Cassius jerked awake—or rather, Dario jerked awake with Cassius's consciousness surging to the surface, the dream of memory still vivid and terrible.
It was real, Cassius said, his mental voice heavy with millennia of grief. All of it. The war, the fall, the choice to hide among mortals.
Dario sat up in his dorm room bed, heart pounding. The dream had felt more real than reality—he could still taste the cosmic fire, still feel the crushing weight of divine power unleashed without restraint.
That's why you can do the things you can do, he said, understanding flooding through him. You're not just any demon god. You were one of the original, one of the first.
I was. And so was Aurelius. We were among the most powerful of our kind before the fall.
And Marcus...?
Is my beloved, returned to me after eons of separation. The one being in all existence who truly understands what I am, what we were together.
Dario looked around his dorm room—at George sleeping peacefully in the next bed, at the textbooks scattered on his desk, at all the normal human things that had defined his life until recently. It all seemed suddenly fragile, temporary, like a dream that could be shattered by the reality of what he truly was.
The others—Alex's group. They're the fallen ones, aren't they? Maloch and his followers.
I believe so. The corruption I sensed in Lucian, the hunger for power and control—it matches what I remember from that last battle.
Which means they're not just dangerous to other hosts. They're dangerous to reality itself.
Yes. If they've found a way to regain their full power...
Dario didn't need Cassius to finish the thought. If the corrupted gods were returning to their true strength while hidden in human hosts, they could finish what they'd started eons ago.
His phone buzzed. A text from Marcus: "Can't sleep. Want to talk?"
He remembers too, Cassius said. The dreams come to all of us eventually, when we're strong enough to bear the truth.
Dario quickly got dressed and slipped out of the dorm room. He found Marcus sitting on a bench outside the library, staring up at the stars with an expression of profound loss.
"You dreamed it too," Dario said as he approached.
"Every detail. The war, the corruption, the moment we had to choose between death and exile." Marcus looked at him, and in his eyes, Dario could see the ancient grief that Aurelius carried. "I never thought I'd see you again."
They sat together in silence for a moment, the weight of recovered memory settling between them.
"What does this mean for us?" Dario asked finally. "I mean, for Dario and Marcus, not Cassius and Aurelius."
"I don't know. I've been Marcus Chen for twenty-three years. I have human memories, human attachments, human feelings. But now that I remember what we were..."
"It doesn't change how I feel about you," Dario said quietly. "Either of me. The connection I felt when we met—that was real, wasn't it? Not just divine recognition."
"It was real. Is real. But it complicates things."
"Because of Sarah."
Marcus nodded. "She's a good person, Dario. She doesn't deserve to be hurt because of something that happened before humans even existed."
"But that's not the only consideration, is it? If Alex's group really is the corrupted faction, if they're planning to finish what they started..."
"Then we need to stop them. And we can't do that if we're divided, if we're keeping secrets from each other."
Dario's phone buzzed again. Another text, this time from Sarah: "Are you okay? Thought I heard you leave."
The simple message hit him like a physical blow. Here was Sarah, worried about him even in the middle of the night, caring for him with the pure, uncomplicated love that only humans seemed capable of.
And here was Marcus, who carried within him the essence of Dario's truest love, the being he had searched for across millennia without even knowing he was searching.
"I have to choose, don't I?" Dario said.
"I think so. And I think it has to be soon. The longer we wait, the more we risk everyone's safety."
"How do I choose between the person I love and the person I'm destined to love?"
"Maybe," Marcus said carefully, "the question isn't who you love more. Maybe it's who you can protect better, and who can help you protect everyone else."
The brutal practicality of it made Dario's chest tight. But Marcus was right—this wasn't just about romantic feelings anymore. This was about preventing a war that could destroy not just their small community of hosts, but reality itself.
"Sarah doesn't know what she's getting into," Dario said finally. "Not really. Even after everything I told her, she can't truly understand what we're up against."
"But you do. And I do. And together..."
"Together we might actually have a chance."
They sat in silence again, watching the stars that had once been their playground when they ruled from crystal towers instead of hiding in human flesh.
"There's something else," Marcus said eventually. "Something I haven't told you about our group—the others like us who've chosen to stay hidden."
"What?"
"We've been monitoring Alex's faction for years. We think they're close to attempting something catastrophic—a way to break free of their human hosts and return to full divine power."
"How?"
"We're not sure. But if they succeed, if they manage to regain their true forms while the rest of us remain weakened..."
"They finish what Maloch started."
"Exactly. Which means we can't just run and hide anymore. We have to actively oppose them."
"A war."
"A war we can't afford to lose."
Dario thought about Sarah, sleeping peacefully in her dorm room, trusting him to keep her safe. Thought about all the innocent people who would be caught in the crossfire if the corrupted gods succeeded in their plans.
"When do we tell her?" he asked.
"Tell her what?"
"That I'm choosing you. That she needs to find somewhere safe to hide while we figure out how to save the world."
Marcus was quiet for a long moment. "Are you sure? Once you make that choice..."
"I'm sure. I love Sarah—I'll always love her. But you're right about the practical considerations. And beyond that..." Dario met Marcus's eyes. "I've been feeling incomplete my entire life without knowing why. Now I know. It was because half of my soul was missing."
"Aurelius feels the same way. Like coming home after a journey so long he'd forgotten where he started."
"Then it's decided. Tomorrow, we tell Sarah. And then we figure out how to stop the end of the world."
As they walked back toward the dorms, Dario felt the weight of destiny settling around him like armor. The normal life he'd tried to build was over, but maybe that was okay. Maybe some people were meant for extraordinary things, even if those things came with extraordinary costs.
Behind them, unseen in the shadows, a figure watched them go. Alex—or the being wearing Alex's face—smiled coldly before disappearing into the darkness.
The endgame was beginning.