Solace's P.O.V
The transition from a ghost in my parents' chambers to the Queen on the throne happened in a blur of gold and thunder. One moment I was touching my mother's hairbrush, and the next, the castle itself was pulling me toward the Great Hall. The throne hadn't just been waiting; it had been calling. When I sat, the "mercenary" died, and the "Monarch" was born in a flash of light that felt like a homecoming and a heavy burden all at once.
But the peace of my coronation was short-lived.
Now, days later, the gold linen of my gown feels like armor as I stand atop the highest tower. The air is no longer filled with the lavender scent of the royal wing; it's thick with the metallic tang of approaching death. Miles away, the horizon is a bruised purple-black—the Aevum legions, moving like a slow-moving stain across the earth.
"It's time," I whisper.
Evander, standing beside me in his new Commander's plate, gives the signal. Below, the Thera army—once just villagers and survivors—stands ready. But it's the figure at the very front that makes my heart ache. Alaric. He is the one leading them. He is the one who stayed when he could have fled to a neighboring kingdom.
He is the Prince of the very Empire currently charging toward our gates.
I am bound by the Laws of the Awakening; I cannot draw my sword unless the castle walls are breached. I am forced to be a spectator to his sacrifice. My hands grip the stone railing, turning my knuckles white as I watch the two armies collide. From this height, the blood looks like spilled ink, marring the beautiful white stone of my kingdom.
And there, in the center of the carnage, Alaric finally meets the darkness he has feared since the night we fled the palace.
Alaric's P.O.V
The scream of metal on metal is the only song I hear now. I am a traitor to my blood, a rebel to my crown, and yet I have never felt more at peace with a sword in my hand. "FOR THERA! CHARGE!"
My voice carries the weight of every sin my father committed. As we crash into the Aevum line, I don't see soldiers; I see the manifestations of the curse that has rotted my home. I carve a path through the darkness, my movements fueled by the training I did in the Erindale frost and the quiet moments I spent watching Solace from the shadows.
Finally, the sea of soldiers parts.
My father sits atop a black charger, his armor leaking a wispy, necrotic smoke that kills the grass beneath his horse's hooves. He doesn't look like a man anymore; he looks like a hollow vessel for the curse he tried to use Solace to cure.
"You useless child," he spits, his voice a rasping echo of the man who used to lead me. "You were my heir. My legacy. And yet, you've betrayed me for a girl and a kingdom of dust."
I tighten my grip on my sword, the hilt biting into my palm. I can feel Solace watching from the towers—I can feel her magic humming in the distance, a warm gold against this freezing dark.
"You lost your legacy the moment you murdered for it, Father," I say, my voice dropping to a dangerous low. "Thera isn't a kingdom of dust anymore. It's a kingdom of reckoning."
He lunges, his blade cloaked in shadows that scream. I meet his strike with the strength of a man who has finally found something worth dying for. The shockwave of our blades meeting sends a ripple through the battlefield, and for a moment, the world goes silent.
It is just a father and a son. A King and a Traitor. And as I look into his pitch-black eyes, I know only one of us is walking off this field.