Within the hallowed stone heart of the Sacred Castle of Akasa, a faint aroma lingered—a warm, floral scent, subtle and bittersweet, weaving through the high-vaulted throne room like a whispered memory. The scent of tea, but not the kind brewed in common hearths. No, this was ancient and delicate, an infusion of blossoms that grew only on the sun-kissed slopes of the Ardenian highlands, petals pink as the trees surrounding the capital drifting atop the liquid like autumn leaves on still water.
Ardenu, Queen of Flames, stood to the left of the chamber, where the light from the stained-glass windows danced in soft hues across the marble floor. With practiced grace and the shimmer of controlled magic at her horn's tip, she poured the steaming liquid into two cups—cups whose handles curled like tongues of flame, whose sides bore the painted tales of friendship: white flowered Luxia, land of light, and red stoned Ardenia, land of fire.
As the teacups lifted into the air with a quiet hum, Ardenu turned. Her eyes, azur and fierce as embers at dusk, found the only other soul in the room.
Luxoah, Queen of Light, sat near a tall window, her silhouette etched against the sky like a dream half-remembered. She did not move, save for the gentle rise and fall of her breath. Her gaze was fixed on the heavens above—blue and boundless—yet her mind drifted far beyond them, adrift in a place memory could not name.
Ardenu approached in silence, each step echoing faintly on the stone. A shadow of concern crossed her brow as she placed the teacups on the polished table between them. She took her seat beside Luxoah, folding her wings close, her presence calm and grounding.
"Are you well, Luxy?" she asked, voice low, her words shaped by tenderness and worry both.
Luxoah let out a breath, long and hollow as wind through an empty hall. "Not truly," she said, shaking her head with the weariness of one who had borne too much. "It has been many cycles since something like this last came to pass, Denu…but this time…"
Her voice faltered. She looked away from the sky and down at the teacup before her, watching the petals swirl like omens in the pale brew. "This one was different. I knew her—not well, but enough. A Priestess. The daughter of a Paladin, one of my own kind. Gentle. Devoted. She was not one who would spill blood."
She fell into silence then, and Ardenu, ever the flame to light her friend's shadows, leaned forward, voice firm but gentle. "You did what needed to be done, Luxy. Even if she was not herself…You felt it too, didn't you? Her aura was fractured. Twisted."
For a moment, Luxoah said nothing, and then nodded, eyes closing as the memory returned like a wound that would not mend. "Yes," she murmured. "She was not the alicorn I remembered. And the last thing she said…before the end…was 'Help me.'"
A chill passed between them, as if the words had summoned the ghost of that moment into the room.
She lifted the cup with magic and held it, untouched, as though its warmth could ward off the dread coiling in her chest. "Something is wrong, Denu. This trial…it answered nothing. I cannot say whether I'm taking this too deeply to heart, but…"
Before the thought could unravel into despair, Ardenu unfurled one great wing—brilliant with living flame—and drew it softly around Luxoah's shoulders. The gesture was not grand, but it was enough. Luxoah leaned into her, resting her head against the warm curve of Ardenu's neck. There, within the Queen of Flame's embrace, the weight upon her heart eased, if only for a moment. Her fire did not burn. It protected.
It was Ardenu who shattered the stillness at last, her voice low, but sharp-edged with fire.
"To strike during the Festival," she said, "and against your own emissary…Bold, yes—but brazen as well. Insolent beyond reason." Her eyes narrowed, their glow deepening like coals in a forge. "If this was meant as jest, or mockery, or insult veiled in ceremony, then let the guilty pray to whatever hiding place remains. I will not abide it, Luxy. Not now. Not ever."
She dipped her head then, resting her brow against Luxoah's headpiece, their horns just barely brushing—a gesture not of comfort alone, but of unity, of unspoken vow. Her flames dimmed, their heat gentle against the Queen of Light's fur.
"I only hope this isn't the herald of something greater stirring in the dark," Luxoah whispered, her voice just more than breath. The tension that had coiled tight within her began to loosen, fading as though the light within her had found its dawn once more. "Thank you, Denu. You truly are my—"
But the words never finished.
With a sudden shimmer, as if summoned by fate itself, two crystals sparked into existence before them—one for each, cold and brilliant, suspended in the air like stars frozen in mid-fall. They glowed with urgent magic and opened themselves in unison.
The message came swiftly. Stark. Merciless.
The Fifth Paladin, Xuefeng, was dead.
The throne room fell silent once more, though the silence had changed—no longer peaceful, but hollow, stunned, and vast. A silence born of absence. The air itself seemed to flinch.
Then came the sound of Ardenu's mane. The fire that crowned her like a living crown hissed and snapped with growing ferocity, the flames no longer warm but wild. Her fury did not speak aloud, but it needed no words; it lived in every flicker and flare of her burning mane, in the tightening of her jaw and the storm behind her eyes.
Luxoah said nothing.
She could not.
Her gaze fixed on the still-spinning crystal, her mind a battlefield where too many thoughts waged war all at once. Confusion. Sorrow. Guilt. Rage. They all fought for purchase in her heart, twisting the serenity of her usually beautiful face. But one thought, one voice rose above the rest, loud as a thunderclap in a temple:
I killed her daughter…and now she, too, is gone.
A single tear, slow and soundless, traced a pale path down her cheek. She made no effort to wipe it away.
The flame and the light sat together beneath stained-glass skies, a kingdom's sorrow growing heavier with every heartbeat, and though neither spoke, both knew—
This was only the beginning.