Night draped Amphoreus in a hush so complete it felt deliberate.
The demigod of ROMANCE, her golden sandals soundless against the marble floor of Anaxagoras’s study. Lamps still burned inside—too many for the hour—casting restless shadows across shelves of fractured texts and diagrams that no longer obeyed symmetry. The air was wrong. Taut. As if Reason itself had been pulled too tight.
“Anaxagoras,” Aglaea called softly.
The demigod of REASON stood with his back to her, shoulders rigid, long hair unbound, pale green strands slipping over ink-stained robes. He did not turn. Did not answer.
Aglaea frowned. Anaxagoras never ignored a question. He challenged them, dissected them, mocked them—but silence was never his choice.
She stepped closer. “You missed the council. You broke three protocols. Speak.”
Still nothing. The lamps flickered. In that instant, Aglaea felt it—an unfamiliar pressure beneath his presence, like a second pulse layered under the first. Controlled. Waiting.
Her jaw set. Gold shimmered at her fingertips.
“Forgive me,” she murmured, not to him but to the bond of trust they shared, and cast her threads.
The Golden Weave unfurled in silence, radiant filaments snapping around Anaxagoras’s wrists, chest, and throat with divine precision. The threads were not cruel; they were absolute. They pinned him mid-motion, lifted his feet from the floor, bound even his breath to Aglaea’s will.
Only then did he turn his head. And smile. It was not the familiar sharp, ironic curve she knew. This smile was slow. Knowing.
The golden threads trembled.
Aglaea’s eyes widened. “That’s—impossible.”
Anaxagoras flexed his fingers. The Weave screamed. Not audibly—but Aglaea felt it, a shriek through her palms as the golden filaments lost cohesion, equations unraveling faster than she could reinforce them. With a sharp, deliberate motion, he tore through them—not with brute force, but with understanding. Neutralization. As if he had already solved her.
The threads fell like severed light. Aglaea staggered back a step, breath caught. No one had ever escaped her Weave.
Anaxagoras stepped forward. He moved differently now—grounded, assured, frighteningly present. The scholar’s hesitations were gone, replaced by a calm that felt earned in blood and sleepless nights.
“You came prepared to restrain me, that means you sensed it too” he said.
“Anaxagoras,” she said sharply, though her voice betrayed her.
“What have you done?”
Instead of answering, he reached for her. Aglaea did not pull away in time.
His fingers closed around her wrist—not painful, but unyielding—and he drew her closer, gaze never leaving hers. There was no madness in his eyes. No frenzy.
Only intent.
Slowly, deliberately, he lifted her hand. And kissed it.
The contact was firm, unsoftened by reverence. His lips pressed against her knuckles not in devotion, but declaration—an act that said I am no longer beneath you, I will not be contained, you will reckon with me.
Aglaea’s breath hitched. This was not the man who debated her across marble tables. Not the heretic who mocked the divine from a safe intellectual distance.
This Anaxagoras stood unafraid of her power. Unimpressed by her chains. When he released her hand, his thumb lingered for a heartbeat longer than necessary.
“You wanted an answer, now you know.” he said quietly.
Aglaea steadied herself and spoke again, slower this time. “Anaxagoras. Answer me. What have you done?”
He didn’t. Instead, he stepped closer.
The distance between them vanished in measured strides, each one pressing at her composure. Aglaea refused to retreat—until the cold marble met her back. She hadn’t noticed when he’d guided her there. Her breath caught despite herself.
“Anaxagoras,” she warned.
He ignored it.
His hand came down beside her head, palm against the wall, trapping her without touching her. The Golden Weave stirred at her call—then fell silent. That silence startled her more than his nearness. Heat crept to her cheeks, faint but undeniable.
What is wrong with him tonight?