We fouled up. I did. He got hurt. Badly, maybe. And the god...is not helping him today.

I survive. I survived it all then and I'll survive the rest of it. Without your help.

Keep your enemies at a distance, your partners close at hand.

Each soul has its appointed doom. How is it you dare to raise a mortal boy so high - high enough to flout the gods? Bring godhead where a man may reach out and take it? growls Enlil, and lightning splits a clear blue sky.

The gods want to bring a better day, and you are their messengers. Trust not in all you see. Trust only in your hearts. And in us, who love you both.

Gods colliding, ethos and mythos trying to combine. The Sacred Band caught up in a whirlwind not of any god's devising: he and Niko had wanted to save twenty-three pairs of fated Theban fighters. Now everything feels fated and fighting oversweeps its boundaries of time and place and plane.

There is no mercy in trading life for life. And certainly no righteousness. Mercy, once given, cannot be taken back.