POV: Kael Lanpar
(Present)
Thinking about it tore me apart from the inside. It was like burning in an unquenchable fire that consumed every corner of my soul.
Unable to react, I let myself be carried away by the darkness of my room. I curled into myself and, like a madman, I muttered apologies into the air—whispers that bounced off the walls.
I felt everything with a crushing intensity: my mother's muffled screams behind the door, the stabbing pain in my chest, the pressure in my throat that made swallowing impossible. Keeping my sanity while so much suffering was compressed inside me felt impossible.
The sharpest image—the one I couldn't pry from my head—was my father's face, the sorrow in his eyes, and my arm buried in his chest. That scene left me in pieces.
I breathed in ragged gasps, unable to control even the most basic functions of my body. I couldn't understand how I had come to that: I had never wanted to kill him and yet my arm had been the final instrument.
As if my own conscience were judging me, memories returned in waves: every time I had treated him like a god, every word I'd spoken echoing afterward with more guilt. The hate I'd shown him, the shame, the remorse—these were weights now crushing me.
Without thinking, by instinct, a dagger formed in my hand: condensed wind, an impossible edge, ready to cut everything. I held it and felt its cold against my skin—too real to be only a projection of fear.
"Kael… open the door, son, please," my mother begged from outside. Her voice trembled.
Her words brushed my ear and faded beneath the cold of the blade at my throat. I had lost the last fragments of will to go on; I had lost everything again.
"Forgive me, father," I whispered as tears burned my cheeks.
My hand was about to move to end it all, but something strange froze me: an invisible force blocked my arm, keeping the blade from touching my skin.
I let the tears fall harder than ever. That's when I felt it: a presence I hadn't expected.
They say the most beautiful things aren't seen but felt. They were right. I squeezed my eyes shut against the impulse to open them and felt multiple hands around me, holding me with a protective tenderness.
It was the kind of love only family gives—the very love I had once thought lost forever.
My mind was split. Pain burned through my body and my thoughts tangled, yet I couldn't help snapping the wind-dagger by clenching my fist. I felt blood trickle down my hand.
"I just want to be free," I sobbed into the dark. "I wish I had been the one to die."
With my strength fading and knowing I would regret my choice for the rest of my life without help, I forced myself toward the door.
I raised my trembling arm to grip the handle. I stopped. I nearly turned back when, out of the chaos, a light appeared. It was a faint whisper—maybe an illusion, but to me it was real.
"Live, son."
Those words vibrated in the air. They reached my ears like a surge and gave me the missing strength. I opened the door; it creaked on fragile hinges and I sank to my knees on the cold floor.
Still holding the handle, I saw my mother through glassy eyes: her face swollen from crying, skin flushed, her gaze more broken than mine. In that awkward silence there was, nonetheless, comfort.
She knelt down to my level and hugged me tight; I buried myself in her chest, in the shelter only a mother can give.
All the accumulated pain began to dissolve beneath that love. It felt as if, little by little, it erased the stupid idea that had grazed my mind.
This life is for those who accept their story, I told myself. I had forgotten why I was here and why I promised to live again. Even though it hurts, the past is a collection of memories that, with time, can stop owning us.
"Mom, it hurts," I sobbed, clutching her even tighter. "I can't bear it."
She laid her hand on my chest, right where the pain burned, and her words came soft, like a promise:
"Son… I love you. I have always loved you. I don't blame you for anything. Your choices were born of pain, not malice."
I let the symbolic death of my past take the burden it carried. I sank, exhausted, into my mother's arms, feeling my breathing slow and my eyelids close, searching for the rest I so badly needed.
"I love you too, Father," I said without meaning to, as if the words escaped from some deep place.
My mind went dark. I settled into the softness of that maternal embrace and let the last tear fall. When I touched the floor, fatigue overcame me and I slept.
POV: Mabel Astrales
The light weight of my son rested in my arms; his tears streamed down my cheeks as I held him tighter, convinced he was not to blame.
I knelt and, carrying Kael, could not help but be pulled into memory.
The whispered words I had heard were not directed at me, I thought, but at his father. A bitter smile trembled on my lips as I looked at his tear-streaked face; my mind returned me to the moment I had found him.
With every step down the corridors, the memory wove itself more tightly into the present.
From a distance I saw a boy kneeling on a blood-stained floor, staring at his hands in horror; his expression was a mixture of shock and remorse that cut through me like a knife.
I bit my lower lip as the image of my past self sprang forward to help him. It was like seeing two layers of time superimposed: my figure running, and behind me the torn corpse lying near the child.
The missing limbs—only hollows where arms and a head once had been—made me tremble.
I looked back at Kael and wondered how he could have done such a thing. Terror tried to consume me, but the scene was not new; I had already lived it.
I imagined what might have happened and, unable to help myself, cursed silently the burden my son had been forced to carry.
The illusion of the past faded. Pale morning light filtered through the castle windows and the murmur of marching soldiers arrived from outside: war-hawks cut the sky, riders and birds reclaiming the day.
Passing a broad stretch of corridor, my eyes fell on a familiar painting. The image of my family hung there—perfect and cold—and comparing it to what stood before me stabbed another pain into my chest.
The vision of Kael staring at his bloodied hands came without warning, pulling me toward memories I thought I had buried.
In that memory I was a child. I held a dagger dripping with blood and, behind me, a motionless figure on the floor.
I didn't know what I had done until the other's breathing stopped. I had ended a life without yet understanding it. I condemned my soul to a pain I tried to justify by war, but which never ceased to burn.
"Your Majesty, are you all right?" a voice pulled me from the memory.
Without thinking I opened my palm and, by reflex, formed a crystal stake: particles sparkled in the air before compressing into an edge that I instinctively pointed at the soldier's throat.
I noticed the panic in his eyes; they were wide as plates. I understood instantly that my emotions had betrayed me.
I inhaled deeply and lowered my hand heavily. I forced a smile.
"I'm fine," I whispered. "Just… a little tense."
The soldier nodded, still trembling, and retreated with heavy steps that echoed down the hall.
For an instant I swore the voice I had heard belonged to someone no longer in this world; for a second I felt his aura.
The thought nearly made me drop Kael: my arms faltered and only the quickness of my reflexes kept me from losing him. I caught his body as if clutching at life itself.
My hands shook until I cradled him firmly again. A cold breeze seemed to run through me and, as I raised my eyes, they fell on a figure in the family portrait: painted, eternal eyes accusing me from the canvas.
Even if it was only a painting, I felt the guilt as if it pierced right through me.
Before the memory could pull me under again, I noticed Kael settling in my arms, hugging me with a gesture of pure need. Calm returned slowly, reminding me of the present and forcing me to keep moving.
I didn't need to activate my mana flow to sense his aura. That dark color surrounding him reminded me of something I had feared in my past: the cursed awakening of corruption.
It was as if destiny were punishing me, returning to me what I had once killed, now embodied in what I loved most.
"Kael, my son," I murmured softly, feeling each word like a prayer, "what did you do to stain your soul like this? How could you become corrupted if you were born of light?"
POV: Kael Lanpar
For a few moments, I had felt my body falling from a great height. That sensation was what tore me abruptly from sleep.
When I opened my eyes, I saw my mother's worried face as she carried me through the castle corridors. My instincts made me pretend I was still asleep, keeping my eyes barely open to silently observe what was happening.
The soft whisper of her words reached my ear. That question… was too difficult to answer.
I sighed gently, letting myself sway with the rhythm of her arms. She tried in vain to keep me asleep, but my mind was already awake.
Something had been tormenting me since I regained consciousness: that power coursing through my body. It was like a sense of condemnation, an invisible weight that made everything feel more intense, sharper.
As if my thoughts had power over reality, the sensations began to intensify. For an instant, I thought I heard footsteps marching through puddles of rain in the distance. The constant drip of drops sliding off rooftops and hitting the stone floor resonated in my ears.
Fatigue enveloped me as I felt everything so acutely. I could feel the beating of veins in my head, a pain worse than anything I had ever experienced.
"Father… I promise I will live," I whispered silently, in my mind. "Perhaps this isn't my true family, but it's the one I have now."
In the blurred boundary between sleep and wakefulness, I had a vision: my father, before his death, before everything fell apart.
I saw myself again as a child, lying on the cool grass of our estate, watching the traveling clouds across the sky with him. His voice sounded clear, warm, filled with enthusiasm to teach me something new.
"You cannot find peace by avoiding life."
That phrase was one of my mother's favorites, attributed to Virginia Woolf. She had passed on to our family the truth of what it meant to live.
I was grateful that, even if only in a vision, I could say goodbye to him. Even if it wasn't real, it was the ending I had always wanted.
Lost in those thoughts, I didn't notice that my mother had stopped. When I opened my eyes, I discovered I had been laid down on the softness of her chamber bed.
With extreme caution, I lowered myself, feeling the cold floor beneath my feet as I walked toward the door in search of her.
I opened it just a crack, leaving a sliver. Through the beam of light filtering in, I observed my mother speaking with strange people.
Their pointed ears and pale skin made me doubt whether they were human. It was the first time I had seen anything like this.
The image of elves from the fantasy tales of my previous world came to mind. One of them, covered with a mask, had a face undeniably matching those descriptions.
"The state in which the attacker's body was left makes it unrecognizable," said one, adjusting his gloves.
"The morgue still hasn't been able to identify him," added the other. "Not even the sealing sensors could trace his lineage."
The silence from my mother was enough for the visitors to leave without insisting.
I closed the door quietly and exhaled. I still felt tired, but something inside me demanded reflection. These weren't simple emotions—they came from the deepest part of my soul, from my core.
I was about to sit on the floor when strange noises behind me put me on alert. They sounded like soft whimpers.
I turned instinctively, adopting a combat stance, and my eyes went to the sheets that were moving. A female silhouette emerged from them.
I let my guard down when I saw my sister. Apparently, she was recovering in my parents' room. I had been wondering where she had been after what happened.
Rubbing my eyes in exhaustion, I walked carefully in the dark, making sure the wood didn't creak and wake Mayrei.
I climbed back onto the bed and rested my head against hers. Sleep wrapped around me again, while tiny particles of mana danced in the air.
With my eyes half-open, I saw that mana begin to surround my body with a warm glow, until I felt myself being transported to another world.
(Mental Space)
Though conscious, I entered my mental space. It was no longer the paradise of before: the cascade of blood flowing from the red moon stained the ground, creating a liquid layer I walked upon.
The ethereal calm that had once symbolized light in my torments was now drowned in darkness and cold.
I walked barefoot over the reddish surface, which stained my feet, until I reached a place I recognized immediately.
I saw the stakes that had marked pivotal moments of my life. They didn't pierce any body, but their mere presence was a reminder. And, somehow, it was comforting. In this plane, only one "me" remained—and that was my present self.
At the cost of something I loved, I had been given a new chance to breathe this air thick with suffering.
I saw my frozen breath escape my lips before sitting on the warm surface of that liquid. I crossed my legs in the lotus position and let the mana flow throughout my body.
Without being fully aware of what was happening, the elements forming this world surrounded me and merged into a luminous spiral that spun with increasing speed.
The air smelled of ozone and hot metal; the light itself seemed to listen to my breathing and respond with flashes.
It was enough for me to slightly open an eye to see the blood reflected in the liquid, shining like a shattered mirror, projecting fragments of the spectacle around me. This was not just an image—it was a portent with sharp edges that cut through me.
A cold certainty settled in me: there was no turning back. I felt something watching from behind, and when I turned, I understood.
There, towering and terrible, stood a statue—not a person—a commanding deity. In its hands, it held an ancient scale; its mere presence implied judgment, as if from that instant, everything I did would be recorded and weighed.