Almost 5 years...and a blessing of two sons later............


The sole light in the countryside was a single torch aflame.

A torch held by a boy barely 3 years old, leading a father and a blind baby brother.

The father, an Archon. A man some called King. But he is just a man today.
A man who follows the child who leads a funeral procession.



A sad and heartbroke man walks his way to the Palace of Cillicia. Shazir and a small group of priests.
The burden the priests bear....
The Body of Priestess Nyx, Oracle of the Goddess and Queen of Cappadocia.
More than that, she was his greatest spark.

The little torch carried by the awkward steps of their son Aether lit the paths ahead. It also made Charons newborn eyes show their milky color. The child had been marked in this. Her final blessing. He was blind.
A thing the priests all said was a sign. And yet the boy began his life with an otherwise healthy and active body. Shazir knew he would live.

His Mother knew he lived as well. Her spirit seemed to come to all three of the men of her family. They felt her presence as her body was carried in the sarcophagus the Cillician artisans had made with the Cappadocian priests.

The little man Aether stumbked but then stood again with a serious look on his toddler face. He kept telling his dad how he was just showing mommy the way home. So certain that she was just missing from her body and he could help her find it. Such a serious devotion from a child so young.


Shazir could not help but cry with pride as he tucked them both in at night when they stopped.

Then he would go to sleep beside his wife....beside her sarcophagus. When sleep actually came.
Most nights he would sit and watch the stars beside her. Like those earlier days when they had been two refugees on a boat. How a person can miss the simplest pleasures when life gave them its biggest troubles.

Now...now they were going to a celebration in her honor & the honor of the two nations they had helped build. Shazir had to even admit, that he had the easier task from a strong leader before him. She had begun, alone...except for his faith and Love for her.

We are going to a happier place My Love. I know you earned your rest. I only wish i could have kept you here a little while longer. Had kept you just as long as we needed to raise our two boys as we raised these two nations. They will know you. I swear the whole world will remember you!
To that end....in quiet together....Shazir swore his spirit to hers and a few promises of what would be done, as she would have liked.

More steps South....and more steps to the Palace. Their old house.....well it had been burned after the boys were not there to see it.

They would live with their father now. The future was a dark one. One that Aether and Shazir and Charon would set the world on fire ...if they must...to bring into it some light.

For now though...."the Heart of the Flame walked , with his sons.
With his sons.....and one torch aflame to lite the paths.