“Speak…,” Charles pleaded to his younger self. “Say something! Say anything!” He gestured to Luen. “He is far from perfect, but this is wrong. You know it is wrong! It does not have to be this way!”

But his past self just stood there, frozen with indecision. Charles remembered. Part of him had desperately wanted to speak up the whole time. A larger part had stopped him. It was just too much. That’s what he had told himself. He had been too afraid. Too weak to stand up for someone who shared the same anger.

Luen rose. He didn’t try to save face or retreat to his bedroom. There was no yelling. He didn’t so much as glare. Instead, he fled outside. When Charles looked to the others, they began to disappear in front of him. Master Erickson’s form grew transparent. No…no, not again! Amelie’s long dark hair dissolved like golden dust in the wind, the scent of nutmeg and cinnamon fading along with her. Gustav and Joanna remained holding hands as they vanished. His younger self met his eyes before he, too, was gone. The entire manor was fading away.

“No!”

Charles chased after his brother. Out the door, through the arboretum gardens bordering the southern side of the manor, then snaking along a rough-ground trail toward a small hill at the edge of the Boulier estate, just barely keeping pace at a distance that kept the other boy in sight. It was another pointless gesture, he knew. It would end no differently than the last vision, when he had tried to console his mother. Even still…I’d rather try and fail than stand idly and do nothing. Not this time. It should never have come to this. Things should have been different. He should have tried harder back then. He should have found a way.

He was gaining ground. Please hear me! Please see me!

It was at the crest of the green hill where he finally caught up. Luen had stopped. He was looking over the hillside. Stretched below lay a pristine field of white lilies.

Charles panted. “Please wait….”

He reached out…only to feel a grip so strong it threatened to crush his bones. He screamed. In a flash, Luen had turned and seized him.

Only it was not Luen. Light and darkness burst forth from where the teen’s face should have been. Clouds of each swirled about his body, contrasting and morphing like some otherworldly monster.

The same creature that had appeared in place of Father, Charles thought. What was it? What did it want? Its strength was overwhelming. Charles could not break free no matter how he struggled. What is happening!? he thought. It is able to touch me? It can see me?!

“Drossborn fake! You’re no brother of mine!” the figure shouted in Luen’s voice. It shoved Charles to the ground, then planted a foot firmly at his chest, holding him down. “All you have, you stole from me! You never deserved to be anything!” Darkness and light shifted. Luen began to morph even more. For a second his normal face reemerged, only to shift into a proud figure in a cloak of green and gold. The face of the figure was obscured, hidden by the swirling clouds once more.

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And yet, there was familiarity. Memories flashed before him.

“...Jon?”

“Traitor!” the cloaked figure boomed. Its voice had changed, too. From a boy to something else. Something dark and terrible. Like the wrath of an angry god. “Where were you when you were needed? You abandoned me to my death! Just as you abandoned your city and its people to the flames! You are a coward! And a failure!”

“It was not my fault,” Charles said. “I was too weak. I am not a fighter. There was nothing I could have done for them. Or for you.”

“You could have died a man rather than live a slave,” the creature said coldly.

Shame consumed Charles. A single bitter tear wet his cheek. “You told me to live,” he protested feebly. “That I had a duty to preserve the spirit of Dreya.”

“My judgment was mistaken. A drossborn is not worthy of such a task.” The foot lifted, and Charles could breathe again. But he made no attempt to get up. The shame coursed so strongly, part of him wished he would never get up again. He lay there, waiting for the vision to end.

“You are not even worth the effort,” the figure said. “You could not save a single one of them.”

Dark clouds gathered overhead.

“Not even yourself.”

Snow was beginning to fall. Blankets coated the field of lilies and the trees of Lutz, smothering and choking the green everywhere it touched.

Snow…Charles thought surreally. He sat up.

Snow? No...that wasn’t right. It couldn’t be right. It hadn’t snowed on this day. His journey with Father had started in the heart of summer. The weather on this day had been sunny. Not a cloud in sight. There was no way it could have snowed.

Yet the flakes fell. Charles caught one in his outstretched hand and held it close. But it did not melt. It broke apart and scattered as gray dust.

This was no snow. It was ash.

The winds of change blew fiercely. A blare like a thousand warhorns deafened him. Blackness crept across the sun, and a curtain of red night fell over the sky. Charles saw the city of Lutz consumed in frenzied flames. Fire rose from the high seat of the Emerald district through the merchant’s stalls of Commerce Row, all the way to the far stretches of the Dross. The fire feasted. The people fled in a blind panic. Like cattle. It was every family, every man, for themselves in a mad scramble. Those who could not keep up would not survive. Their screams echoed in Charles’ ears.

He turned to the last place the figure had been. But it was gone. Jon was gone. Luen was gone. In the figure’s place fell the shadow of a mounted rider swathed in a cloak of blood. The raider’s warhorse reared back. The tip of his spear rose and fell.

Charles ran. Ran as fast as he was able, and when the fear truly set in he ran even faster. It was still not fast enough. The sound of raging hooves thundered toward him, and the last he heard and felt was the rush of death piercing him.

He screamed again.

Charles woke. The fire was gone. The screams were gone. All there was to be heard was the gentle babble of a nearby stream snaking through the Dreyan Highlands. His arm was stretched outward toward the canvas roof of his tent, reaching out to take hold of a hand that was not there. Tears fell down the sides of his face.