Part 5 - Cyric

13th of Hallowtide, 971 A.D.

They say I’m mad. They say I’m a danger. They say I lost. They say a lot of things.

But they’re wrong. Because I am the song that truth sings to itself. I am the last name whispered before the world sleeps. I am the smile behind every betrayal, the soft hand that offers the knife.

I am Cyric.

And the rest of them - Kerelan, Antael, Mask, even that broken goddess who still hasn’t managed to die properly - are footnotes in my gospel.

Would you like me to read it to you?

Because I do. I read it every day. The Cyrinishad sits in my lap like a purring beast, warm and humming. Its pages are bound in skin and each line etched in divine purpose, truth shaped into scripture. I wrote it. Or perhaps it wrote me. Either way, it knows what the world refuses to admit - that the other gods are accidents. Echoes and leftovers. But me? I am inevitable.

I turn a page. My fingers tingle as the words slither through me again, intoxicating and beautiful. It tells the story right. The only story - the true one. I was reborn in radiance. And when I rose, they screamed. Because they knew - they all knew. The moment I took that scroll, the Divine Order, and placed my hand upon it, the world shifted. The lie cracked, and they couldn’t bear it. So they betrayed me.

They sealed me here. Called it justice. But this place? This throne? It’s mine. They thought it would be a cage. They didn’t realize I’d turn it into a sanctum. A cathedral. The first temple of the Last God. The Supreme Throne is not a prison - it is the beginning.

I pace its halls now, bare feet silent against the glass-black floor. Every surface reflects me. Not metaphorically. Literally. My face stares back from every wall, from the ceiling and from beneath every step. Sometimes I wave to myself. Other times I preach. And I never interrupt. The words echo perfectly.

“And in the days of silence, Cyric spoke.“
“And his voice was as thunder, and his truth shattered the bones of false gods.”
“And he looked upon the Divine Order and laughed, for what order dares contain the one who writes the endings?”

Yes. Good scripture. I should carve that one into the sky next.

They thought they ended me when they struck. When Antael and Kerelan drove the shattered blade into my body - my own blade - as if they could wield what they didn’t understand. As if truth could be used against the one who writes it. They thought I’d vanish. But I didn’t die.

I remember the moment the pieces of Godsbane pierced my form. I remember Antael’s eyes, burning with rage. I remember Kerelan’s heavy silence. And Mask… I had just shattered him. Snapped him in half with my own hands. And still, they drove him into me. Even broken, he found a way to cut me.

I read the Cyrinishad again. Each time is different, deeper. The truths layer upon themselves until I can feel them in my teeth. The more I read, the more the lies of the other gods disintegrate. And the more I become real. Because the world doesn’t run on law. It doesn’t run on balance or judgment. It runs on belief. And I believe in me.

So I do not sit here in shame. No, I sit here in glory, because I have already won. The others are merely catching up. The book will be read again by others. That’s the beauty of scripture - it spreads like fire. A whisper here, a loyal hand there. I don’t even need to leave this place. My aspect does that for me.

He walks the world, that one. A shadow draped in mortal flesh. It was he who gave the Cyrinishad to Agnese. He who left it waiting like a gift too beautiful not to unwrap. And Agnese - noble, loyal Agnese - opened it. I watched as the words filled him, as the oath inside him fought back. He was a paladin once - his soul was iron. But the truth of me was stronger. The words tore through him like a blade wrapped in prayer. And when he could no longer stand it, he drove the blade into his own heart just to hear the silence. Beautiful.

I think of him often, actually. Just before he died, I felt it - his soul resisted me. He chose to fall into Kerelan’s arms, into that stale little afterlife of peace and stillness. It should have angered me. But it doesn’t - because in that moment, he knew he couldn’t live without me. That’s what belief is.

Even now, I can taste my nature working in the minds of others. There’s a boy, somewhere who once served Bhaal. A Bhaalspawn. I met him, briefly. The Red Heir, they call him. He kills in my name now, even if he doesn’t know it. All those murders, those sacred cleansings of Bhaal’s bloodline - he says he’s doing it for his brother, for mercy. But I know the truth. I am the truth. He’s carving my gospel into the world one throat at a time.

Lately, the Throne is colder. Not colder in warmth - colder in presence. The silence lingers longer now, like it’s listening. There’s a shape behind the stillness, a mind behind the darkness. She visits sometimes. Not in form, but in feeling. A shadow draped across my shoulder. A breath pressed too close to my ear. A word I didn’t think, but heard anyway.

Shar.

Oh, she’s beautiful. Her darkness doesn’t hide. No, it reveals. She doesn’t flinch at the truths that broke the rest. And she speaks, when she wants to. Not to lecture or to question. Just enough. And when she laughs, it doesn’t echo. It sinks. And I think - “Finally. Someone who understands.”

We will build something together. Not yet. But soon. For now, I read. I speak the words aloud. Not for me, but for the world. Because the Throne echoes with them. I turn the last page.

“And the final name in the book of gods was not Ao. It was not Kerelan, not Oghma, not Helm. It was Cyric. And he did not end.”

I close the book. I smile. The echoes never stop. And in the quiet in between them when the throne grows cold, I hear the world whisper my name.