watching god. Distant now, but not far enough.
By the second hour, his limbs burned. His breath came ragged. Hunger gnawed at his belly but he ignored it. The important thing was distance - distance from the watchers, the preists, the chants.
He passed a ridge where stone turned to mud, and crouched behind a moss-covered boulder. There, he uneolled part of the burned map.
Most of the ink had faded. What remained was a spider web of paths, some real, some long since burried.Ares traced a crooked route marked "river path" in a sharp hand - likely drawn by some who'd never seen it in person. Still, it was the only guide he had.
The river, if he could reach it, would lead down the valley and into the outer woods. From there... it was guesswork. He had no name. No coin. No allies. Just what he'd taken from the kitchens - water, a bit of stale breade, and two withered apples.
He replaced the map and kept moving.
By the dawn, the stars had begun to vanish behind low clouds. A mist clung to the rocks and began their low, guttural calls.
Ares finally stopped near the edge of an overgrown ravine. The stream below chattered over old bones and broken cart wheels. He sat with his back against a tree that had long ago split and twisted into unnatural shapes, ut bark scarred by lightning.
His fingers trembled as he pulled ot the bread. It was hard as brick, but he bit into it anyway. Halfway through the second bite, he gagged and spit into the dirt.
Too dry.
Too foul.
He drank from his water skin, and for a moment, he simply sat - shoulders slumped, eyes fixed on nothing.
His body ached in ways he hadn't thought possible. There were scratches on his arms he couldn't remember getting. One sandal starp had torn and was held in place with a bit of old twine. His breath stank of copper and dust. He was exhausted. Alone.
But free.
That word meant something now. He wasn't sure what ye, but he clung to it like a lifeline.
He let himself close his eyes for moment.
Then-
Snap.