There are, of course, many stories of glorious success. It is a popular topic, one often reached for and dusted off and polished up – one more go for old time’s sake. Times get tough, hope gets scarce, and people start swapping stories of heroes and villains and legends lying in wait for the right time to wake.

Oh, neat. That rhymed.

This is not a success. This is not a victory. There will be derring-do, adventure, maybe even a buckled swash or two – gods willing; but no conquest. Obstacles aplenty, not one overcome. The subject of our tale (hardly the protagonist at this point) is worrying fate has abandoned him. We’ve just begun, but his tale is well underway. What could be won, has. What strength mustered, atrophied.

The twilight of this reign draws near.

The world here is nameless and vast. It floats in space, like yours. It has gravity, spins on an axis, orbits a star, is orbited by moons in turn, even plate tectonics shift its face with age. Right now it provides a home to four major continents, a singular ice cap, and numerous archipelagos, atolls, and islands.

It is on the largest and most isolated by oceanic and atmospheric currents where our story makes its roost. Ringed by mountains, a sole outlet to the seas, the former Empire of Issachai collapses further into disarray. Little more than a single shining city and a small swath of land – fiercely guarded –, a lone thread tying the bubble of safety to the world outside.

Silhouettes pace the horizon, little guards and soldiers white-knuckling weapons so hard their hands creak, staring out and hoping that this isn’t the night.

It is. It is the night. They die painfully and not a thing can stop it.

Worse still, they’re all about to die for nothing. The High Admiral recalls her past, now, wondering at how a Queen of the Pirates might fare this time around. Orders are, ahem, lost. A fort taken.

And then an island.

And every man and woman guarding the bolt hole for a dying empire dies choking on smoke and shadow and death, alone and in darkness, sound swallowed so even their dying words are lost, praying for help and clinging to the hope that, at least, they’ve slowed the tide and bought time for their friends and family to escape, well.

I don’t think I’d tell them if I could. That they’d died valiantly, horrifically, bravely, occasionally in pieces, frequently screaming; but entirely for nothing? No. It’s the highest form of disrespect, I would say, to steal the last meaning someone’s life had from them. Should any of these poor souls come my way, a secret kept is the least I could do.

Evil is so often thought of as a thing that can be destroyed, but this shows a lack of understanding that leaves me with an ache in my chest. Would that it were so, little mortals. Because evil isn’t a thing. It’s an idea. And just like the army of monsters bubbling out of every crack and crevice and shadow and shade, creeping and slinking and skulking out to strike at the heart of a dying empire?

It comes from within.

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Something grabbed me and pulled me out of a deep sleep. I fell, deafened by the ring of thunder around me, and try to draw on what little strength I have left to defend myself. Before I could, I hit the floor.

I rolled out of bed.

A quick patdown confirms I’m unharmed, so I climb to my feet and scan the dark room with an eye for threats.

Then the palace shakes and a sound like a thunderstorm exploding suckerpunches me in the chest. Heart pounding, already sweating, I ran to the balcony, stumbling over three more impacts that go unheard over the ringing. The building has wards worked into everything from the toilets to the duvets and they haven’t broken yet, not one toppled bookcase to dodge or collapsed ceiling to dive out from under.

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I’ve nearly convinced myself that this is just some kind of earthquake when I throw the doors and sprint outside. The first thing that hit me was the smell of blood and smoke, thick as thieves and choking out anyone unlucky enough to be caught outside. Another impact, this one almost audible as the ringing faded, but it sounded like it came from the other side of the city. The palace barely rattled.

The second thing that hit me was the realization that I wasn’t looking at gathering pools of shade and gloom, but down over the tops of beasts the size of a city block. They moved quick, bounding down streets and up and over highrises with no apparent effort. The ringing had faded, I realized, but was replaced by the sound of my city screaming. Of my people dying. Black flames and orange wreathed buildings and parks, vehicles and citizens alike. Smaller demons barely more tangible than shadows ripped through a family as they ran. And in the distance, hovering over it all, impossibly returned to life after I struck it down, the Nemesis.

Hovering over the army, laughing all the while. Alien and grating and other. An unlaughter that mocked the world and crawled in through my ears and made my brain itch.

A pull, stronger than any in years, has me calling my power owed as the Sovereign of Prophecy. The tug in my gut gives me a nudge and that power shifts. The trickle that had been available since the beginning of the end is replaced all at once by a flood of irrepressible strength.

I lit up like a fucking lighthouse of hope on that tower, a shining hero clad in ethereal plate and a gleaming blade.

The whole battle came to a halt below me, the roar of war giving way to a pervasive, pregnant pause.

The Demon King drew a blade of swirling nothing and pointed it up at me as the living cheered. Shadows slunk away and melted back to wherever they had come from as the Darkness salutes me and assumes a lazy stance.

The power seared cold and shaky through my veins, the world slowing as I readied myself. A casual roll of the shoulders, a crack of the back. I hopped lightly up onto the balustrade, letting momentum carry me forward over the edge. A quick flex as I started to fall and I kicked off from the top of the palace, topmost floor shattered with the force of my jump.

I noted the destruction absently and thought briefly on how much easier this used to be. Not a second passed, and I looked back to find the Dark Lord swinging at me, sword little more than an empty flash. My hands, already moving, caught his blade with my own and the guards locked.

The bastard leered at me, nothing and teeth and tentacles and flesh and darkness and yet none of those at all blinking and drooling and dripping and caressing at me as we struggled. I felt my failure coming before it happened and I drew the only other weapon I had left.

I feel my hands shake, sword knocked from my grip and spinning away to the rubble below. I feel the beast move, swinging at me faster than I can see.

And then I felt fate start to burn. I called my Due, destiny bowing to the request.

My hands moved of their own accord, catching death between my palms. I twisted to throw the beast away and the sword snapped off in my hands. Off balance and unarmed, I seized my chance and lunged at the Nemesis as a beam of sunlight broke through the tumult above and a chorus of otherworldly voices hit a crescendo and that blade sank into his neck down to the tips of my fingers.

The monster stumbled back, silvery ichor beading around the blade in its neck as the world below let out a breath they’d been holding together.

The cheers were tentative at first. More incredulous crying than cheers. The beast clawed at the blade weakly even as we both floated over the burning city. I reluctantly relinquished the thread of fate I’d been holding and feeding to the flames.

A grin. A wink. The beast dissolved and I was fumbling for the power I had just let slip when something hit me in the back.

I felt my spine shatter and saw the terror in my people’s eyes as their Saviour fell.

Everything went dark.

I didn’t feel it when I cratered a building, or when I punched through its basement and sub floors.

I didn’t feel it when half of the population died afraid.

I didn’t feel it for a while, sleeping under the carnage and despair. Bruised and battered and broken.

Eventually, I woke up in the rubble. Ayla pulled me out and we fought fate again.

But first, I napped under the debris of my shortcomings, and dreamt of better times.

The problem with dreams? Eventually, you wake up.