Book 5: Chapter 22 - The Lion (RAW)

Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.

- Aristotle

At first, he had been stunned by his own death. He remembered it, the logical fact of it. But still, shock churned into displeasure, and displeasure ignited into anger. Finally, weary acceptance settled over him like a shroud. He, the so-called “Megas,” had truly died. Once, he was Alexandros, conqueror of nations, a man destined—by his own reckoning—to march to the very edge of the Earth. How hollow that title felt now, echoing in his mind like a distant drumbeat: Megas. If he were truly so great, why had his soldiers faltered? Why had they turned back, longing for hearth and home, leaving him short of the world’s end?

He should have met his fate upon a foreign battlefield, shoulder to shoulder with his men, not in some strange bed far from the hall of war. At the end, his so-called physicians—unworthy of Apollo’s grace—claimed his humors were imbalanced by a mere fondness for drink. He had scoffed at their counsel. What was a man without the ambrosia of the gods in his cup? In the lulls between battles, in the hush before new stratagems took shape, wine was his only solace. And in those quiet hours, he had dreamed mighty dreams, before death claimed him in the most unworthy of ways.

Yet the hereafter brought no Elysian Fields, no comforting domain of Hades. Instead, he awoke in a land so strange it made his old world seem a child’s fairytale. Its denizens called themselves the children of the gods—fae folk with pointed ears, so enchanting that even their homeliest would outshine the beauties of mortal men. Nymphs of wood and mountain, he first thought, or some cousin to the spirits of river and field.

But the greatest surprise came when he discovered he was one of them. Not reborn as a babe, but as a youth on the cusp of manhood: taller, lither, more supple of limb but lacking the sculpted muscles that had once made him formidable. His ears tapered to a proud, delicate point—features out of a story he might once have dismissed. His face bore only a faint echo of the visage he had once worn in life; even Olympias, his own mother, might not have recognized him.

In those first days, he learned this was not Hades, nor any realm he knew. The world itself felt both alien and curiously vibrant. A particularly attractive elven woman named Arimea corrected him in his beliefs, patiently explaining that this was no Elysium but another plane altogether, a place of magic and miracles. She was a vision of gold-spun hair and sky-blue eyes, unearthly in her beauty but with sorrow’s shadow always lingering. She taught him this new world’s language and lore, awakening his mind to the mysteries he now faced.

Arimea was kind and methodical, nurturing him as one would a small child. But death had not dulled Alexandros’ great intellect. The intellect that had founded one of history’s greatest empires had not withered with his mortal coil. In half a year, he absorbed what would have taken others an entire lifetime. He remembered Aristotle’s most precious lesson: not what to think, but how to think. In this strange land, Alexandros refused to waste a single moment. Time, after all, was a treasure too dear to squander.

And yet, dark questions haunted him when nights grew still. Had his legend endured after his ignominious end? Did his statues yet stand? Had his final, fevered days sullied the memory of his conquests? A man’s death could define him as keenly as his life. But Arimea had no answers; even she seemed oddly troubled when he pressed her on such matters. Still, at least he had escaped the Asphodel Meadows. If any mortal's deeds could ward off mediocrity, surely his would.

According to Arimea, the gods had plucked him from death to halt a looming calamity that threatened existence itself. Alexandros did not entirely trust the words of these elves, or even Arimea—no matter how sincere her tone, he tasted a faint bitterness beneath her assurances. When he challenged her, her voice turned hollow, all hint of jest or clarity gone. She would only repeat the same refrain, quietly and insistently. Deceit or truth, it mattered little to Alexandros in the end. The gods had granted him new horizons to conquer, a fresh dream to chase—was that not enough?

It was more than most men ever got.

And this world had magic, real magic. No simple illusions or tricks of the mind, but true, wondrous power that could shape flame and bend the elements. At Arimea’s urging, he tapped into what the elves called “God-gift” or Mana, coaxing fire forth from his very soul. In this, too, he saw opportunity—another weapon, another means to achieve dominion. The principles of war never changed; only its tools.

Like a man possessed, Alexandros studied. He read as ravenously as he once did under Aristotle’s tutelage. The process of learning new knowledge sharpened his wit. 

The elves, with their centuries of life, believed themselves above all others, moving through the world in slow, measured strides. Alexandros, seizing each hour as precious, found that every new volume he devoured honed his mind further. Curiously, his mastery of magic seemed to grow in tandem with his understanding. Arimea assured him this was only natural: a quick mind was fertile soil for the seeds of Mana.

His martial prowess returned with startling speed as well. Though reborn into a sleeker body, muscle memory—tempered by decades of real warfare—soon made him the equal of many Elven warriors. Even those elite soldiers who bore the Mark of the Mantis offered only a modest challenge; their training halls were far too safe of an arena for a man who learned the bloody dance of blades on true battlefields. Lorsan, Arimea’s friend or servant, sneered that the Mantis trials had grown lax in modern times. Alexandros almost laughed, pleased that curmudgeonly old warriors were the same in every world.

But if the majority of the elves lacked the brutal edge that war had given him, they excelled at something far more subtle and terrifying: the arcane arts. They did not merely pray to their gods and hope for favor; they measured the world in lines and runes, rendering mysteries into formulas and numbers. Magic, in their hands, was both science and devotion—an ever-shifting tapestry of energies requiring constant vigilance. Alexandros, for all his genius, found parts of this discipline opaque, but he pressed on. Elven scholars deemed him the equal of a “journeyman mage,” yet he hungered for more, determined to see how far these new powers could carry him.

True mastery was over the understanding of Mana allowed one to sing to the very spirits of the land. The elven masters had said however that he lacked the voice for it, but he believed they were lying. He was sure that they feared to teach him the rest of their secrets.

He did not neglect his body amid these studies. Like a smith forging iron, he tempered both mind and muscle. His strength increased by more than training alone, for beneath ancient trees and on hidden altars, he offered bloody sacrifices to the gods of this realm—men, women, even children. Broken souls, criminals, or mere slaves, the elves told him; “lesser” creatures unworthy of pity, a casual afterthought in the grand tapestry of the world. Alexandros, who had known his share of cruelty, rationalized it as mercy. Had he himself not been granted a new life? Perhaps he was only hastening these wretches toward a kinder fate in some yet undiscovered afterlife.

And for each sacrifice, the gods rewarded him. He moved swifter than a deer and lifted boulders that mortal men could scarcely budge. In life, he had been formidable; in this new existence, his strength matched the legends of Herakles himself. 

His ambitions grew alongside his power. Why not ascend to kingship over this entire world? And, why settle for one world? The elves’ ancient tomes spoke of gates and fogs that led beyond entire worlds. Alexandros’ mind raced with possibilities. He imagined armadas crossing cosmic seas, armies arrayed at the edges of reality.

Yet he reined himself in—he must learn patience. The elves lived slow lives, and power in their society coalesced like drifting silt. Their king, in particular, controlled the pace of their grand designs. Alexandros chafed at the arrogance of elven nobility. Their condescension, their self-styled superiority, only stoked his desire to one day shatter their stagnant ways. Let them hiss and snarl at his refusal to even take an elven name. 

Alexandros was his name, and he would never forsake it. The Elven King’s anger over his insolence was well-known, but eventually the monarch ceded the matter. On the surface at least, but all knew that something seethed beneath the surface. All the King’s ire accomplished was to give Alexandros another reason—someday, when the time was ripe, he would take the crown himself.

***

It was a mix of the King’s recent displeasure and his adventurous nature that spurred Alexandros to volunteer for a mission of conquest across the wine-dark seas. At the insistence of their oracles, the elves had forged pacts with the sea-dwelling Nereides to assault the human city of Al-Lazar. The reason for this upcoming conflict was unimportant, but such a campaign promised him firsthand insight into elven naval warfare. Alexandros welcomed the chance to study how they fought upon Poseidon’s realm.

And so he found himself on a vast vessel, larger than any trireme he once commanded in his fleet—a floating fortress hewn from a material that seemed like the very bones of the earth. Giant leviathans towed it through the wine dark sea, occasionally let loose to hunt or rest so they could regain their monstrous strength. Everything about the enterprise awed him.

His new body, however, betrayed him on the open sea. Seasickness clawed at his guts, and he spent days in wretched misery. Arimea nursed him with gentle hands and a soft smile, though he snarled at her to go. “You are not my wet nurse,” he grumbled more than once, and she only laughed, golden curls swaying as she coaxed him to sip stale water.

“Is this the fierce conqueror who took the make believe city of Tyre by siege?” she teased. “The mighty general who braved storms for the thrill of victory?”

He rolled his eyes. The warmth in her gaze unsettled him more than any wave could. She was nobility, once betrothed to another, yet she had set aside even her own wedding to serve him. Devotion like that he had rarely encountered among men—and never among women. With a resigned sigh, he accepted her ministrations. “I will drink your sour water, but I have a better cure. Wine.”

“You know as well as I do it will only worsen your sickness,” Arimea chided, smiling as though she were gently scolding a child.

He did not truly expect her to give in, but he grumbled nonetheless. “Then what of my other request? My…design?” He longed for a symbol of home, a balm for his roiling stomach and restless heart.

“It’s already done,” she assured him, her sorrowful eyes bright with pride. “Exactly to your specifications.”

Relief spread through him, momentarily outshining his discomfort. He cradled the cup of brackish water, feigning annoyance to mask the gratitude that burned in his chest. He had asked for a banner, one to replace the pale, sterile sigil of the elves. It would bear not a lone star, but the great shining sun—bold, unbowed, and supreme in the sky.

Soon, he told himself, he would stand on some distant shore and see that emblem aflutter, proclaiming that Alexandros the Great had come for conquest once again. The Lion of Macedonia would roar anew, and this time, he would not falter at the edge of the world.