Go fuck yourselves

The doors of the Arcanum groaned shut behind them, and the world outside felt suddenly colder.
No guards waited on the steps – no surprise. The tower’s wards twisted the city itself, scattering pursuers into dead ends and false alleys. Still, Tia’s pulse refused to settle.

She and Corin ducked into a narrow side street, the marble walls blotting out half the sky. The noise of the upper terraces pressed faintly from afar – merchants hawking wares, the clatter of hooves, the endless drone of water channels running downhill – but here in the alleys, every sound seemed muffled, wary.

Corin was almost glowing, too wide-eyed for someone sneaking through shadows. “Can you believe it?” he whispered, still breathless. “The Arcanum! The scroll! They actually–”

“Shhh.” Tia pressed her back against the wall until a patrol of guards thundered past the mouth of the alley. She held her breath, only exhaling when the sound of boots faded. Her fingers closed tighter around the parchment.

It pulsed faintly with runes, whispering a promise she had dreamed of since the day she’d woken beneath alien skies. A way home. A bridge across reality itself.
Her hands shook as she unrolled it just enough to scan the first lines. The glyphs curled, shimmering with power – beautiful, terrifying.

And then she saw it. The clause. Written in fine print, twisted into the arcane structure. Good that she learned Empyrean somewhat diligently. But something froze the breath in her throat.
She shut it again fast, swallowing hard.

Corin noticed. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly. “Just… complicated. I’ll explain later.”

He hesitated, then nodded, trusting her. Too much.

They crept deeper into the side streets, slipping between washing lines and stacks of empty crates, avoiding the main roads. But as they turned a corner, the low murmur of a crowd reached them.

Tia peeked out. The terrace ahead had filled with people, faces pressed close, whispers buzzing like flies. Down the middle of the street marched a squad of guards in gleaming bronze. Between them walked three figures with shackles on their wrists.

Balthan. Vesh. Rika.

Tia’s chest hollowed.

Rika’s head was bowed, hair falling to hide her face. Vesh moved with his spine straight, jaw tight, though the frill at his neck quivered faintly. Balthan snarled at every guard who shoved him, a minotaur caged but unbroken.

The crowd muttered: traitors… heretics… helping the girl… Celestia’s underlings.

Tia pressed herself into the shadows, heart hammering. Corin’s fingers clenched at her sleeve. “We have to–”

But before he could finish, a cry went up. Someone in the crowd had spotted her – her face, her hair, the glow of the mark seemingly inscribed into her very being.

“Her! It’s her!”

The crowd broke instantly, people stumbling over each other to get away. Panic tore through the terrace like a brushfire.
Thinking quick she pushed Corin back along the bystanders.

And then the guards turned. Shields raised, spears leveled, their commander’s voice cutting through the chaos.
“Celestia! In the name of crown and temple – you are under arrest!”

The street closed in, a ring of steel and fear tightening around her.

Shields locked. Spears gleamed. Their line rippled outward until there was nowhere left to step but into the waiting points of steel. Above them, the terraces loomed heavy with eyes – shopkeepers leaning from their stalls, children dragged back by mothers, old men shaking their heads. All of Ssarradon, it felt, craned to watch the moment the city swallowed her whole.

Her legs wanted to give out. Her breath scraped sharp against her ribs. Every instinct screamed at her to flee, to blink sideways into some alley, to vanish before their stares stripped her down to nothing.

But she couldn’t.

Because in the gap between soldiers, she saw them. Shackled. Marched like criminals.

Rika’s eyes, half-hidden but glittering with shame.
Balthan’s teeth bared in a grin too sharp, too stubborn, but his wrists bound all the same.
Vesh’s frill trembling though he kept his head high.

Her friends. Dragged through the streets because of her.

The guilt was a weight so heavy she thought her bones would crack under it. She had brought this on them. Every step since she fell into this world had been a ripple spreading wider, and now the people she loved most were caught in the undertow.

And yet, watching them, another feeling stirred beneath the fear and the guilt – a heat rising through her chest, a pressure behind her eyes. Rage.

Because what right did this world have?
What right to shackle kindness, to brand loyalty as treason, to twist faith into a weapon?
What right to decide every life by a mark on the skin and call it divine?

The soldiers were close enough now that she could see their hands shake, see the sweat trickling under their helms. Their commander barked orders to steady them, but it didn’t erase the truth: they were afraid.
Not just of her Guild Mark. Not just of the rumors.
Of her.

The girl who should not exist. The name that echoed both as goddess and heretic. The blank mark, the broken pattern.

Tia’s laugh broke out, sudden, raw. It startled even herself.

Corin glanced at her, stricken, as if he thought she’d cracked under the pressure. Maybe she had. But in that moment, standing under a hundred watching eyes, feeling the walls of the world closing in, she realized something that made her spine straighten.

They could fear her.
They could call her traitor, heretic, monster.
But she didn’t have to bend.

Slowly, deliberately, she pulled the scroll from her cloak. Its parchment shimmered faintly in the sunlight, runes whispering across its surface like veins of fire. The soldiers nearest her flinched back, their shield wall buckling.

Gasps rippled through the plaza. The crowd, already uneasy, recoiled further. Someone shouted a prayer to Syrath. Another spat her name like a curse.

Tia lifted the scroll high, her voice raw but steady as it carried across the square.

“You want your heretic? Here I am!”

The words slammed into the silence, bounced against the marble terraces, rang up to the watchers above. Her heart hammered, her hands shook, but she forced the words louder.

“I am Celestia! The one with the blank mark – the mark that your precious system couldn’t decide. The mark that your gods themselves had to intervene and claim!”

A wave of whispers tore through the crowd, the word Celestia breaking like glass in every mouth.

The commander barked, “Seize–” but none of his men moved. Their spears hovered, their eyes wide, waiting.

Tia’s chest heaved. “You call me traitor, heretic, terrorist. But look around you! Look at your chains, your cages, your gods who supposedly chose your every path. Do you even know how small that makes you? How afraid? I’ve lived in a world where we choose. Where our worth isn’t carved into our skin before we can speak.”

Her throat thickened. The image of her family flashed sharp – her mother’s hands, her sister’s laugh. She forced the ache down, turned it into steel.

“You think I want to destroy you? No. But I won’t bow to this lie you built around yourselves. Not when it’s hurt the only people who ever showed me kindness here.”

She turned her gaze deliberately toward the shackled figures. Her voice cracked, softer but sharp as a blade:

“I’m sorry. This isn’t fair. You don’t deserve this. And I swear – I swear I’ll make it right.”

Rika lifted her head at that, eyes wide. Balthan’s grin widened, feral and proud even in chains. Vesh inclined his head, slow, dignified, as if to say: Go. We’ll endure.

Tia drew in one long breath. The scroll trembled in her grip.

“Soldiers of Ssarradon,” she shouted, her voice ragged but carrying, “go ahead! Call me blasphemer, curse my name, whisper that I seduced your princess, your knight, your priest. It doesn’t matter. Because the truth is this: your system is broken. Your gods don’t choose for you. Fate isn’t a chain. It’s your own hands. Your own will. And I–”

She raised the scroll higher, light bursting along its glyphs, dazzling bright.

“–I am proof of it! The gods told me to tell you all to go fuck yourselves!”

The last words cracked through the plaza like thunder.

Some gasped. Some shouted in fury. Some just stared, pale, caught between horror and awe.

Tia spun toward her friends one last time. Guilt and love tangled in her chest, but she forced a crooked smile. Gave them a wink.

“BYEEE.”

She tore the scroll open.

Light erupted, swallowing her whole. The runes spiraled, a sun blooming in the plaza’s heart. Soldiers stumbled back, shields raised to cover their faces. The crowd screamed and scattered, fleeing down alleys, vanishing behind pillars.

And when the glare died –
She was gone.

For a moment, silence. Only the echo of the flash, the outlines of her form burned into the eyes of all who had watched.

Then the whispers began again. Faster. Louder. Celestia. Heretic. Goddess. Traitor. Miracle. Messenger.

The soldiers didn’t move. Some still stared at the empty stones where she’d stood, as though afraid she might reappear. The commander’s jaw worked uselessly, his shout strangled in his throat.

And the people of Ssarradon scattered, carrying rumors like sparks on the wind.