Life was everywhere. Vibrant flowers of every color bombarded his vision; magnificent scents filled his nose. He could hear the two rivers join and rush southward in unison. Above him still, Covademara stretched to infinity. Every flower and every fruit imaginable grew from its massive branches. Legends claimed that all plant life had been born of this tree. During the Paradise Era when the Divine Thirteen guided humanity, Celegana and her faithful dispersed each flower and each fruit to the ends of the world and nourished them. The trunk itself climbed beyond the confines of Zander’s vision into the sky.

It was as his mother had told him. Goddess Hill was a place of miracles and wonder. Melody of Mirrevar had promised Zander that he would return here someday and that—if her dreams came true—this place would be his home. Yet, Zander couldn’t feel the wonder. He didn’t believe in miracles anymore. All those flowers might as well have been wilting and black and those scents could have been the rotting of corpses. The rushing of the colliding rivers was not one of peace. The confluence was the thrashing of two forces forever fighting each other for supremacy. The tree wasn’t the font of life that it was fabled to be. Zander felt like he had dropped from the top and hit every divinedamned branch as he fell from the highest height of his life to the lowest abyss. This might have been the place of his birth, but Zander felt that it could also be the setting of his end.

Zander sprawled on the ground and bawled beside a patch of white roses. He huddled himself into a tight ball and wept. Neath this tree, his father had abandoned his pregnant mother. Neath this tree, his father left Zander and never looked back. Now, seventeen years later, the Sunrise had abandoned him. Alexia had vowed to be his enemy. This wasn’t a place of life and love. This was a place of death and sorrow. This wasn’t the Citadel of Dreams, the ancient seat of the Leverian Dynasty. This was the place where dreams went to die.

All his life, Zander had two dreams that he pursued. His mother had told him that his father was a great warrior. Zander had believed that the scar of his father’s leaving would be healed when he too became a great warrior. He dreamt of glory on the battlefield. He trained tirelessly for the last seven years to become the strongest, fastest, most skilled fighter he could. He studied under Sir Edward Bladestorm and sparred with knights. He was certain that last night would be the dawning of his glory. Yet last night was the death of that innocent dream. He didn’t find glory on the battlefield. He found crushed dreams and misery. He had killed until the bodies of men and women filled the trench outside of his breach. He killed until he was layered in the blood of people who could have been his neighbors. He had killed and killed and killed. Alas, he hadn’t been able to save.

Zander wasn’t a glorious knight serving a higher cause. He wasn’t protecting innocence and delivering justice to the evil. Zander hadn’t fought evil. He had been evil’s servant. Zander had been a monster of a man brought to life beneath the full moon of Zamael. The scar of his father’s leaving did not close. Now it was joined by the wounds of what he had done and what he had not been able to do.

Yet even those wounds could have been healed. The sweetness of love promised him fulfillment. His other dream had been to find the Sunrise, his life’s mate, and give her his locket. He had spent years offering tribute to Leverith, praying that she would answer him with the Sunrise. Zander gripped the locket and trembled with sobs. The short time he spent with Alexia had allowed him to feel peace and love. Holding her and sharing his heart with her had been a rebirth. Yet all too soon, those feelings of elation died.

Zander lay amidst the flowers questioning his purpose. He questioned whether he should continue.

His thoughts pushed him closer to the cliffs. Zander crawled through the flowers and past the ruins of the ancient Leverians. His life would only bring more death. His death would preserve life. If the Sunrise were to be his enemy, he had no purpose for life. If his death could save her life…

He peered over the edge, staring at a doom drop several thousand feet along a rocky cliffside. His corpse would be fought over by the merger of the Eagle and the Bear and washed away. Crying, he contemplated what he had left to live for. Alfread, his Peacewatch Oath, fighting against the Celegans…

These reasons that had been important yesterday felt weak beside the loss of his juggernauts of purpose. They meant nothing without the Sunrise. He stared at death and accepted this end was better than fighting against the woman he loved.

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Zander squeezed the locket, a silver inversed heart shaped like the Leverian continent. His promise to his mother tethered him to life. “I tried, mom. I did everything I could.” Zander closed his eyes, even still the tears crept out. “I cannot go on like this.”

The locket pulsed with an energy that felt like the blue light Alexia and he had created at sunrise. Leverith’s spirit tried to reach him and force her way through his closed heart. An echo of memory slipped through the cracks. Whenever life feels unbearable and you want to give in, remember I will always be here.

The force of his anger propelled him to his feet. He roared at the great tree, “Liar! You left me too, Melody! You left me when I needed you! All those days training! All those nights serving Leverith! FOR WHAT!” His shouts echoed in the shattered halls of the ancient citadel.

Zander clenched the locket harder, trying to render it as broken as his heart. “Everyone…leaves…me!”

Zander charged at the tree. “I found the Sunrise, mother! You told me that I was hers and she was mine! She left me too!” Zander yanked the locket from his neck and hurled it at the tree.

Impulses intruded. His emotions compelled him to sprint the distance to the edge of the hill and dive to his death below. His thoughts conspired with despair. His father, his mother, and now his Sunrise, led him back to the site of his birth to close the circle. Zander visualized himself falling from the Goddess and fulfilling his final abandonment: self-abandonment.

Zander clenched his mouth shut and narrowed his eyes toward the final destination. He started toward the edge, before his attention was commandeered.

Wind blustered around the tree, shaking flowers, branches, and fruit. Petals of every color whirled in the air. The locket levitated in the center of it all. Zander shivered as the air chilled. Ice coalesced upon the locket and snowflakes blew eastward, taken by the everchanging wind. The mystical blue light, light the same color as Zander’s eyes, flowed freely, untouched by the wind. The millions of flowers on the hill reacted to Leverith’s caress, leaning toward the light and flourishing at its kiss. Warmth washed over the hill, the locket glimmered ruby-red and embers erupted from its core. Following on the heels of the flames, the purest water Zander had ever seen cascaded from the locket, spilling atop the embers, attempting to douse their intensity. Sparks shot from the inversed heart, streaks of lighting blasting in a circle around the locket. Light burst from the locket and dispersed in waves of silver. All around the tree, the ground trembled, rising and falling, separating and becoming whole again. Then, as soon as it began, the magic waned. The lightning crashed, the ice melted, the wind halted, the water seeped into the ground, the light faded, the land calmed, and the flames cooled. Last of all was the blue light. It merged, like a thousand streams forming a river, then was fired like an arrow at Zander’s heart.

Zander fell backward, though not by physical force as the light was ethereal. He crawled to his knees, embracing the light as it gathered around him like moon-blue mist.

Echoes of memories flooded him. Nights spent on hillsides stargazing, goodnight kisses, morning hugs, her booming ‘I love you,’ and her soothing voice singing the sweetest melodies. This light was his mother’s touch. He could feel her embrace so powerfully that it felt like she truly was here beside him, giving him the strength to go on when he wanted to give in.

Tears treaded down his face. “You left me,” he whispered. He picked up the locket and set it around his neck. Zander pressed it to his heart. “But you’re still here,” Zander croaked.

He turned his back to the deadly drop at the edge of Goddess Hill and looked forward into Mirrevar. Now, he could see the wonder and the miracles. This land was an endless display of life and beauty. He could imagine waking up and seeing this sight every day. He could understand why his mother had lived here and why she dreamt for this to be his home.

Zander realized now that his dreams hadn’t been crushed. Yes, they’d been slammed into the dirt and stomped on until they were within Zamael’s darkened grasp, but they clung to life and to Leverith. His childhood dreams had died and been born anew. His glory was not in fighting the war, but in ending the war.

The sun had risen high enough that it could no longer be heralded as a sunrise. Yet, Zander could see a dot moving amongst the flowers. Alexia rode northeast toward the Sapphire encampment. He knew that she too dreamt of peace. He didn’t know her reasons, but he placed his faith in her.

Zander of Mirrevar clenched his locket and felt his purpose reforged. “I will never be your enemy! NEVER!”

Zander held the Leveria locket in his palm. “Even though we are apart, we are still together.” He watched Alexia go where he couldn’t follow. “I am yours and, someday, you will be mine again.”

Zander released the locket and moved toward the hill’s slope. “Until next time, Sunrise.”