The world burned in gold.
It wasn't sunlight. It wasn't warmth. It was something else — a false radiance that pulsed with fury and memory. The kind of light that blinded rather than revealed.
The Crimson Warden stepped onto a scorched plateau, the wind here sharp and metallic, carrying embers instead of ash. The terrain was blasted flat, glassed over by some divine combustion. In the far distance, towering spires of crumbling white stone ringed a ruined cathedral, its once-regal shape twisted by the passage of time and fire.
This was no sacred place.
It was a furnace of judgment.
And he could feel it — pulsing in the distance.
"Sol," he said.
The cane in his grip stirred, shifting subtly in balance, as if responding to the name.
Sol had always burned brightest. In life — and in him. The golden aspect of the Warden's soul: justice, fury, conviction. The guiding fire. The hand that struck for the voiceless.
But without balance, fire becomes tyranny.
And Sol had been alone for too long.
As he approached the cathedral's shattered steps, two statues rose from the earth — Helioguards, forged from molten marble and haloed in eternal flame. They bore polearms that hissed in the wind and eyes that glowed like miniature suns.
"Trespasser," one rasped, voice broken from centuries of heat.
"The sun does not kneel," the other added.
The Warden didn't reply. He stepped forward.
The guards moved to strike.
The cane responded.
In a blink, it shifted — the head retracting, the shaft elongating into a gleaming twin-bladed spear. He swung the weapon in a wide arc, catching the first guardian across the midsection — the blade slicing through not just armor, but the very heat that bound the creature's form. Its light dimmed instantly, like a candle snuffed in a storm.
The second lunged, glaive raised high.
The Warden spun low, swept its legs out, then drove the base of the cane — now morphed into a razorbill-beaked hammerhead — into the thing's chest.
The explosion was instantaneous. The guardian's core fractured with a screeching pop, dispersing flame into wild streamers of gold that fizzled against the cathedral walls.
Silence returned.
He stepped into the cathedral.
The interior was broken, but not dead. Pillars cracked but still stood. Stained glass melted into the floor like tears of color. The air trembled with pressure.
And at the far end, seated on a cracked throne of fused sunlight and steel, was Sol.
He did not rise.
He glowed.
Armor sculpted in golden plates wrapped his body like ceremonial flame. His face was unmasked, sharp, angular, noble — but his eyes were pure white fire. His hands rested on a halberd as tall as himself, the blade trailing faint solar embers.
"You have come," Sol said.
The Warden didn't answer immediately. He walked forward slowly, the cane returning to its base form in his hand.
"You've corrupted the light," the Warden said. "You've made judgment into execution."
Sol laughed softly — not amused, but bitter.
"And you've turned unity into division."
He stood, towering. The halberd hummed with restrained wrath.
"You shattered us. Now you come to drag me back like a child misbehaving?"
"I didn't come to drag you. I came to reclaim what is mine."
"I am not yours. I was yours. Until you tore us apart trying to become more than a man."
The halberd slammed down once, splitting the floor.
"I am justice now. Unbound."
The Warden sighed.
"Then you'll try to stop me."
"I must," Sol said. "It is the law of my flame."
He struck.
The halberd swept wide, trailing arcs of searing gold. The Warden ducked beneath the first strike, his cane shifting mid-motion — forming a shield-blade hybrid, wide enough to deflect the follow-up slash.
The force still knocked him backward. The floor cracked beneath his boots.
Sol didn't wait.
He advanced, flames coating his body, the halberd now spinning like a solar storm in his hands.
The Warden spun his cane into a hook-blade, catching the halberd's shaft, locking them together for a heartbeat.
"You've forgotten control," the Warden said, gritting his teeth.
Sol smiled.
"Control is your sickness, not mine."
A surge of fire erupted from Sol's chest. The Warden flung himself backward, cloak burning at the edges. He rolled, came up with the cane now split into twin daggers, and launched forward again.
Their blades met in the center of the cathedral.
Light and shadow collided.
Sol moved like a judgment given form — every swing meant to end.
The Warden moved like someone who had already lost everything — and refused to lose more.
Each clash of their weapons tore pieces from the building. Statues crumbled. A fresco melted from the heat.
Sol raised his halberd above his head.
"Final verdict."
The blade ignited, extending into a blazing arc of pure sunfire. He brought it down with the force of a dying star.
The Warden dropped his cane.
And raised his hand.
"Come."
From the shadows burst six razorbill-shaped birds, crimson and spectral. They shrieked through the air like living daggers, slamming into Sol mid-descent. The halberd's arc veered. The floor exploded.
The Warden retrieved his cane and sprinted through the fire, plunging the weapon into Sol's chest as it twisted into a narrow spike.
Light burst outward — not enough to kill, but enough to pierce the ego.
Sol gasped.
"You... remembered the birds."
"I remembered everything," the Warden said. "Including that you are part of me."
Sol stumbled back.
His fire dimmed.
"Then prove it."
He knelt.
The Warden placed a hand on his head.
"Return."
Golden light flowed into him — not smoothly, not perfectly, but powerfully. As Sol dissolved into energy, the Warden shuddered.
He was stronger now.
The light within him was no longer fractured gold — it was woven into crimson.
He turned toward the ruined doors of the cathedral.
The cane pulsed in his hand, heavier, sharper.
In the far distance, a violet fog swirled between broken towers.
"Nyx."
The whisper in the dark.
The next soul to reclaim.
End of Chapter Two
Next: Chapter Three – Nyx of the Velvet Shadows