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A body. His body, he realized—save for the scars and markings upon it.

The King blinked into eye-watering sunlight, warm and incandescent and overwhelmingly…

It wasn’t light at all, was it? Not as it snaked between each cell and memory, wrapping him in warmth saturated in…

Love.

This was love.

This was the laughter of a baby, tossed too high in the air with absolute trust in the hands raised to catch them. This was the taste of patisserie, the warmth of a woman, the view from atop a mountain to the glimmering teal waves of the sea below, the feel of the wind through his hair with his eyes closed as he basked in the sun after a well-earned victory on the back of his cleverness.

This was everything and nothing all at once, all-consuming and overwhelming in its exuberance, as if the air itself was overjoyed to surround him.

Still…

Nothing.

With a bit of focus, the warrior sculpted himself familiar hands—returned the scars and lines as they should be, not pausing to wonder how it was possible, because within the infinite expanse of Creation, all things are possible at once. The mere thought of existing in the form he’d worn longest became reality. The usurped King had tried for centuries to master magic as proficiently as that.

It was better than the void, without a doubt, and yet that loneliness persisted until at last the King without a throne breathed, “Hello?”

He wasn’t sure what he expected, yet didn’t feel surprised when he was met with a Knowing. The sensation tugged on his chest to face a companion that was and wasn’t.

The warmth of this magical space filled his very soul.

The Being waited.

In love and hate, faith and bitterness, standing strong or broken on the floor, The King had hurled every sorrow toward the Creator who damned him to suffer.

“What is it that you seek, Adrastos, son of two once great peoples?” a resonant voice boomed—one and many, male and female, resounding through all that was or ever had been.

“I… I don’t know,” the King said more to himself. For so long, he hadn’t known a breath of peace, of rest, and yet in finding it, still there was more discontent.

“Do things feel unfinished?”

A trick? So often souls in power used cunning to manipulate outcomes as they saw fit. Was this any different? Was this… thing, this love, this light, this… Creator any purer in intention?

Deciding this Being was likely a manifestation of his demise, the King hoarsely admitted, “Everything is unfinished.”

“And yet you are here.”

“It’s better than there.”

The distinct glimmer of humor danced across the space. “Certainly.” When the King simply stood contemplating, the blinding entity asked, “Do you seek to return or to move on?”

“Return… to earth? Recycle?”

“A new cycle or return to the prior, both are options.”

“Haven’t I been gone for ages?”

“You know the answer to that.”

He did. “Time isn’t linear.”

“Your comprehension of the intangible has always been one of my favorite qualities.”

Always been? What did it mean always been? There had not been a voice on the rightful King’s shoulder since he was a boy. He’d been abandoned—left to scrape and claw and bite his way through each breath surrounded by monsters. The dark angel Lucifer had reared his head on occasion, and still it was more guidance than he’d ever⁠—