Ragnarök, Eternal Tragedy.
Chapter 136: Lets Us Inherit

Chapter 136: Lets Us Inherit

They stood on hollow ground— Not sacred, not consecrated. But claimed.

Ash still clung to the wind where the last township burned, smoldering just behind the hills, distant enough to ignore, close enough to remember. Two hundred men gathered—bandits, survivors, mercenaries shaped by frost and fire, some still wearing Dragunov blood beneath their coats.

Lionel stood atop the broken archway of what used to be the governor’s hall.

His armor gleamed—not gold, not polished steel, but deep bronze, the kind earned from melted blades and tarnished coins repurposed for authority. Around him, silence held—not because they feared him, but because they believed him. And belief is louder than loyalty when sharpened.

He raised one hand.

No signal needed.

They listened.

"I was born beneath stone," Lionel said. "Not beside a cradle. Not inside walls painted with warmth. Not with a name. Just beneath—where the weight lives. The kind that doesn’t let you breathe without permission."

Some men shifted. None spoke.

"I watched the rich name their sons empires. I watched the poor rot because they couldn’t afford to bleed. I watched the Dragunovs turn dirt into coin and coin into law. I watched kings become tyrants and call it ceremony."

His voice didn’t rise.

It deepened.

"I watched men like us get stepped on. Used. Paid in guilt. Told we were dangerous, not valuable. Told we were wild, not worthy."

He stepped forward.

Boots cracked stone.

"But now look at you."

He gestured across them—row by row, weapon by weapon, coat by coat.

"Two hundred killers."

"Two hundred minds that refused to break when the world begged them to."

"You are not lawless."

"You are not forgotten."

"You are the beginning."

A pause.

Then:

"We’ll build it here. Not a hideout. Not a camp."

"A kingdom."

"Not for nobles."

"Not for monsters who wear rings and call their greed legacy."

"For us."

"For anyone born beneath boots."

"For anyone who thought surviving was the only dream allowed."

He lifted his coat.

Showed the pickaxe still strapped beneath the sheath.

"From this," he said, "to this."

"No kings above us."

"No gods beside us."

"Only the scars we carry—and the world we will carve with them."

He didn’t believe in gods.

Not after Orivath.

Not after Dragunov deals and mountain fire.

He believed in pressure.

In consequences.

In the weight of memory.

But the first time he saw Elira, the winds didn’t push back. They bent. Softly.

She arrived with no ceremony.

No guards.

No title carved into the crest of her armor.

Just quiet feet on the outer courtyard dust, asking for passage through one of the supply lanes the bandits had repurposed into trade corridors. Her hair shimmered with copper-gold strands that curled upward as if sunlight had always been loyal to her.

Lionel didn’t speak to her that day.

But he watched her speak to his men. Calm. Firm. Respectful. Never afraid. Not once.

She offered steel-for-medicine deals, knowledge of weather patterns too complex for soldiers, and stories—not myths—but memories that didn’t belong to mortals.

And when Lionel asked her name days later, she didn’t flinch.

"I’m Elira," she said. "Daughter of the god who wanted silence. And heir to none of his wars."

They circled each other for months.

Respect first.

Then conversation.

Then long walks up the northern slope, where the trees hadn’t been burned yet and the stars still responded to voices spoken with care.

She never asked about his past.

But she listened when he offered it.

And when Lionel spoke of Jareth—his mother, her sickness, her silence—Elira didn’t offer comfort.

She offered acknowledgment.

"You didn’t survive for nothing," she said once, touching his hand near the cliff. "You survived to remember."

Over the years, the walls went up.

Strong.

Polished.

Clean not by wealth, but by intention.

And somewhere in that construction, Elira stayed. Not as queen. Not as prize. But as presence.

They shared winters.

Built rituals.

Laid fires together.

Then they had a child.

Not perfect.

Not blessed.

But born of choice.

And Lionel—who once slept beneath broken roofs and promised never to believe in gods again—married one.

Not for her divinity.

But because she never used it.

Not on him.

Not once.

...

(15 years ago before the present)

She didn’t speak of it at first.

There was a change in her breath—soft pauses in conversation where silence took longer to pass, where her gaze drifted just past the horizon even while Lionel stood beside her. He noticed. Of course he did. But he didn’t ask. And she didn’t explain. Some truths live in silence because naming them would shatter the shape of peace they’ve built.

It began with dreams.

Not hers—the world’s.

Old winds began to curve back toward the mountains. Birds she once called familiars stopped landing near her shoulder. The air around her limbs hummed faintly in moonlight, like forgotten prayers reaching back through blood. And then the river beneath the kingdom’s northern ridge started whispering again.

Elira didn’t resist.

She just listened.

Because she knew what it meant.

She’d known all along.

Fifteen years before present day, in the courtyard where Lionel had once sworn no gods would rule the kingdom he’d built, Elira took his hand.

The evening was gold—quiet, unbothered.

Their son slept nearby, limbs tangled in blankets, forehead damp with early summer heat.

And Elira whispered, "It’s time."

Lionel didn’t flinch.

He didn’t argue.

He didn’t beg.

He just looked at her—as if memorizing every line in her expression, every scar she’d earned beside him, every breath she’d given without needing him to understand it.

"Why now?" he asked.

Her fingers traced his knuckles.

"My father’s oath was sealed in silence," she said. "But his power was tied to the cycles. And the cycle is waking."

Lionel exhaled.

Long. Slow. Irregular.

They stood like myth and gravity—one divine by birth, the other divine by consequence.

"I never wanted you to carry his wars," Lionel said.

"I never did," Elira replied.

"I’ll find a way to keep you."

Elira smiled—soft, tired, and vast.

"You did keep me," she said. "But some parts of me were never mine to give."

They kissed once.

Not like ceremony.

Like a scar they both agreed to earn.

That night, she vanished.

No carriage.

No flame trail.

Just wind—

and the silence of someone divine finally answering their lineage.