Willow stood in pitch black. The only light, a thin vertical line.
He stared at it.
Heart pounding.
He felt it: fear.
Memories shifted.
He felt it.
Memories blurred.
He felt it.
Memories were stolen.
He still felt it.
Reality shattered.
The bright line he trembled at widened. The door creaked open. And he was home.
The black granite walls of Goldensun, the elven capital, gold light wrapped around him as he stepped into the grand hall. But he wasn't proud of it.
He was afraid.
"Prince Willow Soluna, the Echo of Ashes." The voice announced.
"War hero, seventeen times recognized.
The omen with red eyes.
Conqueror of the Spider Queen.
Explorer of Dragonspire.
Bane of the Merfolk.
Peacemaker of the Dwarves.
Destroyer of the Lizardmen.
Slayer of the king of giants.
Captain of the Royal Guard.
And the friend of the cursed knight Rhenvar…"
The voice droned. Then lowered:
"That's the short list."
Another called out:
"Your presence is granted before the Council, as requested."
(This is it. Everything I had worked for. Four hundred years of blood, brilliance and death.)
(And I owed it to two people, Sylvia… and Rhen.)
He stepped forward to the golden circle and dropped to one knee.
"My King, Arlo Soluna," Willow said. "I am grateful for this audience. I come to request a sacred binding."
The king's golden brows rose. "You seek marriage?"
Arlo was confused. Willow was never one to show interest in courtship.
"Yes," Willow said. "I wish to bind my life to Rhenvar, the elves' greatest hero and friend."
Silence echoed in the hall.
The king shifted into his throne. Uneasy. It is almost as if he wanted this to be private.
"He is… a male. A human male." Arlo said, looking at the other nobles.
"Yes," Willow said louder. "And I love him, with all my heart! This is all I ask. After everything I've have done, this is the only reward I seek."
Voices erupted from all the elven nobles.
"No! Such a request is forbidden; two males cannot be bound in our sacred lands!"
"It's his filthy red eyes! They are possessing him!"
"What if its female appearance?"
"To speak of such a thing is treason against elven kind!"
"He must be punished. Executed!"
The King rose, face unreadable but body was shaken.
"You wish to take the seed of another man?" His voice trembled. "To speak these words before this council…" Arlo faltered. "My son… have you gone mad?"
The same nobles screamed again.
"You would bring shame to the royal bloodline?!"
"Perhaps it is because he looks female, is it genetic?"
"Our prince… desecrates our traditions!"
"Blasphemy! Heresy!"
"Is the bloodline not pure!"
"He should be exiled, no, killed!"
Willow was frozen. Centuries of loyalty undone in a single heartbeat.
And then.
"ENOUGH!" the Arlo roared.
Silence. A single tear slid down his cheek.
"Execute him," he said.
"Wait, Father!" Willow screamed.
Elven guards surrounded him, blades drawn. One moved first, too fast but was impaled by an ice spear. The guard dropped dead. The corpse was being encased in frost.
Willow turned. "Sylvia?"
She stood, an ice dagger in hand, cold fury in her eyes. A sister against a kingdom. Their kingdom.
Ice burst across the black granite floor.
One guard collapsed, another frozen mid-motion. Crystalline shards sprayed outward.
Sylvia stepped forward, blade raised, eyes blazing.
"Anyone else want to try to kill my little brother?"
No one moved. But only for a breath.
Then the guards rushed to her.
Willow couldn't speak. He couldn't move. He just watched as his sister, a diplomat, a warrior, the pride of the elven kingdom, became a bladed ice storm.
She cut them down.
One. Two. Five. Ten.
Her ice daggers hummed like cracked ice as she spun through the air, slicing through enchanted armor like silk. Her magic was divine.
"You'd kill the hero of our people?" She spat. "My little brother!"
Yet they kept coming. The royal guards were no pushovers. Yet-
She was faster. Stronger. She used every trick she learned from training and fighting. Every spell they had learned, together.
Willow tried to rise.
"SYLVIA, STOP!" Willow's voice was horsed.
But she wouldn't. She couldn't. This was the price of his love. And she was paying for it.
"I won't let them take you from me, Willow." She shouted. "You're my little brother, my other half."
Bodies fell in heaps. Each encased in ice as they died. Blood splattered the golden pillars. Ice froze entire sections of the floor. A high priest tried to cast a spell, Sylvia severed his head before he finished the chant.
The council hall was in chaos.
Then-
A gust of wind. So fast, it was silent.
Sylvia's body stopped moving.
A single flower of red bloomed across her chest.
Sylvia blinked and confused. She looked down. A blade of air, invisible and whispering, had pierced through her.
She staggered. Turning to Willow.
The elven king stood at the top of the stairs, hand raised, eyes glowing with a painful sage green. His long green cloak snapped around him.
"Enough blood," King Arlo said, a voice hollow. "Your death is on his hands."
"Sylvia!" Willow screamed falling on his face to reach her.
She smiled at him. Just once.
Willow's memories returned. He crawled to her, the light in her eyes already faded. He pulled the necklace from his neck.
"Raise her! Save her! Please!"
Magic sparked weakly, then died.
Nothing.
"They said this would work! Please, save my sister!"
He pressed the amulet on her chest, sobbing.
"SYLVIA! PLEASE, I MISS YOU!"
No pulse.
"I'M NOTHING WITHOUT YOU! I LOVE YOU! WITHOUT YOU THERES NOTHING!"
Willow buried himself into Sylvia's lifeless body.
"Sylvia, you were always there. Always… why… was it because of me? Did my decision for my selfish love cause-"
Willow's breath left him.
Willow cried. His cries echoed through the black hall like a broken spell that could never be cast.
The room disappeared. He knelt alone in darkness.
Sylvia's body removed from his hands. Now his father stood before him. Towering over him.
"Willow…" Arlo started. "Despite your… looks, you were my pride, a true hero, your power alone can make its own bloodline. Yet, you threw it all away. And for what? For a man?"
"Father-" Willow clenched his head.
Sylvia appeared. "A man who doesn't love you. Why do you put yourself through so much pain?"
Willow looked up. His eyes watered.
Aucteros appeared next. "Did you feel pain when I killed your sister? Or were you relieved? Since you can have him all to yourself."
"YOU PIECE OF-"
Rhenvar appeared breaking his own voice. "Did you think the fire in your heart could burn for two? Did you really think a man without a soul would ever love you?"
Rhenvar's appearance is what drove him to insanity as he chuckled to himself.
Willow stood. Eyes filled with fury. His warped mind made its declaration.
"Love?" He mocked the image of Rhenvar. "I never asked for your love Rhen, I'm going to claim it."
The world shuttered as it read his emotions.
Willow straightened and stepped forward.
"Because I know, you love me."
The world shuttered again.
"My biggest fear was if my love for you was right, if it was real." Willow smiled to himself. "Such a stupid fear, I have been inlove with you since the first day we met."
The world shifts, as if it was trying to crawl away.
"I DONT RUN, I DONT HIDE!!! I WILL ALWAYS RUN INTO WAR WITH MY FIRE! BE IT THE FIRE ON THE BATTLEFIELD OR THE WAR IN MY HEART!"
Something screamed in the void.
"Pfft, to fear my love, it's worthless."
Flames danced from Willow's fingertips. Not summoned but remembered. Ancient. Wild. And alive.
The fear world's void pulsed.
(I hate this feeling, I hate this feeling as if I'm wrong for being in love. As if it matters. So cruel that it happens to be another man. And what does that give me?)
Willow turned to his father. "Why is it so wrong!"
(Fear...)
Then his sister. "Why!"
(WHY!)
Then to Rhenvar. "…"
The world crawled away; its true form made real thousands of black things, crawled and smiled back, like cowards.
Then they tried to form a lake with a red moon. The black plains of decay were vast and wide, shifting between memories of reality and illusion. Willow didn't even notice the changes, he only spoke-
"Enough, you pissed me off." he whispered. "Echoes of Ashes."
And his fire heard him.
It surged.
Unleashed.
Unforgiving.
Unbound.
His love burned through the world's reality. His grief set the illusion ablaze.
And the world screamed.
Because now this world felt it for the first time ever. And it felt it true.
What it felt-
Was fear.