"Diarthe, Pleasure of Inferno, Prison-maker, Embodiment of Dread, The Brutal God of Cold Anguish and Torture. Such entity somehow draws his strength and will from the Orphan-God of Beauty. An unholy love that even Mother Viri herself can't fathom."

-Magnum Opus

©

It delivered the death of dread: A torch freshly lit from the Alchemist's Tower reached the Sailor's heart, warming every psychopathic depths. It meant that either of the two ladies had already found Sion with a promise that the boy would be locked in Amanita's tower.

And soon, his blood-dried legs broke the floors, leaving accidents for the guests as he storm through the halls of Graygreen Castle. The paintings framed on walls watched as the starved juggernaut shatter their dusted glass. With such overwhelming energy even though the vile spider still scratching through his stomach walls was his only nutrition.

He just can't function without the lad, Sion's company was the sole anchor of his sanity, keeping it on calm shallows far from the deep-raging seas.

He broke roots and vines in each stride towards the spiral stairs, bending the metal rails with every grasp. Drina watched as her lover ran past her as a death-charged breeze, the torch she held tumbling down the stairs.

But Amanita was who halted his tracks, or better yet, it was the familiar garment buried on her nose as she looked at the monster through the cerulean vial left by Miriam.

"Hmmm... Smells like snowberries, right Ian?" She took a last mocking sniff before throwing the garment on the man's bloodied feet. "He's getting cold Sailor..." She added salt on wound.

With that, Ian'drah was gone with the garment.

"Apathetic much, Drina?" The Grey Lady smirked as the Sailor's footsteps cracked the stone stairs above them.

"Perhaps, but maybe I just knew how he had let many maidens warm his bed as understudy to the warmth of his friend's hand. It just sickens me that I fell for it." The Silver Lady wasn't even jealous anymore, she just wants to shave her head from the burning irritation. Her self-worth staring back at her from the carpet dirt.

As soon as the Sailor stepped inside the room, sounds of bolts and bars bounced around every corner.

In the locked tower he finds himself standing in the dark; uncertain, unaware, untidy, unkind, unhinged, and unstable.

"Sion!"

His shout shook the chandelier above with wicks fresh from cessation. The only help of light was from the burning cauldron by the shut window, an unusual mistake since Lady Graygreen is a slave of perfectionism.

"Fish-head..."

He hounded towards the calling of his childhood nickname. He took one of the firewoods of the cauldron to give light towards it. From the orange floor he saw a trail of torn clothes- which he followed and followed- to the foot of an Ice Cabinet.

That's when his torch dropped down the carpet; sounding like the first knock at Inferno's door.

He saw all that he feared...

The love of his life enclosed in wrecked ice, a frail image enough to tear out his tearducts with the blood pressure alone. Sion was wearing nothing but a Crown of Perfect Ice, his long hair spreading like corn ears after a storm, sticking to his body to cover his nakedness-

Splintered wood, shattered Ice, cracked pots, broken glass bottles, spilled potions, and dripping poisons- all around were the evidence of his struggle to lock himself within. Only to be trapped in tongue biting waves of tremble- like a dying, Frozen Candle.

"Don't c-com- clo-s-se.." Sion's fugitive cry twisted each nerves in Ian'drah's body.

"Snowberry, was that a warning? or do you hate me that much?" Ian'drah's fists didn't wait long to punch through the locked cabinet, and with finger-bones pierced by glass and ice, he pulled the shivering boy out and in for a tight embrace, all the cold anguish leaving from both of their mortal bodies.

"D-don't get near, please li-listen..."

"Shhh... you're safe now, you're safe, you're safe... I'll always be here, always been here." the Sailor near-inhaled the boy, stroking with harsh hands that are relearning gentleness.

It was his last mistake.

A whiff of the aphrodisiac from Sion's neck and it was too late, no strength left to resist. Even gods themselves won't find inner peace from Amanita's brew. And what he did next was the easiest decision in his life, to throw the naked alchemist on the tabletop, the rough paper rolls and scrolls sticking to the cold sweat of the boy as he recoil on his back.

The lazy haze from the cauldron doesn't do well to censor intentions. And the alchemist watched the Sailor undress in front of him, slow as the pull of petals by winter winds.

He doesn't worry that Ian'drah would violate his purity, he worries that the torch the Sailor had dropped on the carpet might burn the whole tower and Ian'drah would still be holding him close as they burn.

And the Sailor stood there naked with the dying flames dancing in his eyes, the tower was too cold yet his humid breaths reached far to stroke the quivering boy on the tabletop- warmer than the burning carpet.

And Sion were crossing at every vision of disaster in front of him. From the Sailor's iceberg eyes of sunken tales, his chaffed lips of dry frost, the vast sea of sweat on his chest, to the tiny shards of perfect ice stabbed in his hands.

Upon looking down, he saw crescents of deep red engraved on his palms, even down his blood-dried legs and the frostbitten flesh on his feet- Ian'drah's nakedness doesn't speak of lust, it spoke of pain.

Even then, the Sailor managed a last squeeze of warmth from his blue and breathing corpse to offer Sion- a smile, somewhat luminous, elaborating a happiness no one can name.

And when Sion had seen this, he felt afraid.

"You were only gone for one afternoon Snowberry." he raised a trembling finger, "One afternoon, and look at me... At yourself, look how the world had touched you..."

He bit his lip, he doesn't want to speak no more.

"Missed me?" Sion smiled out of fear, Ancient words spoken once more but from new lips, prophecy possessing his tongue.

The Sailor knelt, collecting each of his clothes he had stripped on the floor so he could make Sion wear them instead. Upon seeing the deep marks of purple on the boy's body, he saw a vision of the Ocmenians sands, of its children- drowning cold, impaled in ice.

"I see you spread your legs for just about anyone now..." His hands quickened on covering. "You know, what separates me from that Prince is- I'll never take advantage of you. I never did."

After seeing him completely covered, he sat on the floor beside the boy's hanging legs, holding them in place to warm Sion's wet feet with his hands and breath- heart poured in each exhalation. Every warmth left within him, he gave off to the lowest part of The Alchemist's body.

"I'd even prefer if its the other way around." he whispered from below.

And they remained there as is, enough time for Sion to surrender to this comfort he knew so well. For Ian, everything is alright again as he holds firm to the legs that ran away from him that morning. He could barely feel the beating of his heart against his chest as it slows down.

It didn't take long before Sion broke the silence with his soft laughter, choking on his spit a little since he lies flat on his back.

"Why the laughter?"

The fur cloak that blanketed Sion reunited with the floor, Ian watched as each of his previous clothing fell underneath the table. He stood up to know why his childhood friend had removed these covers and what he saw squeezed the air out of his lungs.

"Because... how can anyone loved like this not love you back?" Sion lay bare before him, the androgynous Choan anatomy now tattoed forever in Ian's brain. It was as breathtaking as he fantasized it to be.

Once again, The Sailor finds himself in the dark; uncertain, unaware, untidy, unkind, unhinged, unstable... unbelieving...

Undressed...

"Snowberry I know that I'm your tool but..." he hurriedly picked up the cloak once more to cover his friend, tucking him gently.

"I just hope your sober lips would say those words again, only then I'll know what I've earned." with shaky hands he caressed the slick head of the boy again, always in careful restraint, framing his thumb on the crease of those forest eyes to rain it down with love.

They've taken hold of each other's gaze, intense yet receding to comfort, unbeknownst to Sion that the careful hands caressing him had murdered innocents for his sake.

"This crown looks good on you." he rubbed the Crown of Perfect Ice with his thumb, his indifference to coldness coming back.

"You think so? it once belonged to a child I've met here."

"A child in Graygreen Castle?"

"Funny, turns out she was a ghost... and I might be a medium." the boy confessed since they've been recently transparent to each other.

And a boulder had dropped on the Sailor's empty gut.

"No, don't say that, you can't see the dead. Fuck no, Not you. You're drugged weren't you? You're just drugged..." He pulled the boy as close as possible to his unbeating chest, his mind commencing a headcount of madness:

Matilda, the Baker.

Small Brock.

Astrid the Shepherd.

Jorgen the Scout and his Black Dog.

The Old Healer.

The Farmer near the Whitecliff,

A foreign lass washed away at the black beach.

Sion's cat.

And more he had forgotten to be shameful for.

He wanted to pray to the Gods that Sion won't ever hear his victims, but he knows no God would help a wretch... and he's all alone.

Shortly his prayers turned into insults. Insults turned into anger, anger to courage. And courage... into a strength devoted to protect this boy in his arms.

And he decided, he doesn't need the Gods and their silence.

-End of Book 1-

Author's Note: What do you think? This chapter is a complete full circle moment from the events that happened from previous chapters. I hope you guys noticed. Also, This is just the first part of the first book and I'm planning on calling this series as "War Against Gods".