106 PF
Continental Empire
Kingdom of Larnach
City of Larnach
Outskirts
1700 hours
The great, venerable City of Larnach was still. Silence and desolation reigned over the streets, darkness claimed the windows of every monolithic skyscraper, and the monotone hum of antimagic fields only made it seem all the more like a lifeless tomb. Six years of rigorous evacuation drills paid off – the entire population of this centuries-old megapolis had been funnelled into cavernous underground shelters, leaving only a maze of metal and concrete, a predestined battlefield.
Wildfire Campbell approached the City at the head of an enormous multicoloured cloud – his loyal army, his mighty host, his cannon fodder. The Sparkwielders of the Quarry were well-trained and organized, but they were simply an accessory to his plan. He could see hundreds of little Larnachian soldiers scurrying in the streets, moving from building to building, gathering into formations. They were nothing but ants to him. His arrogance was as vast as his power, and he barely paid any attention to the desperate flailing of lesser beings.
“Sparkwielders!” he called out to his warriors. “Make your way to the Palace. Whatever the Larnachians have built there now, burn it to the ground and capture the area. Guard the artificers as they conduct their task. Do not let any foes approach.”
The main force descended onto the City like a flaming sledgehammer, only to be met with a barrage of deadly metal projectiles. Even though they effortlessly shielded themselves against the initial attack, they would soon realize that this was only the beginning. The Larnachians had many tricks up their sleeves – they struck from every direction, fired rockets and missiles with Arelium payloads to disrupt and disorganize the enemy, used stationary and mobile railgun turrets, employed stealth and decoys and every manner of deception in order to claim more enemy lives.
Retaliation was swift and brutal, but it didn’t matter. This was the doomsday scenario – urban combat on a scale never before seen, combat eerily similar to the first year of the crisis, where losses are inevitable, where you throw all you have at the enemy, where victory is earned through sacrifice. Casualties began rising on both sides, the overwhelming power of the Sparkwielders clashing with the fearless tactics of the Larnachians.
As the battle raged on, Campbell split off from the cloud to head in the direction indicated by his diviners. He was almost disappointed that the enemy decided not to engage him as he flew through the air, but it also stroked his ego. Ultimately, the fighting and destruction was nothing more than background noise to him. He had a goal, and he was going to accomplish it no matter what.
He soon reached the main military base of the Larnachians – Fort Anastasia – but found it entirely abandoned. The Larnachians had pooled most of their forces into the City proper, and the remaining staff had retreated immediately upon spotting the Wildfire’s approach. His grand entrance was met only by the coordinated fire of several remotely operated railgun turrets, to which he responded by ripping them off their mounts with telekinesis. As much as he wanted to hurl enormous balls of fire and reduce this complex to a pile of cinders, he had to exercise restraint. The source was here, down below.
Guided by his chief diviner, he forced himself to navigate the corridors of the base like a mere mortal. Reducing blast doors to scrap just by squeezing his hand, he descended into the dungeon. The closer he got to his prize, the more his mind became clouded with excitement and anticipation and sheer greed. He had gathered an army and marched into the very heart of the kingdom all for this moment. Nothing could stop him now.
One last corridor, one last destroyed door, and there it was. White hair, pale skin, purple dress, and that same crescent-shaped pendant. All these trinkets were just compasses pointing to the source – the latent wielder of the royal family's ancient magic, the last Purpura – and after years of scheming, it was his for the taking. There was somebody else here, but Campbell cast them aside like a mote of dust before clutching the girl in an unescapable telekinetic grip. At long last, he had the final piece required to initiate his ascension.
He cast another hand upward and rended the earth, creating a ragged gash leading all the way to the surface. Revelling in the satisfaction of relative omnipotence, he left with the source in tow. The Larnachians had even less of an incentive to attack him now, letting him fly freely through the City as an invincible god surrounded by rings of undying fire. He cared little for the ongoing battle – once he completed the ritual, there would be no force on the entire Continent capable of stopping him.
Meanwhile, the Palace was once again a pile of rubble, only of glass and concrete instead of silk and gold. The Sparkwielders had cleared out an empty circular area, raising makeshift walls out of the debris to create a sort of stadium. The artificers had then etched a large and extremely elaborate ritual circle into the ground, moulding four enormous spires of pure Arelium and placing them at the corners.
They were in the process of defending this position from the amassing Larnachian forces when the Firelord arrived, and they cheered for him as their leader and guide. But he didn’t even bother with a speech, completely consumed by tunnel vision. Everything had finally fallen into place, and all he had to do was begin the ritual and ascend to a truly godlike level of power.
He put down the girl at the very centre of the circle and transferred immense amounts of power into it to start the spell. She floated helplessly in the air as the Arelium spires began accumulating energy and focusing on the magic deep within her, the magic accumulated over many generations and now concentrated in one vessel, the magic of a soul without a Spark. He had promised ascension for all these pawns, but this power was always meant for him.
Any remaining pretence of a regal demeanour vanished completely as Campbell bathed in the illustrious glow of the grandest Sparkrune spell ever cast and laughed. He hadn’t felt so much joy ever since he burned down this very Palace six years ago. He did all the work, he deserved all the infamy, and once the ritual is complete, those other Wildfires would be nothing compared to him. This was his destiny.
…but fate often works in unexpected ways.
Suddenly, there was a pulse of energy that the spell struggled to contain. Then there was another one, stronger than the last, and the Arelium spires shook and cracked. Campbell snapped out of his megalomania and began channelling his own power to reinforce the spell, but received a pushback of such magnitude that it shattered his staff to splinters and made him buckle. With growing horror, he watched his red-tinted energy being displaced by blindingly bright purple.
He had expected the royal magic to fight back, but this was far beyond what he was prepared for, beyond what his diviners and artificers predicted and accounted for. Could this be the price for toying with powers he didn’t fully understand? Doubt seeped into his mind for just a moment, but he cast it aside. He wasn’t going to stand down. He was the self-proclaimed Firelord, the one Sparkwielder above all. He was going to tame this magic and make it his, no matter what.
Campbell exerted himself greatly to try and contain the awakening royal magic, but to little avail. As its presence intensified, he realized that it wasn’t just erratic energy. It began taking form. Incorporeal spectres manifested around the frail little princess as if guarding her, the hollow echoes of dead souls. A cacophony of otherworldly sound accompanied them – a chorus of errant mumbling and hateful susurration. It whispered to him from beyond.
“t-t-traitor… us-usurper… mur-mur-murderer…”
As this unspeakable mass of fragmented minds and melded souls gazed into Campbell’s very being with the kind of vitriol the living world was incapable of producing, he felt raw, gripping fear. And from fear was born desperation. He grasped at this horrible entity of congealed quasi-sentient magic with every last bit of his power, approaching his limits for the first time in his entire life, but it matched him in strength and then some, shattering the spell like it was nothing and claiming the Arelium spires as a focus for its own power. Campbell’s pompous crown slid off his head and clattered to the ground. He was no longer dictating the rules here.
Using the girl as its vessel, the ancient magic of the Purpura dynasty asserted its inhuman will over this reality. It clenched her hand, and the area of the spell became encased in a shimmering purple barrier to keep out any who would dare to interfere. There was no escape from this newly created hell. He had to defeat what he had so foolishly awoken, or be crushed by it in its own domain.
As the Sparkwielders watched this clash of opposing forces, their reverence turning to horror, they could suddenly see nothing but unfathomably bright purple. The barrier emitted soul-rending blasts of energy, banishing them from their holdout position and leaving them in the open air, disoriented and defenceless. With reinforcements coming in, the Larnachians used this opportune moment to begin an all-out assault.
They fired coordinated volleys at those who stood their ground, blasting them to smithereens, and began hunting down those who tried to flee into the urban sprawl. The cybernetically enhanced soldiers of Project Atlas tirelessly chased the Sparkwielders, forcing them into engagements and weakening their magic with portable disruption field generators before delivering the lethal blow. Not even Pyres with their immense stores of power could outmatch the strength, endurance, and coordination of this elite infantry.
At the same time, the troops of Project Solaris spread out across the battlefield and began lighting up the sky with deadly energy beams from their experimental weaponry, its design inspired by the signature attack of Codename Sunbeam. While a far cry from the conventional railguns and disruptors of Sparkwielder combat, this alternative proved to be quite effective at harassing and suppressing the enemy.
The balance of power shifted drastically, but the worst was yet to come. A dark, misshapen blot appeared in the sky, capturing the attention of the two opposing sides. It veered in smooth yet erratic motions, descending like a bird of prey. Sparkwielders and Larnachians alike pointed at it and yelled its name, the former terrified of it beyond any measure. To them it was a monster, a wraith, an abomination, the detestable apotheosis of Larnach’s desperate experiments, the ultimate bane of those who bore the Spark within their souls.
The Hawk.
Its figure came into view – a tall, inhumanly lanky creature, its body covered in dark wraps and protruding cybernetics. Its most striking feature was the pair of jagged metallic wings jutting out of its back, their enormous span giving it a truly demonic appearance. They were like that of a bat, gleaming sheets of solid energy serving as the membrane stretched between the sharp bones. What little similarity this fiend still had with humans ended at the forelimbs, which had been entirely replaced with deadly metal claws.
The Hawk scanned the battlefield with the grotesquely large glassy spheres that served as its eyes while not having any conceivable resemblance to actual eyes. It hovered in place for just a moment and then dived down as an imperceptible blur to eliminate its prey. The unlucky Sparkwielder was eviscerated swiftly and brutally, and the creature moved onto its next victim before the blood even had time to drip down from its razor-sharp talons.
There were many thoughts in its mind, muddled and feverish thoughts mixed with shards of half-forgotten memories, but one thought stood above them all as a searingly clear command – search and destroy, search and destroy, search and destroy. It scoured the streets of the City, able to see the light within those it had to kill. Light meant danger, light meant enemy, light meant destroy.
While the Hawk picked off Sparkwielders one by one, a battle of entirely different magnitude continued in what was left of the Palace grounds. Campbell did everything he could to stave off the ancient amalgamation, committing as much of his soul to the raging flame as he could afford, but it wasn’t enough. The royal spirits didn’t cease their assault for even a moment, getting closer and closer to overpowering the Wildfire completely.
Afraid and desperate, he looked within himself for a way out, for any trick or ability that could save his life. Memories raced through his mind – a burning Palace, four Wildfires, a plan and a pact binding them together… but there weren’t just four. He remembered a fifth, a child, vulnerable and exploitable, holding great power but incapable of properly using it. Campbell’s fear momentarily gave way to malicious joy.
All he had to do was reach inside and yank the string as hard as possible.
Putting a tremendous amount of energy into the action, he summoned the fifth Wildfire. In an infinismall moment of time, the fabric of space itself tore and shuddered, tunnelling to a different place and forcefully beckoning the target. A rift of orange formed between the red and the purple, a confused and frightened child materializing out of thin air and putting a wedge in the middle of this deadly battle.
The royal spirits cared not for collateral damage, striking at this new foe in order to reach Campbell. Afraid for her life, the child instinctively retaliated with an outburst of wild magic. She looked for defence, protection, safety, survival. As her energy propagated through the stadium, it found an answer.
Overpowering the sheer will of the Purpura magic with her innate affinity, she took control of the Arelium spires. They dislodged from their places and shattered into hundreds of jagged pieces, beginning to orbit the little girl at absurdly fast speeds – a shield and a conduit. This belt of sharp crystalline satellites retaliated against the princess, breaking through her defences and leaving deep cuts in her fragile body.
The little Wildfire wanted to live, but she didn’t wish to hurt anyone either. Overwhelmed by the power of her own soul, she could only watch in horror as her opponent bled. She just wanted to be left alone, and as this desperate desire grew rapidly in her mind, it was interpreted as a command. With one final burst of chaotic energy, the princess was pushed away, slamming into the wall and falling helplessly to the ground. At the same time, the Arelium combined and reformed into a hollow sphere, encasing the Sparkwielder girl in a protective shell before dropping onto the ground with a tremendous thud.
The ancestral Purpura magic was far more powerful than any Sparkwielder living or dead, but it was limited by the tether it had to the material world. No soul could handle so much magic being channelled through it for too long. The royal spirits had no choice but to unmanifest, lest her soul be torn out of its socket from the pressure of serving as an anchor to forces of unthinkable magnitude. And so Elizabeth Purpura was left on the ground, unconscious and bleeding. Abandoned.
The fight was over.
As Campbell fled in a random direction, desperately rushing as far away from the Palace as possible, he expended more and more of his depleting energy to conjure storms of magical fire that ravaged streets and swallowed entire buildings whole. His soul was wounded, weakened, tainted by the assault of the otherworldly magic. He was gripped with terror and driven by sheer fear, stretching his limits dangerously thin in what could only be described as the tantrum of a dying god.
High up in the air, he mumbled maniacally to himself, eyes wide with fear and hands shaking – the same hands that toppled skyscrapers with just a single motion, forcing the monolithic constructions to part with their foundations and fall onto the ground. The remaining Sparkwielders couldn’t quite decide whether their leader was fleeing or rampaging, but their trust in him had been shattered either way.
The Larnachians were forced to focus their attention on this target, as the Wildfire was heading into the City, wrecking irrational havoc along the way. He wasn’t just a conqueror – he was a mobile weapon of mass destruction, threatening to claim untold amounts of innocent lives. No matter how powerful, he had to be eliminated. He will be eliminated.
While a detachment began to retake the area of the Palace, the rest of them gave chase to the self-proclaimed deity. They flanked and harassed him, preparing to face him head-on and halt or reverse his destructive advance through the City. He tried to retaliate, but his attacks were sparse and erratic, more successful at random destruction than killing enemies. As the Larnachian soldiers chased the Wildfire, staying on the offensive against a foe of overwhelming power, the level of morale among them was truly enormous.
...except for the one unit that lacked a conception of morale.
Immersed in the process of rapidly decorating a living room with the blood and guts of an overconfident Flame, the Hawk was distracted by an overwhelming glow at the edge of its vision. It discarded the mangled corpse, flew out onto a rooftop, and locked in on the source – a Wildfire, a sun among stars. The biggest prey.
The Hawk rushed to him, navigating effortlessly through ruined and burning terrain, wholly dedicated to snuffing out this raging fire. But as it closed the distance between them in the blink of an eye and reared its claws for a lethal strike, Campbell turned around. He choked on heart-stopping fear as the horrible creature slammed violently against his shield, scratching at it with the ferocity of an eternally hungry predator, making it crack. If given just a few more seconds, the cyborg would tear him to shreds.
But upon recovering from the shock, he instinctively lashed out with his very soul. A blast of energy came from within him, making every bone and muscle in his body ache with the desperate exertion. He was practically running on fumes, but even the fumes were enough to swat the Hawk away like a fly. Launched straight through several highrises, the body of the creature vanished in a cloud of dust and rubble.
And the Wildfire continued, because he didn’t know what else to do.
----------------------------------------
The critters of the Royal Park hid away in trees and bushes and burrows, spooked by the amassing military presence on the Park’s pristine grounds. A flat clearing had been chosen as a deployment area for the reinforcements and a base of operations in the raging battle. Boots and wheels and tents flattened the grass, helicopter rotors shook the leaves, all the noise disturbing the tranquil ambience that usually reigned over the Park.
Giving the general zone of fighting a wide berth, Expeditionary Force One entered the City and touched down among the gravel trails and wooden benches. Director-General McCarter had been continuously listening to radio transmissions from the very moment the battle had begun, and by the time his feet connected with solid ground, he possessed total knowledge of the current situation.
He did not quite like the current situation.
Accompanied by the Stargazers and a ‘captive’ Sparkwielder, he made a beeline for Colonel Washington. She was currently shouting orders in a radio and at several different squads almost simultaneously, her face betraying the enormous amounts of stress she endured without showing even a sliver of weakness or hesitation – a feat achievable only through the talent and skill of a true leader.
“Colonel Washington!” he called out to her, a formal tone poorly masking the simple happiness he felt from seeing her alive and well.
“Director-General McCarter!” she responded, an expression of pure relief momentarily softening her expression. “You know the situation – the Sparkwielder resistance is dwindling, but the Wildfire is on the loose. Hold on…” she paused, listening into a radio, “I am getting reports of a survivor in the Palace. The same one we saw getting taken away from Fort Anastasia, no less...
“...Do you have any information you would be willing to share with me, General?” she inquired, narrow eyes gazing suspiciously at Austin. He shrewdly squinted his eyes in response.
“Classified. All I can tell you is that she’s a VIP of the highest order. You can waste invaluable time guessing at this ‘mystery’ or we can do our jobs.”
“Roger", she conceded, stuffing theories to the back of her mind. “The Meister-General is still unconscious. I am doing all I can, but I must admit how incredibly glad I am to have you here now."
Viola beheld the Stargazers, suited and armed, struggling to reconcile this sight with the memory of four joyful children. She then examined the Sparkwielder lodged firmly in the middle of their ranks, a young woman in strange green clothing who looked back at the Colonel with a mix of apprehension and remarkable determination. Viola did not comment on this, as unconventional as it was, for she trusted McCarter’s judgement.
Austin quickly took the lead as the new highest authority on the battlefield, monitoring the situation through rapidly changing maps and frenetic radio chatter, stepping in to issue new orders when necessary. But his attention became divided when, only minutes later, a bulky cargo helicopter approached the Park with a peculiar haul. Suspended under the helicopter with durable tethers was a ‘mech suit’ of formidable scale – the first fruit of Project Siegebreaker, gathered before it could fully ripen.
The soldiers watched with fascination as the helicopter placed the mech on its feet before landing itself. To an untrained eye, this enormous war machine could seem to be a marvel of engineering, but McCarter knew it to be a shoddy, unfinished, haphazardly slapped together prototype, the kind he’d seen more than enough of in his life. The railguns had once been shoddy, the exoskeletons had once been shoddy, everything had once been a woefully unreliable death trap fielded only out of sheer desperation.
But just as the Lancer and Pulser kits eventually became standard issue, this, too, could become customary among the battlefields of the Sparkwielder crisis. As Austin had that line of thought, however, he was suddenly struck with the feeling that such a future would never come to pass, that the crisis was going to be decided here and now. It felt obvious, and inevitable.
Either way, the General was currently stuck with this one profoundly untrustworthy hunk of steel. His ponderings on how and if to field it were rudely interrupted by the indescribable shock of watching Colonel gods-damned Washington climbing onto the accursed thing and taking the position of the pilot.
“Are you mad?!” was the first thought and first words he could muster. “What do you think you’re doing?!”
“The Wildfire has to be stopped,” she replied to him from up above as she affixed the helmet and took hold of the controls, “and I will be leading the charge. We only have one shot at this. This armour is the most powerful unit we have at our disposal, and I am the best candidate for piloting it.”
“You shouldn’t even be a candidate! I’m not letting you risk your life like… like it’s the first years of the crisis all over again!”
“And what then, risk the life of another soldier with an even lower chance of success?” Washington responded with a distinct iciness in her voice. “All of this has always been about risk. Do not let emotions cloud your judgement, General.”
There wasn’t much time for loitering in the middle of the most climactic battle in the history of, perhaps, the entire Continent, but some soldiers paused to watch two of their highest-ranking commanders have an argument with one of them in the process of encasing herself in a mech suit.
“Am I not allowed to simply worry about you, Viola?” asked Austin, slightly embarrassed from being so sentimental out loud.
Viola paused, then sighed. Austin knew the way she hesitated meant that she was, momentarily, at a loss. For a moment, it seemed as if the immense amounts of history and personal relation between the two officers hanged tangibly in the air for everyone to behold.
“You are allowed to do anything, Austin,” she told him in a gentle yet cryptic tone, something almost like playful exasperation. “You outrank me.”
And with that, she put the machine into motion, its enormous feet stomping rhythmically as its main weapons swung around – an extremely powerful railgun on one arm and a bulky disruptor on the other. Most of the remaining forces followed her, ready to spearhead the interception. McCarter did not say another word as he watched her go, allowing himself to linger on this moment for a precise few seconds before beginning to think of a plan.
“Stargazers,” he said, turning to his wards, “accompany and support the Colonel in whatever ways you can. Do not engage the main target directly. Am I clear?”
“Yes, sir,” responded Rose without hesitation, as she led her siblings to join the rest of the troops.
Austin counted on their mobility and low profile to keep them safe, but it hardly assuaged his worries. He unholstered and examined his handgun, perhaps to subconsciously delay the inevitable. It was the most potent weapon in its weight class, issued to a select few officers, but was only meant to be used as the most final of resorts.
“Miss Kayleigh, I’m afraid you’ll have to accompany me,” he said to the healer with an entirely impassive tone. “I’ve known that woman for six horrible years and I’m not about to let her get herself killed in a walking metal coffin.”
“I’ll make sure not to let you get yourself killed either,” replied Erika with a particular brand of resigned stubbornness often found in exasperated medics. He silently appreciated her lack of hesitation in following him into almost certain death.
With the fleeing Wildfire’s trajectory predictable to the point of literally being a straight line, the bulk of the Larnachian forces was gravitating towards a decided interception point. Had Campbell been any less powerful, had he not expended his ace-in-the-sleeve, he would not have survived his fateful encounter with the Purpura magic. Eclipsed by a terrible moon, he was left weakened and vulnerable and practically hysterical, wasting his last stores of energy on pointless outbursts while rogue emotions and mad thoughts clouded his mind. Even then, he was still the most formidable foe the Larnachian military had ever encountered. They weren’t about to underestimate him.
Campbell was utterly unaware of the impending threat, barely capable of focusing on anything in his delirium, but one particular gigantic ‘anything’ suddenly appeared in front of him with a deafening roar-like sound. The mech hovered using the rocket engines embedded in its legs, aiming its railgun at the Wildfire. He only had seconds to react, and he wasted them.
With all the loudness of a mountain-shattering explosion, the mech fired a massive metal slug. The projectile seemed to travel through the air faster than a lightning bolt, striking Campbell’s shield and ending up lodged halfway through. Simultaneously, he found himself pelted by lesser attacks from below. Already in shambles, his defences were about to shatter completely from the pressure.
The thing to finally snap him out of his breakdown was the rapidly growing feeling of intense anger at the ugly contraption that made a mockery of his power by daring to challenge him. Hatred brought clarity, and for the first time since the battle against the royal spirits, Campbell managed to focus. Gathering what little power he could still expend without burning up completely, he set his very body aflame with a brilliant scarlet aura.
For a fraction of a second, he emitted a flash of light so bright and intense that it temporarily blinded anyone who beheld it. He then conjured a blanket of viscous fire that lingered in the air below him, preventing anyone on the ground from getting a visual on their target. Finally, he cast his hand forward and bathed the Siegebreaker in flames so hot they could melt steel beams in seconds, approaching the mech as he scorched it to a crisp.
But once Campbell closed the distance, he was suddenly pushed away by an excruciatingly painful pulse of disrupting energy. He barely managed to stay airborne, his own flames reversing their direction and dispersing. He recovered from the counterattack just in time to see the Siegebreaker aiming its railgun at him point-blank, projecting an artificial energy shield that had rendered his flames harmless. Lacking any better options, he slapped the railgun away with the back of his hand just as it fired and then simply punched the mech as hard as he could.
The shield held even with the sheer amount of power put into that attack, but its kinetic energy launched the Siegebreaker a few dozen metres through the air before Washington managed to counteract the momentum using the rocket engines and come to a halt. The Wildfire immediately attempted to grab the mech, but she sent out another disruptor pulse that prevented his invisible telekinetic grip from connecting.
Failing that, he captured the nearest thing he could – which happened to be a house-sized chunk of fallen skyscraper – and hurled it at his adversary. The Colonel narrowly dodged it by overloading the Siegebreaker’s engines, but with a resounding pop and a burst of flames the left leg engine failed and fizzled out, leaving her with half the thrust and none of the balance.
Seeing this opportunity, the Wildfire charged at her with the rage of a hundred burning suns. She aimed another shot as best she could, but it only grazed the incoming threat. Avoiding another point-blank disruptor pulse, Campbell positioned himself above the mech, clasped his hands together, and delivered a devastating downward strike.
As he watched the Siegebreaker crash into the ground, he didn’t think even for a moment to actually utilize the newfound aerial advantage. He wanted nothing more than to get down there – which is exactly what he did – and tear that mech limb from limb – which was made more difficult by the fact that he was now facing a recovered opponent on somewhat equal terms. There was ringing in her ears and blood in her mouth and pressure in her skull, but she was ready to fight.
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“You won’t be getting away,” he shouted at Viola with vicious excitement, “and you’re not getting any help either!”
Campbell raised his hands and squeezed just a bit more power out of his aching soul, creating a ring of fire around the immediate area. It grew taller and taller into a full-fledged wall several stories high, which then closed in on itself, forming a sort of dome. While formidable, it was imperfect – the flames shuddered, as if struggling to maintain their form, small gaps appearing periodically in the barrier.
The Colonel was unfazed.
She fired at her adversary once again, but it was another grazing shot. As much as it hurt him, it also made him angrier. Though extremely vulnerable, the Wildfire was fully willing to set aflame every last scrap of his soul’s essence just to keep fighting. He clenched his fists so hard that they began to bleed, and the very ground beneath them shook and cracked. This was enough for the Siegebreaker to lose its footing, and as it struggled to aim its weapons, Campbell charged at it with a spear of fire.
While unstable, this construct was still sharp enough for him to pierce and shatter the mech’s shield, ploughing through its torso and scorching several critical components. Then, forgoing telekinesis altogether, he grabbed the railgun with his bare hands and tugged with superhuman strength, slamming the Siegebreaker into the ground. He was hellbent on enjoying this, perhaps subconsciously aware that he was nearing his end.
Perhaps he welcomed it.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the dome, Gold of the Stargazers studied the erratic aura of the intimidating magical construct with his psychic sense. He observed the motions and patterns of the flames, pacing back and forth as his squadmates stood nearby. Any doubts or worries felt distant and ethereal as he concentrated his entire mind on the task, engrossed in a focused trance.
Gold waited for the right moment with nearly inhuman patience, and when it came, his feet moved in perfect sync with those of his comrades. Utilizing an imperceptibly tight window of opportunity, the Stargazers slipped through a momentary opening in the dome. What they saw on the other side was the Wildfire tearing the Siegebreaker to shreds with the pilot still inside, concussed and incapable of fighting back. Rose assessed the situation unfolding before her eyes in a fraction of a second. She was the leader. She had to make a decision.
The General’s orders rang out in the back of her mind – ‘do not engage’ – but she knew that a commander’s duty was to make difficult choices. Not allowing herself a single moment of hesitation, Rose directed the Stargazers to spread out and strike the target. They sprinted across the ruined terrain without making a sound, their swords drawn and ready, working in tandem as pieces of a whole. The Wildfire’s light was blindingly bright in their vision, but at the same time it was weak.
Just as Campbell reached out to grab Viola and yank her out of the ruined mech, they struck. With a flash of red and a sound like every pane of glass in the world breaking all at once, his shield shattered. Eight blades of tempered steel entered his mortal flesh, slicing through heart and lungs and liver and nerves. He tried to scream – what came out was a pitiful gurgle. The Stargazers immediately went for the neck and head next, but the Wildfire’s body went alight with a scorching aura once again and their swords didn’t get a chance to hit their mark.
He simply refused to die.
Navy was thrown away with a blast of energy akin to the direct impact of a speeding truck, Lime was simply grabbed by the front of her trenchcoat and hurled away, and Gold was pushed back by a stream of flames that his uniform was designed to but couldn’t quite withstand. All of this happened in seconds, and seconds is exactly how long Campbell had left to live.
Rose was the last one standing, but there was no time nor opportunity to fight back. She was grabbed with hands that felt like hot irons and shoved roughly to the ground, the Wildfire looming over her as he reared his flaming arm for a deadly strike, his eyes filled with madness and hatred. Rose’s psychic vision became overwhelmed by a barrage of chaotic emissions, and it made her falter. She wanted to block, or to slice at his neck, or to squirm out of his grasp, but she couldn’t. His other hand already burned its way to her shoulder, and the pain paralyzed her. She screamed.
If Campbell hadn’t been crazed and nearing death, he would’ve felt a foreign magical presence force its way through his wall of fire only seconds prior. But he had not. And that’s why, when he heard a voice call out a name of his that he wasn’t the one to choose, his first and only instinct was to look up.
“INFERNO!”
Director-General Austin McCarter aimed his handgun at one of the most powerful and malevolent beings in the known world and pulled the trigger. In that split second, as they locked eyes with each other, Campbell realized that there was nothing left to do. He realized, at last, that he was going to die. The bullet went through his skull.
His mind – snuffed out like a candle.
His body – limp and cooling.
His soul…
Austin watched the flames vanish, already knowing what was going to happen next and what he had to do. It nearly broke him. He would have preferred to believe that it was over, he wished dearly that this could be the end, but it wasn’t. The worst was soon to come.
“Miss Kayleigh, help the Stargazers and Colonel Washington,” he ordered with exceptional urgency. “Be quick.”
Even though he hardly possessed any tangible authority over her, Erika did not hesitate in obeying his command. He had the voice of a leader – the kind of voice one was compelled to follow. She rushed over to the wounded, and the children smiled at her as she healed their bruises and burns and internal bleeding. Then, she swiftly but carefully extracted the Colonel from the ruined mech and treated her as well.
Viola woke with a start, examining the scene around her with a gaze of sharp analytical awareness that morphed into dawning understanding and then abject horror. She heard McCarter speaking into a radio, ordering a retreat in the strongest possible terms and querying the condition and position of Project Anathema.
She knew exactly what Project Anathema was. Years of research, neverending engineering efforts, top secret plans and experiments including the secretive yet infamous Discindo procedure, all to create the ultimate weapon with the purpose of killing not a Wildfire, but what would inevitably come after a Wildfire.
A soul wraith.
“Austin!” she called out to him with desperation masked by indignation. “Don’t you dare do what I think you are about to do!”
“There is no point in trying to stop me, Viola. Anathema will only work point-blank and they couldn’t mount it onto a missile in time so it’s just a warhead on a truck and– damn it, you know all this already! Soul wraiths are drawn to the one who killed them and if I don’t destroy that thing, it’ll lay waste to the entire city!”
“But you’ll– you’ll destroy yourself along with it!” she retorted, almost pleading.
“We have no CHOICE!” he yelled back, the weight of having already condemned himself to death showing through in his voice. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be,” he then added, quieter.
Viola went silent, grief overtaking her expression, and McCarter forced himself to look away. He could already feel the unnatural air currents swirling around the corpse of Codename Inferno, the static in the air, the intensifying buzzing of something trying to scorch its way into this reality. He was running out of time.
“Leave, now,” he said to the Stargazers. “That is an order.”
But they stood in place, looking at him with wide, terrified eyes. Was he abandoning them? Could they abandon him? They couldn’t understand. They didn’t want to understand. After a rapid round of panicked whispering amongst each other, Rose rushed toward the General, grabbing him by the sleeve.
“A-Austin?..” she asked in a choked whisper. “W-where are you going?”
He was so stunned by this act that he almost doubted himself, but those feelings were quickly smothered by a blanket of grim resignation.
“I… I have a job to do. I’m the only one who can do it. There’s no other way. You need to go.”
They all crowded around him, gazing at him like he was the most important thing in their lives because he was. It was then that he was struck with the sudden, heartbreaking realization that these were the last words he would ever say to them.
And that just wouldn’t do.
“Listen,” he said as he crouched down to their level, “there isn’t enough time, so I’ll say what’s most important. I love you. I love all of you. You’re the best thing that’s happened to me in my entire life. I’m doing this because I want you to be safe, because I want everyone to be safe. You have to go now. Viola will take care of you – maybe Erika, too. I’m sorry. Please, forgive me.”
Austin could feel his voice going hoarse, his vision blurring with tears. He was crying. They were crying, too. Rose made something between a gasp and a sob, then clutched him as hard as she could, burying herself in the folds of his uniform. Lime shook all over, Gold was mute with shock, Navy gaped in silent disbelief, but they all clung to their guardia– their father. He hugged them all back in what felt like a fleeting moment and an eternity at the same time. Viola could barely handle what she was seeing, but she steeled herself. Erika, on the other hand, was simply too shocked to cry.
The Stargazers were the first to pull away, knowing that nothing else needed to be said. They could sense a tremendous magical presence where wisps of fire flickered in the air. It was now or never. They affixed their collars and urged the Colonel and the Ember to move, escorting the two women as they vanished from sight. Austin was left alone.
He was only human, emotions swirling in his mind like the waves of a stormy ocean, but he had enough resolve to concentrate on a singular goal. He set off immediately, running through the wrecked streets faster than his broken body could handle, swerving around ruins and rubble as he came closer and closer to his destination. His legs ached and his heart beat like the bolt of an assault rifle, lungs desperately grasping for breath. He couldn’t stop. He wouldn’t stop.
Even after putting considerable distance between him and the Wildfire, he could feel the air around him heat up to an uncomfortable level. The wraith was nearing manifestation. Memories echoed in the back of Austin’s mind – the formation of soul wraiths, a desperate attempt at clinging to existence or a bid for revenge, a final explosion as the soul burns itself to ashes instead of peacefully fading away. Exhibited by some Flames and most Pyres, this phenomenon was theorized to happen upon the death of a Wildfire to such a cataclysmic extent that the mere possibility of it started the years-long work of Project Anathema.
And now he was the only person in the world that could stop it.
“YOU. HOW DARE YOU RUN FROM ME.”
There was a voice, an echo from something that was no longer living. Ethereal, godlike, boiling with unfathomable hatred – a base human emotion magnified to a scale at which it appeared to be incomprehensible. The heat of a vindictive sun scorched Austin’s back, red flames licking at his feet, hounded by a noise like the crackling of a dozen campfires, but he did not turn around. He simply continued running, walking, limping forward. He was almost there.
“YOU SCUM. YOU WORM. YOU DEFIED ME. YOU DEFILED ME.”
There it was at last – the Anathema warhead, strapped to a heavy-duty truck. It was unimpressive in conventional explosive power, but the mechanism of releasing several extracted Sparks into an Arelium payload provided enough energy to incapacitate any Sparkwielder and banish even the strongest soul wraith conceivable. This was Larnach’s answer to the overwhelming power of the Wildfires, the military’s magnum opus.
The mechanism was primed and ready – all it needed was a launch code that the General already had memorized. He repeated it under his breath like a mantra as he hobbled, almost crawled, forcing his body to move just a little bit more, away from the nascent apocalypse unfolding right behind him, toward salvation, toward sacrifice.
“I WILL KILL YOU. I WILL KILL YOU, SLOWLY, THEN EVERY LAST PERSON YOU CHERISH, THEN EVERYONE IN THIS PATHETIC CITY! EVERYONE, DO YOU HEAR ME?! EVERYONE!”
The unholy entity of pure energy that superficially resembled Wildfire Campbell drew closer to McCarter, slowly baking him with its sheer presence, too engrossed in the very act of hating to kill its nemesis immediately. That’s what he counted on. That’s what bought him just enough time to reach the haphazardly mounted control panel and punch in the launch code with a shaking hand.
As the wraith yelled threats at Austin, glowing bright enough to nearly blind him, setting air and ground aflame just by existing, his hand hovered over the last button he had to press. One final motion, and it would all be over. One final act, and he could finally rest.
“LISTEN TO ME, WORM!”
In those last seconds, he remembered the Stargazers, the children, his children. He remembered Viola, and many others, living and dead. Minutes, days, years, so much done, so much more that will never be done. He closed his eyes and smiled. Maybe things would be alright after this. And if not, at least he’d have banished one great evil.
“LISTEN TO ME NOW!”
He pressed the button.
“LISTEN TO M–”
The world went white.
There was a feeling of love, and then nothing.
The world went black.
----------------------------------------
In the middle of fighting a hopeless battle started by a leader who abandoned them, the Sparkwielders of the Quarry looked up and saw the birth of a star. The Sun itself seemed meek and dim as a blinding white light filled the skies, accompanied by a shockwave so powerful it made windows shatter and souls shudder. The Sparkwielders froze, paralyzed by a freezing sensation, the crystals in their apparel singing in violent resonance. For the few of them that were old enough to remember the Gifting, the light they witnessed now was almost as bright as the one Arelia had bathed them in all those years ago.
Even the Larnachians, their souls grey and inert, could feel a deep chilling sensation as the energy wave raced through the City and beyond, damaging any Arelium-enhanced technology and forcing the Sparkwielders down to the ground. As the light faded away, an eerie silence settled over the battlefield – and nobody wanted to fire the shot that would break it. In the wake of Anathema’s detonation, the Battle of Larnach came to an unnerving ceasefire.
Through the veil of suffocating cold, the Sparkwielders could feel the distinct lack of a presence – the Firelord’s presence. The fires he had unleashed around the City died out along with the glow of his monolithic soul. With him and his host of Pyres all dead, there was nobody left to sustain the fervour of blind fanaticism. The survivors, barely a few dozen of them left, were faced with a choice – to struggle and die or surrender and live.
It was not an easy choice. They have all heard the rumours of what the Larnachians did with captives – experiments and tortures beyond the wildest imagination. But be it a show of trust or desperation, they simply didn’t want to fight anymore. Nobody did. Both sides of the battle had an unspoken desire to cease the bloodshed and destruction.
The first to stand and speak was Flame Victor – the strongest remaining Sparkwielder and therefore the leader – who looked into the eyes of his sworn enemies and requested mercy for his people. The Larnachians hesitantly agreed, rounding up the remaining Sparkwielders in what felt more like a tense truce than a total surrender. In the end, the battle was won. The only thing left was the messy aftermath.
----------------------------------------
Amidst a field of wreckage and rubble, Viola Washington knelt over a mangled body. Its uniform was in tatters and its body was grievously burned, but its face retained a serene, dignified expression – eyes firmly closed, face devoid of any snarl or grimace. She checked for a pulse, but it was difficult to stop her hands from trembling. Once she did, she found no heartbeat. Austin McCarter had died in peace.
There was no more room for denial or vain hope. Confronted with the fact of his death, a knowledge so harsh and bitter it burned itself into her mind like a brand, Viola realized with searing clarity that she wasn’t capable of moving on from this. There was a gaping hole in her reality that was supposed to be filled with Austin – a missing puzzle price without which the whole picture was inconsolably incomplete.
“Austin…” was all she could say through the bitter lump in her throat, eyes wide with shock.
Viola was not the kind of person to simply give up. A voice of logic and reason existed somewhere within her, a voice that would eventually force her to keep going… but it had no place in this moment. There was only place for grief. She was enveloped by a kaleidoscope of little memories, each a brutal stab wound to her heart. Six years. So many missions. Owing their lives to each other a dozen times over. Austin’s own grief. Comfort through camaraderie. Feelings never voiced.
She held his body with an incredibly light touch, as if it would crumble into ash under the slightest pressure. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to think. She could hardly even breathe.
But worst of all was the prickling in her eyes.
A long time ago, Viola had promised to herself that she would never cry. The feeling of tears rolling down her face now was a foreign one, an unfamiliar one. It only made her hate herself more. She was Colonel Washington, she was a prodigy, she was the brightest tactical mind in all of Larnach – and she let one of the most important people in her life get himself killed.
The Wildfire was gone for good, but a part of her wished that it had taken them b–
“It’s not your fault.”
Viola flinched, then slowly turned to face a dark-haired child with frighteningly clever blue eyes. His name was Navy. It took her a bit too long to remember that.
“Really, it’s not,” he continued. “It’s nobody’s fault. He made his choice for our sake. You can grieve, but you shouldn’t blame yourself.”
He spoke such powerful words as he wiped tears from his eyes in much the same way as a bawling toddler, doing his best to comfort and reassure even while barely hanging on himself. This intervention helped Viola remember that, despite everything, she wasn’t alone – the other children were sitting right beside her, mourning over Austin’s body in their own ways. They were all together in this.
…all, except one.
Though forgotten in the moment, there was another. A stranger, an interloper, a spectator – Erika Kayleigh. She stood at a distance, not daring to approach something she didn’t think she belonged in. But as her soul gradually recovered from the damage dealt by Anathema, she sensed an almost imperceptible disturbance in the air. It was something that only someone of her affinity and training could spot – the ripples made by a lingering soul.
She gasped, then choked on dozens of unsaid words all at once until something finally forced its way through.
“S-stand back! A-all of… all of you, get out of the way!”
Startled and aggravated, Viola stood up and faced the source of the sudden disturbance with what little anger she could afford to exhibit without breaking down completely.
“What the hell do you want, Sparkwielder?!” she shouted bitterly, her voice hoarse and cracking.
“H-he… he… he l-lingers,” mumbled Erika, struggling to phrase the mind-shatteringly enormous realization that possessed her. “Don’t you see– you– just… just LISTEN to me! His soul, it– it lingers, and that means I can put– I can bring him back! There’s no time to waste! S-so… so do you trust me or not?!”
Trust… Austin had trusted her. But was it enough? Could it ever be enough? Viola’s vain rage evaporated as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by anxious indecisiveness. She knew there could be truth in Erika’s words, but she was simply too hurt to hope. And so she stood there, silent, not knowing what to do, until she felt a tiny hand grasp her wrist and tug at it with surprising force. It was Gold.
“He’s still here,” he asserted with an eerily blank tone, his unblinking eyes meeting Viola’s. “I can see it too. Come on. Let her do what she needs to.”
Gold’s piercing gaze was as disturbing as it was sobering – an abyss of searing monotone with the evanescent glint of omniscience. Just when she thought she was going to lose herself in that impossibly vast space, Gold shifted out of his trance and smiled at her. As she was being dragged away by him and the other children, she almost wanted to smile back.
Ember Erika promptly began her work, casting her hands forward to grip Austin’s body with her magic. The corpse shook and shuddered, penetrated by streams of green energy, the space around it becoming saturated with power. While sustaining this output to prevent his soul from fading away, Erika began to draw lines of light in the air, forming concentric circles and filling them with strange runes.
Erika never had the chance to use the resurrection spell before, but she knew its precise configuration by heart. It was the kind of thing a healer like her was expected to be capable of, even though not every Sparkwielder soul had the will to linger, and those that did often burned away as wraiths instead. As for someone like Austin, who lacked the guidance of a Spark… it was practically unthinkable. But there she was, grasping at a faint grey soul, the core of Austin McCarter’s very being that persisted despite all odds.
It was a miracle, but another one still needed to happen.
The children watched Erika from the sideline, amazed and captivated by her display of power. Though just barely, they could feel the presence of Austin’s mind, and it gave them hope. Viola, on the other hand, observed the scene with abject disbelief. She didn’t want to believe it could work – the emotional wounds were far too raw and recent to accept such a possibility. But, at the same time, the Colonel found herself barking orders into a radio to absolutely not under any circumstances engage this Sparkwielder. There would be no more death today.
Soon enough, the circle was complete – a magnificent floating structure weaved from pure energy, an intricate union of the geometric and the arcane. But it was only a hollow framework. The most difficult step was just ahead – the process of imbuing the spell with power and activating it. Typically, Erika was supposed to borrow the energy of other Sparkwielders, but she was all alone. Her meagre stores of energy couldn’t possibly be enough.
And yet… she had to try.
She began channelling energy into the circle, filling its insatiable maw with the lifeblood of her own soul. It glowed ever brighter, its shapes and runes aflame with power, and it kept asking for more. Her body felt like it was burning and freezing at the same time, wracked with ethereal agony, but she didn’t stop. Her resolve was too strong to stop. Erika offered more and more of herself to the spell, rapidly approaching and sailing past any of her conventional limits, and it finally received just enough power to activate.
She reached through the circle with a trembling hand and grasped the soul of Austin McCarter, barely managing to keep her grip from slipping as she began to realign it with its rightful vessel. She did not hesitate even for a moment as she squeezed her nearly depleted soul for whatever scraps of energy she could still commit to this task. It hurt so, so much, but she didn’t falter. She had a job to do, and she would grind herself to dust if it meant finishing it.
The ground shook and the air crackled as Erika forced two parallel planes of existence to collide in an act that defied the very nature of life and death. She struggled to control and direct these enormous energies as she herself stood on the precipice of breaking, the spell only still intact through the sheer force of her will. There was no going back. She focused, strained, and bound the General’s soul to his body with a violent crescendo of green light. As the circle’s worn frame shattered from the resulting shockwave, the healer made one final agonizing exertion to reach out and clutch at his heart until it beat again.
thump… thump… thump…
There it was – a flicker of nascent consciousness. Austin was alive. She did it. She actually did it. But she felt no joy or satisfaction. There was only pain, exhaustion, and a gaping emptiness as the process had drained her beyond any measure. In that moment, as she felt Austin’s feeble yet firm presence in the realm of the living, she was content to simply collapse and die. She served her purpose. They didn’t need a Sparkwielder like her anymore. She was worthless.
And yet, as her vision dimmed and her legs gave out, the last thing she felt was not the hard impact of the cold ground, but the gentle embrace of a pair of tiny arms.
----------------------------------------
Austin McCarter woke slowly, painfully, separated from reality by the veil of fugue. His body hurt from head to toe, ached from the skin to the bones, and it took him colossal effort just to open his eyes and stand up. He could not remember anything at first – not even his own name – but memories gradually came to him in an erratic, disorganized stream of information he couldn’t discern the source of. He tried to look into the past, but could only recall blurry vignettes. He had… he had sacrificed himself. But for what?
He had to blink several times to dispel the blur that obscured his vision, trying to focus on what was in front of him. A dark-haired woman approached him with a pained yet astonished expression on her face, and he felt a mix of happiness and concern before he even realized that he recognized her at all. She shook all over as she stood in front of him, looking as if she struggled with some kind of invisible barrier, but finally reached out to tentatively cup his face in her hands.
“Austin…” she said, beholding him like a miracle. “It’s… it’s really you…”
Her eyes were red and puffy with tears, and– wait, Viola never cried. Why was she…
Oh.
Memory struck him, and identity followed. He was Director-General Austin McCarter, and he had forfeited his own life to destroy the wraith of Codename Inferno. He didn’t spend much time wondering why he was still alive, as he was more concerned with the fact that Viola was crying, and that she was crying for him. Seeing her in such a hurt and vulnerable state was far too much to bear.
“Viola, I… I’m sorry,” was all he could respond with.
As she looked deep into his eyes, her fingers gently brushing against his severely burnt skin, something in her quietly snapped. Without any warning, she rushed forward and hugged– no, clung to him as tightly as she could, burying her face in the crook of his neck.
“You– you– y-you idiot!..” she mumbled with a raw whisper, crying into his already ruined uniform. “You don’t get it! H-how could you… I– I saw your corpse! I thought I would never see you again! I can’t… I just– I can’t even imagine losing you, a-and– I… It was–”
With his thoughts in utter disarray, feeling a torrent of emotions he could barely understand, Austin decided to follow his instincts. He hugged her in return, and it felt right in a way nothing else could.
“I… I’m here now, Vi,” he said in the most reassuring tone he could muster as he stroked her back. “It’s okay. It’ll… it’ll all be okay.”
“Austin… Austin, please, please don’t ever leave me again,” she pleaded, even though some part of her mind felt like it was far too selfish.
“I won’t,” he replied without hesitation. “I promise.”
Her voice, her tears, her warmth – it all coaxed him out of the lingering slumber of death, made him remember how much there was still left to do. Though with great reluctance, he pulled away.
“I’m glad to see you too, Vi, but… it’s not over yet. Let’s pull ourselves together, alright?”
She sniffed, and smiled, and wiped her eyes as best she could, trying to regain a sense of composure. For all the times she had lifted him, he was returning the favour. She had to follow the example.
“Roger. The wraith is gone, and the remaining Sparkwielders have all surrendered. I do not know if we can trust them, but the fighting is over for now.”
“I see. And… what happened to me? Was I actually?..”
“Dead? Y-yes,” she affirmed, her voice trembling for just a moment. “But that girl, Erika… she… I do not even know how to describe it. It was some sort of Sparkwielder magic, that resurrection spell of theirs, and– and now you’re back! But…”
Viola paused, her expression changing to one of remorse. Austin looked past her, and saw the four children crowded around the healer, collectively cradling her unconscious body. The kids looked at him with relief and adoration as he approached, but did not move away from Erika.
“Austin!” called out Rose with an undertone of dread in her unsteady voice. “Something’s wrong with Erika! Her glow… we can barely see it! There’s almost nothing left, she… she used it all for you!”
“I don’t think she was supposed to do it all alone,” lamented Navy. “It took such a toll on her…”
“We should get her to her people,” naively suggested Gold, “they probably know how to help her!”
Lime, however, did not move her attention away from Erika even for a moment – whispering something indiscernible to her, eyes closed in desperate concentration. If that last flicker of light were to fade away, she would blame herself for it.
When Austin had entered that launch code, he did not intend ever to wake again. And yet, at a potentially grave cost to herself, Erika had selflessly given him a second chance at life. It was a debt of unfathomable magnitude, and he intended to begin repaying it immediately.
“We leave no man behind,” stated McCarter, and he meant every word of it. “Help me carry her, Colonel.”
And Washington couldn’t help but think: ‘there’s the Austin I know’.
----------------------------------------
In the wide square that the ruined Palace once overlooked, in a tent among a sea of tents, was a princess. Her purple dress was in tatters, her porcelain skin stained with blood, her eyes dim and half-lidded, heart barely beating and breath nearly still. Medics expertly fussed over her, having already bandaged her many wounds and given her a blood transfusion. They all knew who she was, though dared not to voice or even believe it.
At the same time, the Meister-General was making his way across the battle-scorched landscape with an armed retinue. Through moderately concussed and short a few intact ribs, he was fully conscious and focused on a singular destination, his expression stone-cold and his tired eyes aflame. Soldiers looked upon him with reverence, for to them he deserved more respect than any king or emperor.
But when the princess and the regent finally met again, neither seemed to mirror their titles. She laid unconscious, tarnished, nearing death, as he kneeled beside her fragile body and quietly shedded more tears than he ever had in his whole life.
“Forgive me, Elizabeth,” said Frederick Geistberg as his stoic voice crumbled bit by bit, holding her hand like it was the final lifeline of a drowning sailor. “I have failed you. I let them take you and hurt you. All this time, all these weapons, a kingdom in the palm of my hand, and I… I couldn’t do anything. I was powerless. It is all my fault, but… as your loyal regent, sworn to serve and protect you, I dare humbly ask for one thing… one, small, selfish thing…
“Elizabeth, please wake up. I… I don’t want to lose you. I am nothing without you. I have known you for so many years, and… if… if to claim you as my own child is treason, then rise and cut my head from my shoulders.”
At that desperate declaration, just when the regent was about to lose hope, the princess stirred. Her hand clenched to hold his, and she turned toward him with eyes full of love and admiration.
“Father…” she uttered softly, and it made his heart skip a beat. “I… I do not intend on parting from you. Not now, nor ever. There is still so much to be done.”
She moved to sit up, and he assisted her through the slow, painful motion.
“Elizabeth, you would be advised to rest and heal,” he said to her with well-warranted worry, but she gave him a reassuring smile and shook her head.
“There’s no use in a bedridden monarch. I… I need to make an announcement. To everyone. Can you arrange that?”
Frederick looked into Elizabeth’s determined red eyes and saw a fleeting glint of regal purple.
She was ready.
“Of course, Your Highness.”
When the glorious sun has set
And the grass with dew is wet
Then you show your little light
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night