356 BC The Temple of Artemis – Ephesus
The moon hung fat and bruised above the horizon as flames climbed the marble columns of the goddess' sanctuary.
The world believes a madman named Herostratus set the fire that destroyed the temple—a man desperate for eternal fame.
That was a lie.
The real fire did not begin with oil or spark.
It began below.
Deep beneath the marble foundations, where only the old magicks stirred, Roux had been placed in eternal confinement—his essence used to anchor the last of the bindings upon him.
> "It was never meant to be a prison," Roux said aloud in the present. "It was a lock. And I was the key, buried alive."
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Below the Temple — The Hidden Vault
There were no walls—only obsidian columns carved with runes too ancient for gods, let alone men. The scent of scorched lilac clung to the air. Roux knelt at the center of a sigil large enough to bleed a kingdom, bound by relics stolen from forgotten shrines: a feather from Thoth's robe, a scale once held by Maat, a vial of blood from an unnamed saint.
He had not aged.
But he had dreamed—dreamed of escape, of vengeance, of sunlight not filtered through enchanted stone.
And then, one day, the bindings shivered.
Above, the temple prepared for its festival.
Below, Roux's chains hummed a different song.
> "The gods no longer believed in their own names," he whispered. "And belief… is what kept me caged."
---
It began not with Herostratus—but with Roux.
He had waited centuries for the alignment of three forgotten stars—stars that once crowned the sky before the first calendar etched its count.
As they aligned, he uttered a phrase only two souls in all the cosmos had ever known.
> "Quiesce... Vinctum... Aeternum."
The chains shattered.
But so did the gate.
The magick erupted. The foundations cracked.
And as Roux emerged—bruised, radiant, and furious—the walls above began to tremble.
Marble burst from within like ribs torn from a dying beast.
Flames poured up, not down.
The Temple of Artemis did not burn from the hands of a man—
It collapsed under the weight of a soul reawakening.
---
Above
Herostratus, a thief and drunk, had been the only mortal near the site. He screamed about visions and light, about gods arguing in tongues, before falling silent from madness.
He was blamed. He was executed.
His name remembered.
But the truth?
> "I brought down a wonder of the world," Roux said now, his voice without pride or regret. "Not to escape… but to warn them I was no longer bound."
---
Selene's eyes shimmered with something between awe and sadness.
> "And the world believed it a madman seeking immortality."
> "Perhaps he did," Roux murmured. "But he got it... for being present at my rebirth."
Dorian shook his head.
> "You tore down a temple."
> "No," Roux said quietly. "I traded one. My freedom for Artemis' sanctuary. She knew the cost. And she let it fall."
Akari stepped forward.
> "Then we owe the goddess a debt."
> "We owe her nothing," Roux said, sharper now. "She helped imprison me. But she knew the day would come when she would need me released."
Selene's fan snapped open with a breath of silk.
> "Then the world ends as it always does... with blood and broken temples."
---
Rain kissed the glass in soft intervals. Not enough to storm, not enough to silence. Merely a rhythm. One that Roux had heard before—on rooftops of cathedrals now in ruin, on the backs of ships long swallowed by time.
He stood by the hearth, swirling amber liquid that caught firelight like memory.
> "You asked how I got out, Dorian," he said finally. "But the better question is: how did I remain… after I did?"
The others sat silently. Even Selene lowered her fan.
Roux's voice became a thread pulled from the tapestry of centuries.
---
Ephesus — 356 BC
The city burned behind him, but Roux did not look back. His power—raw and returning—was barely enough to hold his form.
He moved like smoke, unseen, unwanted.
> "I fled east," he said softly. "Not to hide. But to breathe. After centuries beneath stone, even moonlight felt too loud."
He crossed deserts disguised as a prophet. He sailed with Phoenicians under false names, traded relics from fallen gods for silver coins in open-air markets.
He wandered.
And time… wandered with him.
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The First Plague — 541 AD
He stood over Constantinople, watching as the Black Wind took ten thousand souls a day.
> "Mortals wept, called it a curse," he said. "But I knew better. It was not death they feared. It was irrelevance."
He healed no one.
He was no savior.
But as cities fell to shadow, Roux remained untouched—an immortal wrapped in silk and solitude, untouched by time or fever.
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The Mongol Siege — 1258 AD
> "I was in Baghdad when Hulagu Khan arrived," Roux said, a faint flicker of nostalgia in his tone. "The Caliph offered libraries as ransom. The Khan offered fire in reply."
He walked through streets paved with blood, untouched.
He saw children crushed beneath hooves, and still he walked.
> "The city burned, but I did not. I never do."
---
The Renaissance — 1500s
Roux smiled faintly.
> "I painted in Florence. Wrote verses in Rome. Dined with kings and slept in the arms of their queens. They thought me eccentric. Some thought me divine. I let them."
He wore velvet then. Read poetry to men who would become gods in their own minds, then fall to dust before the ink dried.
He whispered truths to Da Vinci. Gave Shakespeare a line he never understood. Taught Machiavelli the meaning of stillness.
> "I never ruled," Roux said, "but I was always beside the throne."
---
The Revolution Years — 1700s to 1800s
> "I was in Paris when they tore the heads from their kings. In Haiti when they remembered they were not meant to bow. I stood in silence in the courtrooms of America, where justice was bartered like bread."
They never saw him.
Not truly.
But Roux saw everything.
> "History is not made by those who fight," he said. "It is made by those who endure."
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The Great Wars — 1914 & 1939
He passed through trenches like a ghost.
Watched angels die beside devils, and saw no difference between the two.
> "Bullets are not meant for men like us," he said quietly. "But we still bleed. Just… not in the way they do."
He walked the ruins of Berlin with a notebook and a compass. Left no footprints in Hiroshima. Closed the eyes of a child beneath a scorched sky, and then vanished once more.
> "Mortals die for causes," he said. "We die for nothing. Because we never truly do."
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The Modern Age — Now
> "And so I remain," he finished. "A relic no one asked to remember. Watching the world dress its sins in neon and hashtags, praying to gods they do not believe in, and sleeping through the tremble beneath their feet."
His voice dropped to a hush.
> "Until the seal broke. Until he stirred. And I felt my name return to me—not from a tongue, but from the earth itself."
He turned.
Faced them all.
> "So no. I did not escape to return. I endured to be summoned."
---
Silence.
Dorian leaned back, exhaling through his teeth.
Akari bowed her head once—her version of respect.
Selene, at last, whispered:
> "Then the world should fear what it remembers."
Roux only smiled.
> "It already does."
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