Her Exiled Husband Is A Forgotten God

CHAPTER NINE

POV: Kael

The summons arrived at midnight.

Not through phone or computer or any human technology. It burned directly into my consciousness — cold fire searing patterns behind my eyes, words forming in a language I’d known longer than this planet had existed.

By order of the Celestial Court, you are commanded to present yourself for judgment. Your awakening has been noted. Your destruction of Court servants has been recorded. Your refusal to submit compounds your original crimes.

The crimes they mentioned weren’t specified. They didn’t need to be. We both knew what I’d done — I tried to hold them accountable. I tried to judge the unjudgeable. And for that sin, they unmade me.

The message continued:

Failure to comply will result in escalation. Mortal casualties will be considered acceptable losses. All beings connected to your current incarnation will be treated as co-conspirators.

They were threatening Ava.

Threatening everyone I’d touched in three years.

Threatening to kill innocent people because I wouldn’t submit to beings who deserved judgment more than any creature I’d ever sentenced.

I slipped out of bed without waking Ava. Pulled on clothes in the dark. Stepped outside into the night air.

The stars looked different now. Hostile. The eyes of beings watching from dimensions humanity can’t perceive.

“I know you can hear me,” I said aloud. “So listen carefully.”

The air pressure changed. Something was paying attention.

“I refuse your summons.”

Silence. But it was a listening silence.

“I won’t submit to judgment from those who deserve judgment themselves. I won’t kneel for corrupt powers who break their own laws. And I won’t let you threaten the people I care about.”

Still nothing. But the stars seemed to pulse, just slightly.

“You had three years to kill me properly,” I continued. “Three years when I was weak and confused and didn’t remember anything. You wasted them. And now I’m waking up, and I’m remembering, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

The response was immediate.

Light descended from clouds that shouldn’t exist at this hour. It coalesced into form — an emissary of the Court, wrapped in radiance, carrying a scepter that pulsed with authority.

The emissary was beautiful in the way natural disasters are beautiful. Terrible. Overwhelming. A force of nature condensed into something vaguely humanoid.

“YOU DARE.” The voice wasn’t sound — it was pressure, vibration, reality itself bending to deliver a message. “YOU DARE DEFY THE COURT THAT CREATED YOU?”

“I dare a lot of things lately.”

“YOU ARE NOTHING. A BROKEN TOOL. A FAILED EXPERIMENT.” The emissary raised its scepter. “WE WILL UNMAKE YOU AGAIN. WE WILL SCATTER YOUR ESSENCE ACROSS DIMENSIONS. WE WILL ENSURE YOU NEVER REFORM.”

“You can try.”

“INSOLENT—”

“Let me tell you something.” I took a step forward, and felt the thing inside me rise. “I’ve spent the last few days learning what I am. Remembering what I was. And do you know what I’ve figured out?”

The emissary hesitated.

“I figured out why you’re so scared of me.” Another step. “It’s not because I’m powerful. There are lots of powerful beings. It’s not because I’m dangerous. Danger is everywhere.”

“YOU KNOW NOTHING.”

“I know everything that matters.” I let them see me — not the human shell, but the thing underneath. The judgment given form. The god who made other gods answer for their crimes. “You’re scared of me because I was right. I found the corruption. I documented the crimes. I prepared a case that would have exposed every dirty secret the Court has been hiding for eons.”

The emissary’s light flickered.

“And you couldn’t argue against it. You couldn’t defend yourselves. So you did the only thing you could do — you destroyed the prosecutor.” I smiled, and it felt wrong on my face. Too cold. Too certain. “But here’s the thing about truth: it doesn’t die when you kill the person who found it. It just waits for someone else to pick it up.”

“SILENCE.”

“I’m waking up.” I raised my hand, and light began to gather in my palm — golden, warm, impossibly bright. “Every day, I remember more. Every day, the chains get weaker. And eventually, I’m going to remember everything. Every crime. Every cover-up. Every being who helped unmake me.”

“THE COURT WILL NOT ALLOW—”

“The Court doesn’t get a vote.” I released the light.

Not as an attack. Just as a demonstration. A pulse of power that washed over the emissary and showed it, for just a moment, what I used to be.

What I was becoming again.

The emissary fell.

Not from damage. From recognition. From the sheer terror of being perceived by something that once held the power to erase divine existence entirely.

I watched it writhe on the ground, unable to look at me, unable to flee, trapped in the gravity of my attention.

“Deliver a message for me,” I said quietly. “Tell them I remember. Tell them the chains are almost broken. Tell them they had three years to kill me properly and they wasted it letting me become something worse than I was before.”

The emissary whimpered. An immortal being. Whimpering.

“Tell them I learned mercy in my mortal years. The weakness they tried to inflict on me became a gift they never anticipated.”

I paused.

“And tell them I’m not sure I want to use it.”

The emissary fled. Dissolved into light and panic, streaking upward toward whatever realm spawned it, carrying my message to beings who thought they were beyond consequence.

I stood alone in the parking lot. My eyes were glowing faintly — I could see the light reflecting off the asphalt. My shadow had stopped pretending to behave correctly. It pooled around me like a living thing, occasionally extending toward light sources before remembering to retract.

The door opened behind me.

Ava. Always Ava. The one constant in a life that kept transforming into something unrecognizable.

“I heard shouting,” she said. “And then this flash of light, and…” She trailed off, staring at my eyes. “They’re glowing.”

“Yeah. That happens now apparently.”

“What was that thing?”

“A messenger. From the beings who broke me.” I turned to face her. The glow was fading from my eyes, but I could still feel the power humming beneath my skin. “They want me to surrender.”

“And you said no.”

“I said a lot more than no.”

She was quiet for a moment, processing. Then: “What happens next?”

“War.” I didn’t see the point in softening it. “Beings of incomprehensible power coming for me with everything they have. The mortal world becoming a battlefield for forces that view humanity as collateral damage.”

“Is there anywhere safe?”

“No. Not from what’s coming.”

She nodded slowly. Like this was a problem to be solved rather than a catastrophe to be mourned. “Then we need to get ready.”

“Ava—”

“Don’t.” She held up a hand. “Don’t tell me to run. Don’t tell me to hide. Don’t tell me I’ll be safer without you. We both know that’s not true anymore.”

“They threatened everyone connected to me. If you stay—”

“If I stay, I have a god protecting me. If I leave, I’m just a target with no defenses.” She crossed her arms. “I’m staying.”

“You’re stubborn.”

“I’m practical.” She managed a small smile. “Besides, someone needs to make sure you don’t turn into a complete asshole when all this power comes back.”

Despite everything — the fear, the uncertainty, the impossible situation we were in — I laughed.

 But now Ava is my responsibility, and they're only after her because of me.