"No matter how far shadows pull you under, Aldric, know this—I will always be the light that finds you, even when you cannot see me."
Present Timeline
The darkness receded, leaving Aldric gasping in the mud—armor scorched, heart hammering, the taste of iron thick on his tongue. The battlefield had gone silent, as if the world itself held its breath.
Ash drifted through the air like gray snow, settling on his lashes, clotting the stench of blood and burnt steel. He tried to move, but pain anchored him, a symphony of broken ribs and torn flesh. Blood pooled beneath him—black as the crows circling high above, their cries sharp and merciless.
Then—cold fingers brushed his cheek.
"Stay still," whispered a voice, fragile as the rustle of dead leaves.
He turned his head, gritting his teeth against the agony—and froze.
Elias.
Pale as moonlight, his braid frayed and streaked with soot, eyes faintly glowing like drowned stars. His robes hung tattered and mud-stained, yet his face remained achingly familiar—the same stubborn tilt of his chin, the same lake-cold eyes that had haunted Aldric's thoughts for years.
"You…" Aldric rasped, blood coating his lips. "What are you doing here? Get lost."
"Saving you," Elias said simply, pressing ghostly fingers to Aldric's chest.
A warmth spread beneath his touch—golden, tender, intimate. The same light Aldric remembered from the church gardens long ago… the light that once mended skin and bone with gentle grace.
But now, that radiance carried sorrow in every pulse. Elias's form flickered, each wave of light eroding his shape, until his outline blurred like smoke. Still, he smiled faintly.
"Stop," Aldric hissed, trying to seize his wrist—his hand passed through empty air. "You're fading."
"I've always been fading," Elias murmured, voice unraveling like thread. "You just never noticed."
The light intensified. Aldric's wounds began to close, muscle knitting, skin smoothing. Yet each flicker of healing dragged Elias further toward dissolution.
"Take the stone," he whispered. "It's all I can give."
Aldric's fingers touched something solid beneath the mud—a smooth obsidian stone veined with gold, beating faintly like a heart. It thrummed with a resonance that was unmistakably his.
"Why?" Aldric demanded, clutching it tight. "Why now? After all these years? You never came when I called. Not after I wrote. Not after Beaumont—nothing. Why?"
Elias's gaze dimmed, glimmering with sorrow. "You called."
"I've called your name a thousand times!" Aldric snapped, his voice breaking. "At Bryn Pass when my men fell! On Beaumont's walls—when Hadrian's blade nearly took my head! Where were you?"
He flinched, the light around him shuddering. "I wasn't allowed. The Light… doesn't bend to mortal will. It consumes."
In the distance—hooves. The jangle of armor.
Elias's form wavered, flickering to near transparency. "They're coming. Don't let them see—"
"See what?" Aldric shouted. "What are you hiding?"
But he was gone. The stone pulsed once, then dimmed to a faint golden glow.
Moments Later
"Captain!"
Sir Gareth, his lieutenant, slid from his horse, helm askew, panic etched across his soot-streaked face. "Gods, we thought you were dead!"
Aldric staggered upright, the stone searing against his palm. His knights encircled him—hollow-eyed, their armor dented and smeared with blood. Sir Joric, youngest among them, crossed himself.
"Did you see him?" Aldric demanded, scanning the smoke-choked field.
"Who, Captain?" Gareth frowned. "There's no one left. The blast—whatever it was—it burned everything."
Aldric's throat constricted. He looked down at the stone. Its golden veins pulsed with faint, rhythmic life.
Liar. Coward. Why run again?
"Captain?" Gareth asked cautiously. "Who did you mean?"
"No one," Aldric lied. He slid the stone into his gauntlet, its weight grounding him. "Gather the men. We ride at dawn."
The soldiers dispersed in uneasy silence.
Joric lingered at his side. "The men are frightened," he said quietly. "They say it was sorcery. That you conjured the light."
Aldric flexed his fingers. "Do they?"
"They call it an omen," Joric whispered. "A bad one."
"Let them." Aldric turned away, his voice cold. "Fear keeps blades sharp."
That Night
Campfires littered the hillside like fallen stars. Aldric sat apart, the stone cupped in his palm. Its golden veins pulsed faintly, casting long, quivering shadows across his armor—shadows that shaped themselves, for one brief instant, into the outline of a slender figure.
He'd seen Elias like this before. Twice.
Once after Greywatch, as rain washed the blood from his hands.
And again in the crypts beneath Valencrest, when he'd stood before his mother's grave.
Both times, a whisper, a flicker—and then nothing.
"Where are you?" he muttered. "Why do you always leave?"
The wind shifted, carrying the faint scent of rosemary. Aldric stiffened.
"You're still here," he said softly.
No answer. Only the stone's light brightening, pooling gold between his fingers.
Images flickered within it—Elias, young and alive, kneeling in the church garden. A vial of tonic in his hands. That boyish smile, that maddeningly bright laugh.
"You're not the only one who knows what it's like to ache for someone," he'd said once.
Aldric had never asked who he meant. Now, years later, he wished he had.
Dawn
Morning came pale and cold, slicing through fog. The knights mounted in silence, their armor whispering like restless ghosts. Aldric tucked the stone beneath his breastplate, its pulse slow and steady against his heart.
As they rode, Gareth drew closer. "There's talk in the ranks," he said in a low voice. "Of a spirit. A man in white."
"Superstition," Aldric muttered.
"They claim he's bound to the stone. That it's cursed."
"Let them say what they want."
"And if they're right?"
Aldric looked straight ahead, the horizon a bruise in the distance. "Then the curse is mine alone."
By midday, they reached the ruins of Saint Caelia's. The once-proud spire lay cracked and overgrown, ivy strangling the stones.
The hum of the stone deepened as Aldric dismounted.
He walked through the courtyard, boots crunching on broken glass and moss. Wild rosemary sprouted through the cracks. He knelt, crushing a sprig between his fingers. The scent hit him hard—familiar, sacred, devastating.
"Why here?" he whispered.
The stone flared.
In its glow, Elias stood before him—spectral, fragile, one hand lifted in warning. His chest bore the faint outline of a wound, dark and jagged.
Aldric's breath caught. "Who did that to you?"
Elias shook his head. "The stone… it holds what's left. Use it. Before they return."
"Before who?" Aldric demanded.
But his voice echoed through emptiness. The light flickered out.
Only the whisper remained—soft, steady, unyielding:
"You're not alone."
Dream
That night, Aldric dreamed of crows. They perched upon thrones of bone and ash, their eyes glinting with human malice.
"Heir of the hollowed throne," they cawed. "She died for your sins. You were ours from the beginning."
He awoke with a gasp, the obsidian stone blazing hot against his chest.
Outside, the wind howled through the tents—wild and endless.
And beneath the storm's breath came a voice—faint, defiant, unforgettable.
"The storm is yours to weather, Aldric. But I will not let it drown you."