She was small, her fragile form barely covered by torn robes. Tangled silver hair fell around her pale face. The colossus sensed the staggeringly lethal energy radiating directly from her skin. The magic pulsed with the exact same aura of pure decay that had originally awoken the sleeping giant.
This was the true threat. The reason Asphodelia was bleeding, the true infection that needed to be eradicated.
The colossus marched steadily toward her. Deep inside the suffocating fog of the magic, a sudden resistance flared. Fighting an invisible current, the colossus forced its stiff bronze limbs forward. The ancient spell simply pushed past the hesitation. The anomaly had to be removed.
The girl looked up. Her dark eyes were wide, overflowing with frantic, desperate emotion.
“Aion?”
The single word pierced the roaring white heat in its mind. The sound slipped past the ancient command, reaching the dark, buried hollow where a soul was drowning.
Aion. Who is Aion? What is happening?
“Aion, please,” the woman begged, reaching out with a small, trembling hand. “It’s me. It’s Medea.”
Staring at her outstretched hand, the colossus felt the overwhelming magic forcing a singular path into its mind. It had to strike. It had to crush her pale skin and silence the taint permanently clinging to her fingers.
But as it held its fist motionless in the air, the buried spark of consciousness protested. The man beneath the bronze remembered her touch.
Tearing itself apart in a blinding internal war, the colossus groaned aloud. Somewhere beneath the crushing weight of the magic, the fractured piece of a soul screamed in defiance.
She is not an anomaly. She is perfect. A treasure. My mate.
A mate. The colossus could never bind its future to anyone living because its existence was one of static eternity. But that didn’t matter, because somehow the idea still made complete sense.
Medea didn’t pull away. Staying on her knees on the ground, she fixed her eyes directly on the colossus.
“I know you’re in there,” she choked out, hot tears spilling over her ash-stained cheeks. “Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me alone.”
The colossus fractured from the inside out. A single, overriding truth crashed into its mind. If it crushed the woman kneeling on the ground, Asphodelia’s safety would mean absolutely nothing.
It was her,the spell woven into its creation shrieked.You have to do your duty.
Two opposing forces violently clashed against each other. The colossus’s core of death magic burned hotter and faster. The man trapped inside the bronze realized he could not hold the magic back forever. Eventually, the magic would overpower his will, and his fist would fall.
Inside the bronze shell of the colossus, Aion finally won the battle.
He hadn’t been able to protect Medea at the bride market, but this time he wouldn’t fail. And there was only one way to keep her safe now. He had to destroy the source of the overwhelming power that saw her as a target.
Forcing his raised arm to lower, Aion bypassed Medea entirely. He brought both of his massive hands directly to the center of his own chest.
Better to die than to harm you.
With a simple thought, Aion parted his chest open. He had been crafted to contain death energy, but within his hollow interior rested his true center. His core was the wellspring of his immense power. It was the sole anchor of a fragile soul, and the biggest threat to Medea.
“No!” Medea screamed. “Aion, stop! What are you doing?”
From the edge of the path, the wounded sphinx watched the agonizing exchange. “The only thing he can do, Medea,” she offered. “Even a guardian crafted by Charon can only ever protect one thing.”
Scrambling forward, Medea grabbed Aion’s massive wrists. “You can’t! I won’t let you.”
But Medea couldn’t stop him. Her touch still carried the lethal tinge of death magic, and that connection gave Aion the strength to finish his last task.
Pushing his mate away, Aion plunged his hands into the open cavity and gripped the burning knot of his core.
The staggering heat seared his metal fingers, but he held his grip incredibly firm. Pulling with every ounce of strength left in his massive frame, Aion snapped the magical tethers anchoring the core, one by one. A terrifying emptiness began to bleed rapidly into his limbs.
The searing heat forced Medea away, and she staggered back, weeping. “Please, Aion!”
