Twenty Years Ago

              Dust from the road coated his old black, tattered cloak. Its deep hood swallowed his face in shadow, hiding him from the warm, soft glow of the city.

              Music floated through the streets where neighbors drank and danced, laughed and hugged, and cried. And nowhere did it seem the celebration would come to an early end.

              A young man knelt before a girl, slipping a ring over her finger. She smiled and pulled him back on his feet, kissing him with all the fierceness of a young woman in love.

              Behind them an old man played a fiddle to the clapping and singing of young and old alike waving their flagons overhead, spilling ale onto themselves and their fellows.

              It was the same all over Lumenos. Raw emotion, bottled within the hearts of thousands, erupting all at once.

              He couldn’t help but wonder how it would all be remembered. How much would be lost as the sun rose and fell again and again and again. How much would they remember and how many would know the truth?

              He pulled his hood up further, ignoring the song and dance, and steered his horse down the Avenue of Kings.

              It wasn’t long before the crowded street brought him to a wall running perpendicular alongside the road. His grip on the reins tightened as he glared at its smooth, pale gray surface.

              Ask any other man what he saw and likely he’d tell you it was just a wall. Nothing out of the ordinary.

              He wouldn’t notice the lack of battlements along the top or the emptiness overhead where towers would have oversaw the defense.

              If you pointed out the single gateway he might find it odd. But then again the Lycan district wasn’t so big. Why build more than one?

              And if pressed on how he’d defend a wall so narrow you couldn’t properly man a troop on its top he’d shake his head and shrug. What did it matter?

              Of course. What did it matter? It always came to that.

              He could understand an Arloni saying something so dull. But what of his own people? Was he the only one who resented their fate? Did their history not mean something to them?

              He sneered at the Lycania Porta passing overhead.

              Chiseled out of marble, a pair of Lycans each held out a sword before them, pointing them directly at the sky while holding onto another, grounding the points into black foundations at their feet, crossing the hilts with each other to form the open gateway.

              Any child growing up behind them would likely never have known an iron gate once stood in their place, barring them from the rest of the city.

              They’d only see Lycans, tall and proud, wielding great swords, standing defiantly against the tide, sheltering their brothers and sisters. Those children would dream and be none the wiser. No matter how pretty you made the lock on the door, a cage was still a cage.

              Like the rest of Lumenos the Lycan district was alive.

              Delcairans danced and sang and cheered beneath a warm glow spilling into the streets through open windows and lamps that lined the narrow cobbled road.

              Ignoring them as well, he pressed on, fighting the urge to liquefy the statues and reduce the wall to dust.

              At the heart of the district stood the home of the Sunsworn.

              He led his horse toward a pair of guards leaning upon their spears in front of the main gate, sipping wine from a bottle they shared between themselves.

              “Is it wise to drink on duty?” he asked.          

              One of them paused to wipe his mouth with the back of his sleeve.             

              “Ahh, don’t worry, man” the guard said. A hint of a slur in his voice. “Nothing’s gonna happen tonight of all nights.”

              “What’s it to you?” the other guard grunted.

              He dismounted before them and lowered his hood.

              “Nothing, really.”

              The guard’s eyes lit up as they fell upon him. For a moment nothing happened.

              Then suddenly the guard straightened his back and whipped his hands together, forming a sharp salute. His companion was only a moment slower and quickly hid the wine.

              “L-Lord Valoryn,” the guard stammered. “Please, forgive my rudeness. I meant no offense, my lord.”

              “Uh, welcome home, my lord.” The second one followed.

              “None taken,” he said as they rushed to open the gate.

              He glanced at the tall building coming into view between the doors and considered expanding his Perception but decided not to risk it. Not when he was this close.

              “Would either of you happen to know if the council is present?”

              “Oh yes, lord,” one of the guards responded quickly. “They’re holding assembly tonight. Been going on ever since the news arrived.”

              A young boy came running across the courtyard to take his horse as he strode through the gate. He handed off the reins and looked back over his shoulder.

              “I’ll overlook the wine. But you’ll have to finish the rest of that bottle for me.”

              He watched as they closed the gate behind him, smiling as they clapped each other on the shoulder.

              It felt strange coming back after so many years in the field. Everything looked as it did the day he marched his legion out of Lumenos.

              A large, properly kept courtyard. A storehouse connected to a smithy where even now a rhythmic beating echoed distantly. And a long row of stables beside the gate.

              On the far side of the courtyard a wide tower, ringed in old Delcairan styled columns, reared into the sky like a hand with five smaller towers displayed above like fingers.

              Every other column supported a vertical flag.

              Either Lucidia’s nine pointed red sun on a field of white or the Sunsworn’s coat of arms, a Lycan and Dragon’s head placed back to back in front of a rising sun.

              Essence stones supported by low hanging chandeliers illuminated the tower’s main hall in a vibrant light that displayed every corner of the ground floor. Brothers and Sisters packed the hall and stopped in mid conversation as he walked by.

              His name followed him even after he found the stairwell he wanted and only began to fade as he climbed the long flight of stairs leading him to the top of the main tower.

              A narrow hallway extended in either direction as he took his last step, lit by a row of flickering lamps fixed along the wall just below the ceiling.

              A hushed silence griped the air, exaggerating the sound of his slow and shallow breathing.

              Shadows danced over elaborate tapestry, broken only by the busts of long deceased kings resting on pedestals and grand paintings of pitched battles and religious tales secured in gilded frames.

              He followed the hallway until it brought him to the other side of the tower where a lone guard stood beside a pair of wide, ornately carved wooden doors.

              He offered Brother Eadyn a tired grin as he approached. If his sudden appearance was a shock it didn’t show in his old friend’s deeply brown eyes.

              “Lord Valoryn,” the guard said warmly, giving him a perfect salute. “Congratulations on your victory! I never lost faith in you, sir. Even after your defeat at Fela’nycom.

              He folded his arms beneath his cloak and nodded at the door.

              “Are they all in there?”

              “Almost,” Eadyn said, shaking his head. “Lady Galoria is absent but the rest are accounted for.”

              His friend smiled, looking him over proudly. “They’ve been in there all day. Winning the war must have really caught them by surprise.”

              He closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief.

              Eight of the nine. Far better than what he’d expected.

              The essence circulating between his body and soul surged without conscious effort. When he opened them again, a line creased Eadyn’s brow.

              “My lord?”

              He raised his hand. Before his friend could say another word a red ball of essence erupted from his palm. Eadyn’s face crumpled with a sickening crunch.

              Blood splattered across the wall where a painting hung. His body stumbled, smearing over a Lycan liberating slaves from their Dragon master as he slumped to the floor.

              He took a deep breath as he wiped the blood from his face, and slipped through the double doors without sparing Eadyn’s lifeless body a second glance.

              A lush Kobari carpet hid the sound of his approach.

              The elders sat in high backed chairs arranged along a crescent table before a wall of stained glass windows discussing heatedly over neat stacks of papers and a large detailed map of Lucidia and its neighbors carved into the table’s surface.

              Pieces grouped on the map indicated troop locations. A pitiful few were of the southern legions. The rest belonged to the North Lords, concentrating around a single city where a lone southern legion stood.

              “Lord Valoryn!” One of the elders exclaimed. “When did you-”

              “I know about the Conduit,” he said sharply. A hint of anger crept into his voice.

              The chamber grew still.

              No one spoke until an elder cleared his throat as he scribbled on a sheet of paper.

              “It’s quite a miracle to have you safely return after that horribly long siege but the strain of it has clearly had its toll. Perhaps a long rest is in order. The man who finally brought an end to this madness certainly deserves it.”

              The old man dismissed him with a curt flick of his wrist. Not once did he look up from his writing to address him.

Stolen story; please report.

              “I met the Hargonians,” he said. “They told me everything.”

              The elder glanced at him then, arching his brow, and grimaced. The others exchanged wary glances. No one spoke again for a long moment.

              He saw it on their faces. Defiance. Fear. Hesitation. They all wanted to deny it. But the blood red color of his soul radiating from his eyes told them it was pointless.

              Abruptly the silence folded.

              “Their words are poison, young lord,” one said. “Hatred passed down for generations have driven them mad beyond reason.”

              “They could not have told you everything,” said another.

              He chuckled dryly and bared his teeth in a mockery of a smile.

              “They did more than that,” he said. “I saw the lands of Hargon with my own eyes. I saw its people. Our people. They’re not the monsters you told me they were.”

              The elders fidgeted in their seats. Several bowed their heads refusing to meet his eyes.

              “My lord,” another pleaded. “I understand the thoughts that must be troubling you but now is not the time for this. We can discuss it later.”

              “No, Coryn” another elder said, rising to his feet. The old man’s eyes glowed a deep red. “It’s too late for him. This is what they do. They find the weakest among us and strike when we’re most vulnerable. I’m sorry, Valoryn. But we’ll have to confine you to a cell for now.”

              Regardless of what they said he’d long since resolved himself to what he was about to do. The elder anticipated him but he was faster.

              He flicked his wrist and the man exploded in a red burst of light.

              To their credit none of them panicked. In their disbelief some were slower than others. But they all rose against him.

              Several fired off balls of essence from their palms. He deflected one with his bare hand toward an elder who erupted in flames as it ruptured over his chest and dodged several more, allowing them to strike the wall behind him.

              They blasted through wood and stone setting the hallway beyond ablaze.

              He closed the gap between them by leaping across the chamber, landing on the other side of the crescent table.

              A backhanded swing of his fist tore the jaw off an elder barely a moment before he spun and kicked another in the chest, shattering a window as the elder hurtled into the darkness above the city.

              Two more threw out their hands. Blood red essence streaked as lightning from their fingertips.

              He took the lightning head on, laughing at the weakness behind their attack. Brushing it aside he grabbed one of them by the arm and swung him around to collide into the other.

              As if the elder were lighter than a feather, he lifted him above his head, wielding his body like a club, and beat the other man who had fallen to the floor furiously until they could no longer be recognized as men.

              Blood trickled down his face and soaked the front of his shirt.

              None of it was his.

              He turned on the remaining two elders. One took a step back.

              “How?” the elder cried incredulously. “We’re all at the peak of the fifth World. Never mind that you’re just one man. It makes no sense!”

              He regarded the elder silently for a moment before he smiled and spread his hands.

              “I’ve always been stronger than you.”

              The elder lunged, a frustrated scream ripping from his throat.

              The force of the man’s blow toppled several more walls past the hallway outside where the fire was quickly spreading.

              He stepped inside the elder’s punch and forced his palm underneath the man’s chin. Then, sweeping his feet from under him he brought the elder down, crushing his throat and smashing the elder’s skull against the carpeted floor.

              He stood and confronted the last remaining elder, blood dripping from his hand.

              “Coryn,” he said. “I can see in your eyes the color of your soul, but you make no move against me. I take it you’ve given up.”

              The other man shook his head.

              “No,” Coryn said. “It’s just too hard to believe. How can I raise my hand against you when I raised you myself? You’re like a son to me.”

              “A son?” He sneered. “Is that supposed to make you my father? Tell me then,” anger bled through his tone. “What kind of father hides the truth from his son?”

              “This anger isn’t yours. It’s theirs. You have to see that.”

              “No!” He shouted. “How can we celebrate our freedom when the King still has the Conduit? Our people are at the mercy of the Arloni and they don’t even know it.”

              Coryn remained silent for a moment. His jaw clenched.

              “What is it you think you can do? The Hargonians have never been able to take it back. And they can’t protect you while you’re here all alone. The man I raised was never so foolish.”

              “Oh, Coryn,” he said. “Protection? I don’t need anyone’s protection. You’re way of thinking is much too narrow. But that isn’t your fault. You were bred and raised in captivity just like me. However, I’ve grown further than anything we were both led to believe.

              “For example, did you know the peak of the fifth World is not the end of cultivation? There exists a World beyond that of an Essence Ruler!”

              He concentrated his essence further, gathering his full strength, filling his body to its absolute limit.

              Coryn retreated several steps, bowing under the pressure he exerted. Utter shock displayed clearly on his old weathered face.

              “It can’t be,” Coryn said, breathlessly.

              “You asked me just now what it is I think I can do. The better question would have been what is there that I cannot. Where everyone before me has failed, I certainly will prevail.”

              “I see,” Coryn said. “So that’s how it is.”

              The elder forced himself upright and stepped forward with obvious difficulty. From his hand held at his side a bar of essence sprang out from between his fingers, as red and glowing as a sword pulled from a forge.

              “As a cultivator,” Coryn said. “I have no complaints. As a man who raised you I couldn’t be more proud. I wish you good fortune Valoryn, but as an elder of the Sunsworn I still have a duty to uphold.”

              For the briefest moment he hesitated.

              Like a man underwater struggling to breathe, the resolve he’d piled high with a mountain of blood and steel faltered as it threatened to collapse, burying him under its crushing weight.

              He bit his lip hard, tasting the bitter iron of his blood, and copied the old man, forming an essence blade of his own.

              The fight was over as quickly as it started.

              He wept over Coryn’s body. Dull brown eyes stared aimlessly, twisted in frozen pain. Shouts echoed from the hallway outside.

              Wiping his tears he pushed himself to his feet, pulling his cloak’s hood over his head, hiding his face again in shadow, and walked into the flames.

              It wasn’t long after when he found himself sitting on the edge of a nearby rooftop.

              Rain fell in gentle waves like tears rolling down his cheeks, doing nothing to put out the fire twisting and lashing out at the night, spewing clouds of smoke that choked the starlight sky and cloaked the Lycan district in an eerily haunting glow.

              He watched the blaze consume the Sunsworn’s head quarters, remembering the faces of his Brothers and Sisters.

              They had loved him. Revered him even.

              And just like a weak flame can be so easily snuffed out by a passing wind so did their love as he killed them one by one.

              None had escaped.

              “Well done.”

              He turned and saw a man clothed all in black emerge from the darkness.

              “They will trouble us no more,” the man said.

              “Galoria wasn’t there,” he said. “I don’t know where she is.”

              “She was at the palace guarding the young princess. For a mere fifth World Essence Ruler she offered a marvelous resistance. But in the end we got what we came for. Those two belong to us now.”

              He couldn’t see the man’s face but he heard the smile in his voice.

              “Our god is quite pleased by the results. You should take some pride in that, Valoryn.”

              Coryn’s face before his death surfaced in the back of his mind, along with his words. I couldn’t be more proud of you. He clenched his jaw and said nothing.

              The man chuckled dryly like autumn leaves crumbling.

              “A new age is about to claw its way over the horizon. It won’t be much longer now. If you still desire to be a part of it, then I suggest embracing that change. When the Heavenly Demon sets his eyes on something he does not so easily take them off. Nor does he forgive weakness. Of any kind.”

              The man paused, waiting for a response. When none came the man continued.

              “Return to Hargon. Free yourself of the past and train. Your cultivation is much too low and there remains still a lot of work to do.”

              He rose and inclined his head slightly toward the man in black.

              “Thank you for the advice, Caster. I’ll prepare the world for our coming. The Hargonians will be ready.”

              “Good. I expect no less of one chosen by Him to serve as one of his Heralds.”

              When Caster stepped back into the darkness and disappeared without another word he resumed his seat on the rooftop and stayed a while longer, watching the fire reduce his past to ash and fill the air with smoke.

              After some time he finally rose and turned his back on the burning heart of the Lycan district. It was time to leave it all behind. He was Sunsworn no longer.