Three decades flowed like a swift, transformative river. By 1993, the world Nicholas had once known from the echoes of another life had not only caught up but had subtly, irrevocably bent towards the image of the Atrium.
Within the Atrium, the World-Mountain now bore dozens of luminous "fruits", semi-planes, each a unique, thriving reality. Managing the delicate passages between them, the flow of refined essence, and the positioning of new worlds became a task of immense complexity. It required a touch both strategic and deeply intuitive to the flows of magic and life. There was one being in all the cosmos uniquely qualified for such a duty, if she could be persuaded.
In the heart of Manhattan, in a district that pulsed with a new, defiant energy, stood a nightclub called "The Thread." It was the height of exclusivity, known for impossible acoustics, drinks that seemed to alter one's mood, and a clientele that included the famously brilliant, the secretly powerful, and the mysteriously beautiful. Its owner and occasional bartender was a man named Nikos, who wore his years with an ageless grace and whose grey eyes missed nothing.
One evening, when the music was a deep, synthesised heartbeat and the air shimmered with curated possibility, she arrived. She moved through the crowd not by parting it, but by the crowd unconsciously making space for her, drawn by an aura of timeless, formidable grace. She wore a dress the colour of deep wine, and her beauty was a sharp, intelligent thing. She took a seat at the polished bar where Nikos was polishing a glass.
"A drink worthy of a woman who has swallowed an island," she said, her voice a rich contralto that cut through the ambient sound.
Nikos, a faint smile on his lips, did not ask how she knew he knew. He simply began to mix. It was not from any bottle on the shelf. His hands moved with a casual precision, and from the air itself he seemed to gather condensation, the faint glow of neon, and a drop of something dark and potent from his own fingertip. He placed the glass before her. It swirled with internal currents, like miniature blood-red galaxies.
Circe took a sip, her eyes closing briefly in appreciation. "You've been busy, little Architect. The strings of this era… they hum with a new tension. A pleasing one. Orderly."
"It's a fitting canvas," Nikos replied, leaning on the bar. "Controlled chaos. Amplified passions. It's… freeing. To walk here. To listen. To simply be among them without watching for monsters in the shadows or scheming gods in the clouds. I have you to thank for that, in part. Your lessons were the first real weapon I had."
Circe arched a brow, a smirk playing on her lips. "A weapon you turned on everyone, including, eventually, your teachers. I respect that." She took another sip. "I have been busy as well. You remember my little island? My anchor?"
"The seat of your power. Your prison and your fortress. How could I forget?"
"Prison no longer," she said, and there was a genuine, proud triumph in her voice. "I have done it. I have fully internalized the ritual. The island is no longer a place on a map. It is here." She tapped her sternum. "A complete, perfect internal world. A source of power that moves with me. I am no longer a regional goddess. I am a sovereign of my own contained world. I have you to thank for the idea."
Nicholas's grey eyes gleamed with genuine intrigue. This was a feat of magical engineering that even he, with his vast authority, found impressively elegant. "An internalized demiplane. A perpetual engine of self-sustaining faith and authority. You have achieved a form of divine independence. That is… remarkable."
"It is," Circe agreed, preening slightly. "But even a sovereign plane can grow lonely. The whispers from the deeper fabrics of reality speak of new growths on the World-Mountain. Strange fruits. I can feel the pathways between them like new capillaries in the body of existence. They are beautiful, but untended. Their flows are juvenile."
He nodded, seeing the proposition aligning perfectly. "They require a manager. A curator of passages. Someone who understands how the spaces and worlds function. Someone who can turn pathways into a circulatory system."
"You are offering me a job?" Circe laughed, the sound like dark honey. "After all this time? To serve in your new pantheon?"
"I believe you will like it," Nikos said, his voice dropping to a tone meant only for her. "To serve the principle. To be the Lady of the Blood Pathways. Your internal world would become the control nexus, the heart that regulates the flow of vitality between the semi-planes. You would weave the Cupbearer's essence-rivers into a coherent, intelligent network. You would decide which worlds resonate, which need isolation, and where the purified energies should flow most strongly. You would be the border control of the connections. A goddess of the in-between, the conduit, the journey itself. A role of strategic importance, requiring a mind that has outwitted Olympus for millennia."
He finished polishing his glass, his gaze steady on her. "You sought independence from being a piece on their board. This is an offer to help design a new board, one of literally cosmic scale. And a canvas infinitely larger than one island."
Circe was silent for a long moment, studying the swirling galaxies in her drink. The noise of the club, the thrumming bass, the laughter, the clink of glasses, seemed to recede. She was weighing the loneliness of perfect, isolated sovereignty against the allure of participating in the greatest act of creation since Odin himself created the 9 realms.
"A seat at the table," she murmured finally. "Not as a prisoner, or a pawn, or even just a teacher."
"The chair is empty," Nicholas said. "It has your name on it."
She drained her glass, the potent, starry liquid warming her from within. She set it down with a decisive click. "The mortal world is growing dull again anyway. Too predictable, even with your little touches." She stood, and her form seemed to subtly shift, no longer just a beautiful woman but a convergence of potent, ancient pathways. "Show me these fruits of yours, Shaper. Let us see what needs weaving."
Nikos, Nicholas, allowed his own mortal disguise to soften at the edges for just a second, a flash of the cosmic being beneath. The gratitude he felt was not just for her potential acceptance, but for this moment, this conversation in the controlled chaos of his own creation. He was here by choice, not hiding. He was sharing a drink with a peer, not plotting an escape. The fear was gone, replaced by a quiet liberty.
"Follow the red thread," he said softly, and a single, glowing crimson filament, a drop of the Cupbearer's essence given direction, unspooled from the air before her. It led not towards the door, but into the shimmering space behind the bar mirror.
Without a backward glance at the mortal revelry, Circe, soon to be the Lady of the Blood Pathways, stepped through the reflection and into the heart of the growing multiverse. Nicholas watched her go, then turned back to his bar, to the living, breathing, wonderfully ordinary hum of his nightclub, and smiled. The future was not something to be survived anymore. It was something to be built, sip by sip, world by world.
--------------------------------
If you want to support me, read 5 work-in-progress chapters in advance, visit my P.a.t.r.e.o.n at
p.a.t.r.e.o.n.com/atanorwrites
I appreciate all comments and take suggestions seriously! Thank you for your support!