The Custodian watched as her soldiers streamed to the First Temple from the surrounding forts, sitting on the top of her still-damaged tower.

  There just wasn’t much point in wasting manpower defending those when the effectiveness of their defense would rise tenfold thanks to her presence. The Temple itself, though it possessed a barracks, could not house the thousands of men ready to die in its defense.

  As such, the majority of them were positioned in and around the Temple City below the hill the First Temple itself sat on.

  It was very reminiscent of the first battle against the Terrans. However, the attitudes of the soldiers swarming below were very different.

  The confidence of an easy victory was long gone. Nervousness, fear and uncertainty permeated her troops now. Many still believed that the only reason the Terrans had advanced so far had been simply due to her inaction. The more astute ones pointed out that she had had little choice in that.

  They would be correct.

  The Chosen had proven to be inadequate in their task. A mere bandaid, unable to fully stem the flow of heretics. She had no time to spare now to help train others, but more damningly, Serana’s reasons for creating only a small number of the knights had not changed.

  While demands for loyalty and talent could be lessened, it was a simple fact that Serana could not support many of the knights. The initial thirty-seven had seemed like a safe enough number, but without the deaths amongst their number, the Custodian might not have been able to support all of them now.

  Not with the unrelenting bombardment. Ultimately, Serana was a channel, one with a very real limit. Sharing some small bits of her power with others would be fine normally, but not when she was being pushed to her limits.

  Twenty of the Chosen remained alive, Aisac amongst their number. Fifteen were present in the First Temple, the remaining five being on missions behind enemy lines, too far to make it back in a timely manner.

  Serana hummed a short, sad melody to herself, a small remnant of her long-dead sister’s life.

  There was still a path to victory. The Terrans did not understand what they were challenging.

  Gods were Gods and men were men.

  She watched for a while as the rhythmic bombardment pushed her shields, when suddenly, it stopped.

  Looking upward into orbit, Serana spotted nothing unusual.

  ‘Had they run out of ammo?’

  Her question was quickly answered when the spaceships fired again. All of them, at once.

  Serana’s eyes widened as she poured more power into the shield, stretching it far enough to intercept the coming barrage.

  The shield held.

  Around the Temple, people looked up in confusion and fear as the noise was tripled in an instant, explosions blooming up in the sky.

  The Republic did not stop.

  It was with a grimace that the Custodian realised that rather than a lack of ammo, the Terrans had decided to stop conserving it.

  On the horizon, far beyond a mortal's eyesight, a flying machine rose out of the forest.

  Three Terrans of undetermined gender wearing black and purple armour with helmets resembling owls lay prone on the machine’s floor, each aiming a rifle taller than themselves, aiming for the top of an ivory tower.

  Serana looked at the explosions, her mind calm. Despite her thoughts in the past, it was now clear that she simply lacked the power and tools to fight back effectively.

  Perhaps she could have done better, but it always would have only delayed the Republic’s advance.

  There was no future in which they would not have reached her Temple’s gates. Whether they would manage to go through was the question.

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  The option of acceding to their demands never even crossed her mind.

  It was at the last moment that her inhuman eyesight spotted the machine. However, Serana did not even have the time to frown before the trio fired.

  Metal slugs shot towards her at hypersonic speeds.

  The first one went through her shoulder. The other two broke on her shield.

  The flying machine dipped below the treeline immediately.

  Serana stood still, blood dripping on her robes from the wound, eyes wide in disbelief rather than shock or pain.

  A few seconds later, she examined the wound. The bullet had gone straight through, tearing a bloody hole through her body.

  As she watched, the bleeding slowly stopped.

  Shaking her head, she descended into her room, but before she could find another set of robes to change into, Aisac barged in.

  She raised an eyebrow.

  Aisac gaped at the blood, before composing himself.

  “We are losing,” he spoke bluntly.

  “Are we?” Serana replied, rumaging through a dresser, pulling out her ceremonial robes.

  The Knight Commander frowned, “It is obvious for all to see. The faithful still believe you will turn things around with a wave of your hand, that this is a test of some sort.”

  “And you do not?”

  He stared at her bloody shoulder.

  “I’ve never had faith,” he replied, “Is that not why you’ve elevated me to this position over my peers?”

  “True enough,” she responded easily, causing Aisac’s eyes to widen. So he had suspected.

  Undeterred by her casual reply, he continued, “I believe in what my eyes see. And they see power. Power, which is no longer only yours to wield. What is the plan? How can we win when your own power is already stretched to its limits while the invaders continue to multiply? Don’t deny it! They would not be marching against us were it not the case.”

  Serana smiled. It was nice to see Aisac so spirited.

  “The plan is as always. To crush the enemy with Eternity’s overwhelming might.”

  Aisac’s nostrils flared as he breathed heavily, “You… Are you mocking me?”

  He seemed to catch himself a moment later, bowing his head “I apologise for my tone, Lady Custodian.”

  Serana was still smiling.

  “I think,” she said, “that you will come to believe yet.”

  Frantic knocking interrupted further conversation, “Come in,” Serana commanded.

  Her handmaiden rushed in, out of breath, “Lady Custodian! A Terran is here! They want to negotiate!”

  She seemed to notice the blood then, her eyes growing comically wide.

  Serana waved her hand, “Send them away,” she paused, before adding on, “ And do not speak of my injury.”

  Aisac’s eyes bulged, “Lady Custodian!”

  The Custodian’s eyes flashed, “My command is final,” Serana stared at the girl until she shakily made her way out of the room.

  “I understand that such things are difficult to understand for a man like you, Aisac,” she spoke softly, “Unfortunately, you will just have to have faith.”

  The Knight Commander’s fist clenched instinctively before he caught himself and gradually relaxed his grip.

  A stupider man would probably attack her now, but Serana knew she had nothing to fear. Aisac knew very well how terrible his odds of even scratching her were.

  He breathed out slowly instead, before abruptly leaving.

  The next day, Serana watched, dressed in her ceremonial garb, as the siege started. No trace of her injury remained.

  Southern traitors numbering in the tens of thousands were the bulk of the force and the most visible. The Custodian could spot Terrans scurrying around here and there, but for the most part, they stayed out of sight while their allies prepared battering rams and siege towers.

  The soldiers weren’t in good shape. Much of their equipment was worn, and many were gaunt, but Serana could see that quite a few were armed with Terran weaponry.

  She was beginning to understand their strategy here.

  Her enemy understood that she was the lynchpin upon which their entire defense hinged, and so they were betting everything to try and get rid of her. Clearly, long-range bombardment and attacks were ineffective, so they hoped to try a more personal approach.

  Unfortunately, they were not wrong. In her current state, Serana was extremely vulnerable. Vulnerable did not mean helpless, of course, but it was for the first time in her long life that she actually needed her knights and guards. Without them, she would likely succumb to the onslaught eventually.

  She contemplated that for a while, eventually coming to the conclusion that it was not an unpleasant state of being.

  For the first time in a long while, the people around her mattered in a tangible way. Instead of being mere conveniences whose actions and existence were ultimately of no consequence, their presence would decide the future course of Eigos. Both ally and adversary.

  It made them real in a way no amount of nostalgia or philosophising ever could.

  As she beheld the enemy, Serana began laughing with joy.