Silence hits so hard that it hums inside my bones. The rot drew back like spilled ink sucking into the earth, leaving the cavern hollow and breathless. I dropped to my knees before the casket. Fletch floats within, held in blue mana like a relic someone loved and then forgot. Behind me, Vikra's presence is a drawn blade, all tensed and ready, even though the enemies are already gone.
The glass is cool under my palm. "Fletch…" I breathed.
The casket answered. Light quickened in one pulse, then another as the mana stirred around it in a slow spiral. The floor shivered, dust sifting from root covered walls.
"Eriden, something's happening!" Vikra backed away, his boots scraping the stony dirt floor.
The chamber begins to unmake itself. Roots sink, stone softens, and the whole world slowly folds inward like a collapsing lung.
"We have to move! This place is going to cave!" Vikra's shout ricocheted urgently.
I don't move.
I can either pour what's left of Voryna's mana into him and gamble my strength against the collapse or I can stand up, turn away, and let the forest take what it already claimed.
My fingers splayed on the glass and the Ether thrums, waiting to be expelled.
"Choose," I whisper to myself, to him, and to the shuddering earth.
(Voryna):
I suppose this is where my truth begins.
Not with my corruption.
Not with my rot.
But with him… and the cruelness of fate.
Fletch was born without magic. There was absolutely no mana nor no elemental blessings. With Fletch there was nothing that emitted power.
Unfortunately, he came into a family that possessed everything that has to do with power. The Kilners were a dynasty of Myriadors.
Do you understand the weight of that name?
Myriadors are the highest class of wielders, mastering all of the five main elements such as: air, fire, water, earth, and metal. They were revered, feared and most of all they were worshipped.
And yet, they birth Fletch. To them, he wasn't a son. He was a blemish on their perfection.
He was given away at the age of five, the age where mana ceases to manifest in a person. His "goodbye" to his family was the sound of a carriage door closing.
But Fletch… he did not crumble.
He ran from the orphanage before they could sell him to the labor camps. He lived the rest of his adolescent years among thieves and servants, among the ones who smiled with empty eyes. He stole food to survive, robbed bandits to feed others, and became a shadow of justice, a nameless, magicless vigilante to the broken people who had no gods left to pray to.
He was a resilient man and he refused to let destiny define him.
Every day he would train his body in strength and agility and every night he would perfect his archery skills through the darkness, until his bow sang like wind through glass and until his arrows spoke the language of precision and rebellion.
He carved his own path through the world, and that is what I love most about him.
And then… there was me.
I was also cast aside by my parents. Born not without magic, but with too much of it.
Mana surged through me uncontrollably in waves of madness that harmed everything I touched. With little knowledge of magic and a whole house of another five children to take care of, my parents did the only thing they could see suitable. They sold me to an orphanage after I destroyed our home in a fit that young me couldn't control.
I fled into Gromo Forest.
The beasts there didn't fear me; they accepted me. The forest listened when the world would not. My power bent roots, turned stone, gave shape to monsters of my making. Crawlers, creatures of rot and loyalty, became my companions.
We lived in peace, until hunters came.
At first, I only defended myself. But soon, the fear from the rest of the world pressed back too hard. To survive, I became the monster they already believed me to be. I turned fear against fear. The forest grew darker. And I… lonelier.
Until the day he appeared.
Fletch entered the forest like someone who had never learned fear.
When I attacked him, believing him another hunter, he didn't draw his weapon. He caught my wrist. His hand was warm, steady, and gentle.
He thought I was lost. A girl who needed help. He pulled me from the shadows into the sunlight that broke through the canopy, and when the light touched me, he stared…
Not in horror, but in awe.
"You're… you're so beautiful," he whispered.
No one had ever said that to me.
In the days that followed, he convinced me slowly and stubbornly, to command the crawlers to cease attacks on all nearby villages. He was magicless, yet unafraid of the storm of mana that constantly raged around me.
He taught me, calm.
I taught him strength.
We trained. We laughed. We dreamed together with each passing day.
We even planned a house that would be at the forest's edge. He'd build the fence and I'd plant moonblossoms by the window. It was foolish. It was perfect.
I loved him.
And he loved me.
But power ruins everything.
One adventurer caught a glimpse of me once, and left the forest to tell the tale of the Maiden of the Forest, a beauty beyond mortal measure that was guarded by monsters, and rich in magic. The story spread faster than wildfire, and soon greed took form. Hunters no longer came to kill, they came to possess.
And among those who heard the tale… was the Kilner family. Fletch's family.
Fate laughed when it sent his brother, Drane, to "eradicate the curse of Gromo Forest."
They met again in Gromireston Village. Fletch embraced his brother with joy, forgiving the unforgivable as only he could. They spoke of their childhood, of lost time, of peace.
But when Fletch learned Drane's true purpose was to destroy the Maiden of the Forest, he begged Drane in desperation to leave. To forget.
Drane agreed and together they made a blood oath in which Drane will never return to Gromo Forest and Fletch in return will never return to his family to claim inheritance.
But a Kilner never disobeys the will of the house. Fletch's father restored the order, extracted the blood oath from Drane and destroyed it.
Drane soon returned with soldiers and with fire.
He burned half my forest. My only family and my friends. All I could do was scream as they burned and as I did, the skies wept. Its tears like rain, drenched the forest fires until only soot and charcoal remained like black ink tarring barren lands and whatever remained of the forest.
I then fought back, but Drane was powerful, he was a true Myriador. His magic was relentless.
I remember the moment he found me. The air trembled with his power. I was exhausted, bleeding, completely out of mana, nearly broken. Fletch's arrows were gone. We were cornered.
And then Drane unleashed his final spell at me, a killing strike.
Fletch stepped in front of it.
And just like that Fletch's brother's magic tore through him and he fell into my arm, lifeless.
I can still feel the weight of him, the warmth fading too quickly, the slick of blood between my fingers, the metallic taste of despair on my tongue.
Drane froze, horrified by what he'd done.
I did not.
My scream shook the forest.
With a single surge, I struck him down. In one instant, the Kilner line ended, burned away by the very element they had worshiped.
But grief is a cruel teacher.
I siphoned every last thread of Drane's Myriador power. I built a glass casket fit for a king… No, for my love. For Fletch.
I sealed him inside, suspended in mana, protected from rot and time. I fed the casket mana every day, piece by piece, until I could no longer tell where my life ended and the forest began.
I knew I could never truly bring him back, but I hoped.
I waited for a hundred years.
I waited until my body decayed. Until my mind fractured. Until the beasts I created began to turn on one another.
Until all that remained was the hunger, and the echo of his name.
And then… today, you came, Eridan.
You who carry the power I need. I can hear them whispering through you… begging to be spent.
You who bridge worlds between death and life. Please, bring him back.
Let one of us be free.
*
My palms stayed fused to the glass. The casket throbbed beneath my fingers like a trapped heartbeat.
A firm hand clamped my shoulder. "Eridan!" Vikra shook me once, hard enough to snap the fog. I blinked, breath catching.
"Voryna… she gave up her soul to bring him back," I said, voice raw.
"We don't have time," he warned. "You don't even know how to tether into that kind of power…"
The casket's mana flickered faintly. I could feel Fletch as if his soul were pressing its palm to mine through the glass.
"I have to try."
"Eridan, reviving someone isn't possible. I've never seen it done before."
"Have you ever seen it NOT done?" I shot back.
He hesitated. "What? No."
"Then there's room for a first." I swallowed. "Voryna left enough to anchor him. It's strong and unwavering."
I set both hands flat on the casket and the floor rumbled. Grit lifted and hung in the air like dust in a sunbeam with no sun. Pressure began to build as air compressed, fire curled around my wrists in thin helixes. Water braided itself into a silver thread. Metal dust rose from the ground and shimmered all around us. A quiet hum crawled over my skin, electric and insistent. All the five elements took part in the dance of life. Finally, Ether surged up from the deep like a tide. Beneath it, I heard the echo of Voryna's voice, not in my ears but through the vibration of the electrons bouncing around the molecules.
All of it spoke at once.
My breath shook. "Fletch," I whispered. "We're here. Come back."
I let everything go, this time not as a weapon, but as breath returned.
The casket webbed with fractures. Mana blew outward in a storm of bright colors, enough to blind a person and Vikra threw an arm up to shield his face.
I didn't move.
I knelt through the shrapnel, the wind and the terrible brightness, until the roar folded into silence.
A hand found mine.
Fletch drew a shallow breath then steadily opened his eyes. Light-blue eyes, threaded with violet like lightning trapped beneath ice: Ether's signature burned in his gaze.
"Eridan…?" he rasped, then turned wildly. "Voryna!"
Tears tipped from my lashes as I squeezed his fingers. "She isn't here," I managed, "but you are. You're alive."
He pushed himself up, confusion and relief warring across his face. "How?"
"…Thank you…" came a trembling whisper of Voryna, softer than memory.
Fletch froze. "Voryna?"
"Yes," her voice answered from within him,echoing in a breath. "We are both alive, my love. Alive as one." He lifted his palm, a soft glow spilled across his skin. "You carry what I carried," she murmured through him. "You are Myriador now, as you were always meant to be."
Vikra's hand hovered near his sword, eyes wide. "Two souls in one body… holy Saints."
I only smiled through the blur. Fletch was back, reborn, and the strength in him was hers and his together.
He staggered to his feet and looked between us, dazed and luminous. "I… think I'm part of your party now."
A laugh broke out of me, shaky and bright. "Welcome back, Fletch." I slipped an arm under his. "Come on. Let's get you out of here." Vikra rushed to assist Fletch out of the casket, placing his shoulder underneath Fletch's arm.
Vikra blushes and stops for a moment, realizing that the soft cushion pressing plumply against his shoulder was Fletch's chest.
"Vikra, we have to run. I want you to jump on three with Fletch and I will summon air and wind to push us out."
"Oh… right." Vikra's attention jolted to me. "Let's do that."
Before we knew it, we were all back in Gromo Forest, watching as the canopy shifted allowing sunlight to shine through and as the rot seeped into the ground while a vibrant green took over.
My gaze caught Vikra and then followed his line of sight towards Fletch.
And my jaw drops.