GOD OF WAR REBORN

Echoes of the Broken Mind

The night wind hit Tharos and Lyra like a slap.

Cold, bitter but real.

The portal behind them sealed shut with a hard metallic slam, echoes rolling across the dead forest. The twisted stone labyrinth, once shifting, alive, crushing their minds, vanished as if it had never existed. Only a faint shimmer stained the air where Varik’s magic had been.

Tharos stood breathing hard, chest rising and falling with ragged anger. Lyra stayed close, one hand lightly touching his arm, grounding him, guiding him back into himself.

He still trembled.

The aftershock of the memory loss spell sat heavy in his skull, a fog full of broken voices and scattered flashes that didn’t fit together. His name felt like it was written in smoke.

But Lyra’s voice…

Her voice had cut through the madness.

“Tharos,” she said softly. “It’s okay. You’re here.”

He blinked, eyes adjusting, mind still rebuilding. A dull ache pulsed behind his temples.

And then he remembered the last thing he saw as he escaped:

Varik smiled.

Enjoying every moment of Tharos breaking.

Waiting for him to fall again.

Tharos clenched his fists.

“Varik… it’s not over,” he said, half growl, half vow.

“We will meet again.”

The forest around them stood deathly still.

Black trees bent inward, their branches twisted like ribs. Ash drifted lazily in the air, settling in the folds of Lyra’s cloak. Somewhere far off, a lone crow cried, a sharp sound slicing the quiet.

Lyra let out a shaky breath. “We shouldn’t stay here.”

Tharos stayed silent. His thoughts were tangled, unstable. He knew who he was… mostly. The memories were returning, but some corners of his mind stayed dark, empty, cut out like missing pages.

He touched his head.

Lyra watched him closely. “Does it hurt?”

“I’ll survive.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

He paused. “Yes. It hurts.”

She stepped closer. “Tharos… Varik was trying to destroy you. your mind, your past and everything that anchors you.”

“He almost did.”

“But he didn’t.”

Her voice grew firm.

“Because you fought back.”

Tharos stared at her for a long moment. Her face was faintly bruised, dirt smeared on her cheek, hair tangled from the labyrinth’s shifting walls. She looked exhausted… and still, she’d refused to raise a blade against him.

“Why didn’t you fight me?” he asked.

She swallowed. “Because you weren’t the enemy.”

“You could’ve died.”

“I knew you’d come back.”

The quiet sincerity in her voice hit deeper than any magic blast Varik could’ve thrown.

Tharos looked away, jaw tightening. “Next time he tries something like that, I want you to run.”

“Not happening,” she said instantly.

He glared. “Lyra—”

“No. If you fall, I’m pulling you back. That’s final.”

A strange warmth fought through the fog in his mind, something like gratitude wrapped in frustration. Something he wasn’t ready to name.

He exhaled long and hard. “Fine.”

The wind picked up, carrying a faint metallic rattle.

Tharos tensed. “Do you hear that?”

Lyra nodded and moved beside him, hands ready.

From the darkness, something glimmered, small, silver, and spinning slowly as it drifted to the ground. It landed at Tharos’s feet with a soft clink.

A coin.

Yet not a coin but an emblem.

The mark of the Ashen Dominion.

Tharos snarled. “Varik.”

Lyra’s expression hardened. “He’s leaving a trail.”

“Or a warning.”

Tharos bent down and picked up the emblem. The metal was warm, freshly conjured. Etched into it was a single phrase:

HE WILL BREAK.

AND THEN HE WILL KNEEL.

Tharos crushed the emblem in his palm. Metal cracked under the force of his grip.

Lyra’s eyes widened. “Your strength”

“Feels wrong,” he muttered.

And it did.

Something inside him pulsed, hot, powerful, unstable. The red divine blast hadn’t just erased memories. It had awakened something in him, something raw and primal.

Something Varik wanted.

A gust of wind swept the forest suddenly, hard enough to bend trees. Tharos braced himself. The air grew thick, humming with distant divine energy.

Lyra grabbed his arm. “Tharos… you’re glowing.”

He looked down. Faint gold light leaked from his veins, flickering like fire beneath the skin.

Shit.

The awakening wasn’t stopping.

Tharos shook his head. “We need to move.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere far from Varik’s reach before this power gets worse.”

Lyra hesitated. “And if he follows?”

Tharos’s eyes burned gold.

“Let him.”

They moved swiftly through the dead forest, stepping over roots and bones, the fog thickening the deeper they went. Lyra kept scanning the shadows, sensing something wrong.

“Tharos… do you feel that?”

“Yes.”

His voice dropped to a growl.

“We’re being hunted.”

A rustle to the left.

A whisper to the right.

And then—

The ground cracked beneath them.

Three armored figures shot up from below, clad in black iron and crimson cloaks, the Ashen Dominion’s elite hunters.

The leader snarled. “Varik wants the boy alive.”

Tharos stepped forward, golden fire crawling across his arms.

“Come take me.”

They lunged.

The first hunter swung a spear with blinding speed. Tharos grabbed it with one hand and snapped it like a twig. Before the man could react, Tharos slammed a punch into his chest, sending him flying through a dead tree.

Lyra spun, blades drawn. The second hunter tried to grab her, but she ducked under his arm and sliced across his thigh, dropping him to one knee. She twisted behind him and struck a pressure point on his neck, he crumpled.

The third hunter rushed Tharos from behind, wrapping a chain around his throat.

The chain glowed red, Varik’s magic.

Tharos choked, vision flickering.

“Tharos!” Lyra shouted.

The hunter pulled tighter. “Master Varik said you’ll kneel”

Tharos’s eyes flashed full gold.

Wrong words.

Wrong moment.

With a surge of raw force, he ripped the chain in half and slammed his head backward, breaking the hunter’s nose. The man stumbled, stunned.

Tharos didn’t hesitate.

He grabbed the hunter by the throat, lifting him off the ground.

“Tell Varik,” Tharos growled, voice deep and almost unhuman,

“I. Do. Not. Kneel.”

He crushed the helmet with his bare hand, and the hunter collapsed.

Lyra stared, half impressed, half terrified. “Tharos… your powers”

“I can’t control it.”

His breath came fast, uneven.

“The blast… It changed me.”

“We need to get you somewhere safe.”

“No.” Tharos shook his head.

“We need answers.”

Lyra hesitated as they reached a crumbling archway carved with ancient runes. Bones hung like wind chimes from its sides, clattering softly in the cold breeze.

“Tharos… this place is cursed.”

“Good.”

He stepped inside.

“That means Varik won’t come here.”

The Temple of Echoing Bone was a ruin, long abandoned. Whispering spirits drifted like pale smoke around the pillars. Every step stirred dust and memories, not all of them dead.

Lyra shivered. “Let’s get what we need and leave.”

Tharos closed his eyes. “I’m looking for something.”

“What?”

“My past.”

The stone walls pulsed faint gold, responding to his bloodline.

A deep hum filled the temple.

A voice echoed from somewhere unseen.

“Heir of the Forgotten Flame…

Your mind is fragmented.

Your power is incomplete.”

Lyra stiffened. “What was that?”

Tharos didn’t answer.

He walked toward the altar at the center, placing his hands on its cracked surface.

The ground trembled.

Flashes hit him hard—

A burning throne.

A war of gods.

Varik kneeling, then rising as a traitor.

And a woman’s voice calling his name…

A voice filled with sorrow.

And love.

“Tharos… my son…”

Pain ripped through him.

He staggered.

Lyra grabbed him. “Tharos!”

He gasped, clutching his head. “I… I saw something. Someone.”

His mother.

Alive?

Dead?

He didn’t know.

But Varik knew. Varik had always known.

The temple lights dimmed.

A shadow flickered across the far wall, no body, no form, just a whispering shape.

Lyra pulled Tharos back. “That’s not a spirit.” That’s, “A message,” Tharos finished.

The shadow spoke in Varik’s voice:

“Keep searching, boy.

Every answer you find… breaks you a little more.”

Lyra spat, “Coward!”

Tharos stared coldly at the shadow.

“You failed to break me in the labyrinth.”

The shadow smiled.

“Did I?”

Tharos stiffened.

A fresh wave of pain hit his skull, flashes of lost memories, half-formed, half-violent. His knees buckled.

Lyra held him. “Tharos, stay with me!”

The shadow continued:

“You can’t hide from what you are becoming.

And when your mind finally shatters…

you will crawl to me.”

Tharos forced himself upright, breath shaking, eyes blazing gold.

“No,” he snarled.

“I will hunt you.”

The shadow laughed, cold, mocking, echoing through every broken pillar.

“We will see.”

Then it vanished.

Tharos staggered toward the temple entrance. Lyra kept an arm around him.

“You’re burning up,” she whispered. “Your veins are glowing again.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

He stopped walking.

His pupils briefly turned slitted, feral, dangerous, unstable.

The power inside him roared, hungering for release.

Lyra grabbed his face, forcing him to look at her.

“Tharos. Listen. Breathe with me.”

Her forehead pressed lightly to his.

One breath.

Two.

Three.

The golden glow faded, slowly, painfully but it faded.

Tharos opened his eyes. “Lyra…”

“I’m here,” she said softly.

“I’ll pull you back every time.”

He swallowed hard. “You shouldn’t have to.”

“I will anyway.”

Silence stretched between them, raw, real, unspoken.

Then the ground rumbled.

“We need to move,” Tharos said.

The temple began collapsing, bones crashing to the floor like falling hail. They sprinted through the archway as the roof caved in behind them.

Dust exploded out of the entrance.

Tharos stared at the ruins.

Another piece of his past is buried.

Another scar Varik had carved deeper.

He clenched his jaw.

“This ends soon.”

Lyra touched his arm gently. “Where do we go now?”

Tharos looked into the distance, toward the horizon painted blood-red by the setting sun.

“North,” he said.

“To the Ember Peaks.”

“Why there?”

“Because that’s where the next piece of my memory is hiding.”

His voice hardened.

“And I’m done letting Varik decide what I want to remember.”

Lyra nodded. “Then I’m with you. All the way.”

He looked at her and something flickered in his eyes.

Not just anger.

Not just power.

Something human.

“Let’s go,” Tharos said.

“But stay close. Varik won’t stop.”

Lyra smirked faintly. “Neither will you.”

They stepped into the dark woods, side by side.

The wind whispered through the branches, carrying a distant voice, Varik’s voice, drifting like a curse across the land.

“Run, little heir.

I will catch you soon.”

Tharos didn’t look back.

As they walked into the gathering night, Tharos’s eyes flickered gold once more and somewhere deep inside his mind, a new memory cracked open, releasing a voice he had not heard in years…

a voice whispering his true destiny.