Shadows Over Emberhold
The Fireheart clan might be termed a family of great standing, well established in the center of Emberhold City.
Throughout the lands, only four noble houses enjoyed the unstinting respect of the warlike world:
The Voltmaw Clan, reigning from Voltramir City,
The Blackfist Clan, master of Vellore City,
The Onyxhide Clan, whose power extended to Ironvale City,
And the Snowfang Clan, predominant in the frozen expanse of Glaciera.
It was an order carved into the minds of all warriors, spoken in awe, and dreaded for the authority each clan held.
The Fireheart clan itself, in its infancy, had no hope of competing with these four great houses for fame. However, most people were certain that, with time, the Firehearts would emerge to acquire a similar prominence, their powers increasing steadily with each generation.
Loret Fireheart, the Fire Beast known throughout the martial world, was the present leader of the clan—a man numbered among the hundred greatest masters of the Alliance of the Ten Clans. And not only a master who was well-known, but one of the most powerful among them, whose abilities were respected, nay, feared.
But, beyond his brawn, Loret was a man of unshakeable righteousness. That concept of justice ran through the Fireheart family veins. Martial artists within the family committed themselves to guarding civilians, never using their prowess to subjugate or oppress. They were the Sentinels of Emberhold, and they gained the title through action that rang out far beyond the city gates.
The Fireheart children were already causing murmurs of greatness.
The eldest daughter, Rias Fireheart, had shown a natural ability to which few could compare, having gained the reputation of Phoenix Saber among martial practitioners. And the second daughter, Mio Fireheart, with skill that could very well surpass Rias, guaranteeing her older sister's legacy would live on and thrive.
With these two brilliant successors, everybody was convinced the Fireheart pack's fate was sealed—to climb ever higher, to inscribe its name in the annals of history. The heritage of greatness was set to be transferred to the next generation, their glory and excellence guaranteed.
Everybody had taken it for granted that this would be the clan's way.
I had taken it for granted too.
Until the young Lord—the sole heir of the Fireheart clan—succumbed to darkness. Not only darkness, but a corruption so profound that he became a Night Lotus Demon's general.
The dynasty's destiny had been altered in one, irretrievable instant.
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"-Young master."
My escort's voice snapped me out of reverie. Morning already dawned.
I stood up, the first light of day seeping gently in through the window.
"I've woken up," I said, my throat scraping over the words from the unnatural, restless sleep.
I had slept hardly at all over these last days, trapped in the vortex of my own incredulity.
Sigh. I splashed cold water on my face, attempting to calm my mind.
'…So this really isn't a dream.'
Three days had gone by since I had been sent back to myself, since death had been turned around somehow.
"How did this happen?" I breathed into the empty room.
There was no reply, no direction—only silence.
On the first day, I had been empty, drifting through a time I could not alter, caught in a delusion where my every action was for nothing. I slept, I ate, and I drifted through hours, anesthetized by hopelessness.
Looking back, I should have known that something was wrong when I bit into the food and the sun touched my skin.
But I had passed the second day exactly as the first, unaware of the impossibility of my circumstance.
"What a retard," I snarled.
Three days it had taken me to understand what had transpired?
I addressed the window. The iron cage of the Alliance of the Ten Clans' basement was gone. Instead, the room was filled with the sun's light, warm and golden, sweeping over the wooden floor.
A gentle warmth spread through me—not from the sun alone, but from the realization that I was back in the most joyful period of my life, taken from a life utterly destroyed.
I didn't know why, I didn't see the mechanism, but it felt genuine.
No, it must be genuine.
I held on to that, anchoring myself in the solid reality of my own body, in the feeling of heat in my fingers, the pounding of my heart.
And yet, questions came rushing in my head.
Now that I'm back in the past… what do I do? What do I think?
I had to foresee the key things of the future, recall them, alter what I could—but the torrent of thoughts never ended. Thousands of choices brewed like a tempest, on the verge of engulfing me.
Then a call came from outside the door.
"-Young master."
I stood stock-still, forgetting my train of thought completely.
"-The Lord of the house will come presently."
Goosebumps marched down my backbone. I had been so absorbed in the numbness of the last three days that I hadn't even thought of this.
"Father is coming…" I whispered to myself, and a tight band of worry constricted in my chest.
My father, who had probably gone out of the clan for employment, would come home today. Barely days had passed in this reality, but to me, this was the first meeting in decades and decades.
My head already pounded, not with happiness, but with terror.
It wasn't anticipation that filled me upon thinking about seeing him—it was terror.
His icy, blue eyes and my former sharp, biting words still lingered in my mind, carved into memory.
How long will you carry on like that? Do you plan on staying a family embarrassment till death?
Those words seared me, and although I had earned them, to know them didn't lessen their bite. They had formed me, marred me, and still, they dominated my heart.
And after all that had transpired, I knew with a keenness that lanced deep:
I was still in fear of my father.
"-Young master?"
The servant's patient but urgent voice summoned me again from the doorway.
I'll be outside once I've prepared. How many minutes have I got left?" I asked, voice shaking slightly.