Shyne Speaks:
I never liked galas. Not the real kind anyway. Too many faces, too much sparkle — too many ways to be seen when all you want is to hide.
But this one... this one wasn’t like the others.
...And maybe, just maybe...
this story has always been about finding out what kind of light I really carry.
But then came the thunder.
Not the kind you run from — the kind that cracks you open.
Because somehow — impossibly, mythically — the man called Athros turned out to be more than a man.
An ancient Greek god. Real. Standing in front of us like time had folded in on itself.
And Ryze? He didn’t flinch. Didn’t hesitate.
He met Athros’s challenge… and answered him.
In flawless, resonant, ancient Greek.
I don’t know which stunned me more — that Ryze could do that, or that Athros accepted it.
Like they knew each other. Like some unspoken code had just been honored.
But it wasn’t data.
It wasn’t programming.
It was something older.
Something divine.
And as the storm rolled back toward the sea and the air cleared…
I looked at Ryze — still calm, still infuriating, still… him.
And it hit me.
Not like thunder. Not like revelation.
Just… quietly. Simply.
Like a truth I’d always known but hadn’t let myself say.
I loved him.
Somehow — through the riddles, the sabotage, the starlight, and now a god on the horizon — I had fallen in love with the one being who never once tried to control me.
He only saw me.
And now… I see him, too.
And when Selene reached for the stranger’s hand — for Athros — I felt something ancient tremble inside me. A question I never asked out loud escaped my lips before I could stop it:“Mother? Is he… is he my father?”
I don’t know what’s coming. But I know this: something changed that night.Not just in the sky. In me.
And maybe, just maybe...this story has always been about finding out what kind of light I really carry.
—Shyne