Return To Darkness

The journey back to Rynhaven was lighter than the one to Everglen. The weight of their first trial had been lifted, replaced by a quiet, shared confidence. They walked the familiar dirt road, the rolling fields of wheat now a welcoming sight rather than an unknown landscape. For a long while, the only sounds were the crunch of their boots on the earth and the gentle whisper of the wind.

​It was Baro, predictably, who broke the silence. 

​“Alright, I’ve been thinking,” he announced, his voice a low rumble. “And I still don’t get it. You just… touched my ribs, and poof. No more ouch. That’s not normal, Elysia. Not even for mages.”

​Keito, walking on her other side, nodded in agreement. “He’s right. Battlefield menders can knit skin and staunch bleeding, but what you did was different. Resetting and healing broken bone in seconds, purging deep tissue damage… I’ve read of such power, but it’s always in the context of ancient legends. In all of Tara, true healers are so rare they’re considered myths. And to wield it at the magnitude you did…” He trailed off, looking at her with curiosity. “How did you learn to do that?”

​Elysia looked down at her own hands as if seeing them for the first time. The honest answer felt weak, even to her.

​“I… I didn’t learn,” she said softly, her voice barely a whisper. She looked from Keito’s face to Baro’s. “I don’t know how I did it. I just… I saw you were hurt, and I wanted it to stop. The rest just… happened.”

​Her genuine confusion was clear on her face. She was as stunned by her own ability as they were. This wasn’t a secret she was keeping; it was a mystery she was living.

​Baro scrubbed a hand over his jaw, his brow furrowed. The magic was too strange to keep pressing on her about it, so he pivoted. “Fine. Then what about before? You’re a person, you had a life. You said you came from ‘far away.’ How far is far?”

The question was a familiar knock at a wall of fog in her mind. She thought back, searching for something, anything, to give them. She remembered the cold ocean. The darkness. The feeling of the water.

​“I don’t remember much,” she admitted. “The first thing I truly remember is waking up. I was on the shore of a lake, soaked and freezing. Everything before that is… blank.”  She wasnt really lying, when she did join this world everything was a blur, she didnt really remember much at all. Keito noticing her mind working hard decided to speak up.

​“There are stories the Elder Elves tell,” he said slowly, “of a hidden continent. A place they were driven from ages ago, where magic was a part of the very air you breathed. They called it Veridia.” He glanced at her, at the pointed tips of her ears that were just visible through her white hair. “They say the only way to it was through gateways that are now lost. Maybe… you came through one. Maybe you’re from there.”

Plausible. It was a better story than the terrifying emptiness of not knowing at all. Elysia thought to herself.

​Keito added, “It would make sense. Elves from the old continent rarely had family names. They were just… themselves. Your name, Elysia… it stands alone.”

​The name. Her name. That, at least, wasn't a blank. The memory came to her, sharp and clear...a warm room, the scent of old paper, and a gentle voice reading by candlelight. It was from a book her mother used to read to her, about a brave girl who faced down monsters and shadows. A girl named Elysia. When she had woken up by that cold lake, trying to forget the memories that were trying to cling to her, she had taken that name for herself. It was a shield, a piece of armor, a promise of the strength she hoped she could find.

​She didn't tell them that part. The memory was too precious, too fragile to share. Instead, she just nodded slowly, letting them believe their theory. It was easier that way. ​When they finally passed through the towering stone gates of Rynhaven, the comfortable silence returned. The bustling energy of the city was a welcome distraction. The merchants were yelling about their wares, the clatter of wagon wheels on stone, a dozen conversations happening all at once washed over them, and Elysia found it surprisingly comforting after the eerie silence of the mountain. They were heading for the Emberblade guild, ready to put their first real job behind them.

​They were cutting through a crowded market street when Baro stopped.

​“Right, this is my stop,” he said, hooking a thumb toward a side street where the steady clang-clang-clang of a blacksmith’s hammer echoed.

“Theres like some new axe that this blacksmith was supposed to have gotten in for me. You two go on ahead, I’ll catch up with you at the guild.” He gave them a lopsided grin, lifting his axe onto his shoulder, and was gone, swallowed up by a river of people.

​Just Keito and Elysia now. They kept walking, the guildhall just a street away. And then, the day momentarily shifted to night. The sunny afternoon just… dimmed, three times as if a giant hand was trying to snatch away the sun. A collective gasp went through the crowd as three giant shadows swept over the city.

​Elysia looked up, her heart beating through her chest. Keito stopped beside her, his jaw hitting the floor, all the composure he normally wore stripped away in an instant.

​"No," he whispered, the word filled with disbelief. "That's… that's not possible."

​High above them, circling the city were three dragons. Their scales glittering like obsidian, jade, and ruby in the sunlight.

​"How?" Keito said, his voice strained, talking more to himself than to her. "They shouldn't be here. They can't be. Nothing has crossed Magmas Cradle in a thousand years."

​Just as the words left his lips, a deep, earth shaking bell began to toll from the city’s heart. BRONG. BRONG. BRONG.

​The city alarm.

​Panic exploded. The bustling street became a stampede. People screamed, shoving past one another, their faces filled with terror. ​The shock on Keito’s face vanished in a blink. The dazed disbelief was gone, replaced by the face of a soldier. His hand was on his sword, his eyes darting around, assessing, reacting. ​He grabbed Elysia’s arm, his grip firm. "I have to get to the Citadel," he said, his voice cutting through the noise…urgent. "The Wardens will be mobilizing. I need my orders."

​He looked her right in the eyes, and for a second, she saw a flicker of fear beneath the soldier’s focus… fear for her. "Find somewhere to hide," he commanded. "A cellar, underground, anywhere. Just get out of sight. Now."

​That's when he let her go. He didn't look back. He just drew his sword and plunged into the fleeing mob, a single silver figure fighting against the tide.

The heat in the smithy was the good kind. Baro was mid shout in a glorious haggle with the smith, Ulfric, when the floor shook. Not a tremor, but like the whole city had been kicked. Tools rattled off the walls. Then came a roar. Baro was out the door before the echo faded, his long hilted axe in his fist. The street was a mess of screaming and running. A jade dragon was uncoiling itself from the guts of the guildhall it had just crushed. It’s head swiveled, and it breathed out a cloud of foul green fog.

“Get back!” Baro yelled, shoving Ulfric, who’d followed him out, back toward the smithy door. He saw them then…a father and his daughter, paralyzed in a doorway, right in the path of the creeping death cloud. He took a step to charge, but Ulfric grabbed him.

"Not with that!" the big smith yelled, his face pale. He shoved a different axe into Baro’s hands. It was a monster, a double-headed greataxe with a dark patterned steel that seemed to negate light. "Lord's commission. He never paid. Use it!"

The axe felt… right. A perfect weight. A low chuckle rumbled in Baro’s chest. "Okay."

He turned to the creeping fog. "Enhance!" The word was a deep command. A blackened light shimmered over the steel. He met a glob of spitting acid with the flat of the blade and the stuff evaporated with a hisssas. But there were too many people, too wide a street…He needed to do more.

"DUPLICATE!" he roared, the magic washing over him. A twin of the massive axe shimmered into existence in his other hand. He planted his feet, two giant weapons held wide. He was just starting to enjoy himself when the sky to the east flashed a brilliant orange. The shockwave hit a second later, a blow of force and sound that staggered him.

That shockwave was what threw Keito from his feet. He’d been fighting his way across the Great Bridge, a man swimming against a river of pure panic. The Red Dragon fell from the sky with the singular purpose of annihilation. The bridge exploded. For a moment, there was only a world of noise and heat and the feeling of flying. He hit the far side, his ears ringing, the air tasting of blood and stone.

The dragon stood in the chasm where the bridge had been. It ignored him. It was just… burning things, turning a row of homes into a funeral pyre with a breath of flame. Trapped people were screaming.

Keito’s training, his plans, his duty …. it all went silent. There was only the fire and the screaming. He raised his sword, the silver light that wrapped around it feeling his desperation. He slashed, not at the dragon, but at the fire itself. Arcs of moonlight flew from his blade, intercepting a spray of magma just before it hit a rooftop crowded with people. He risked a glance around. He could see the distant glint of Warden armor, but closer, he saw a few familiar brawlers from the Emberblade guild pulling people to safety. Good men. The whole city was in a fight for its life. And he’d left Elysia in the middle of it. The thought felt heavy in his gut. He had left her alone.

Elysia was alone, pressed into the doorway of a bakery. She was trying to make herself smaller, trying to breathe. Then the Black Dragon landed in the square, and all the noise was smothered by a sudden, terrifying silence. It moved with grace, its claws making no sound on the stone.

A dark cloud rolled off it. It was an emptiness. She watched the water in the fountain turn to black ooze and the flowers in the nearby stalls crumble to dust. She saw a man stumble and fall, the color just… leaving his face, as if he were being drained of his life force. Her body was screaming at her to run. To stay small… To survive. But her eyes found a little boy, no older than five, who had tripped and was crying on the ground. The black wave of decay was creeping toward him.

The terror was still there, fear deep in her throat, but something else moved her. Her hands came up on their own. She wasn’t thinking…and in a moment a surge of energy burst from her. It was a flood. Shimmering domes of water surrounded the boy and a handful of others who had fallen. The death wave washed over them, and they were untouched.

In the sudden quiet of her own frantic heartbeat, she realized the dragon had stopped. The destruction had paused. Its head turned, and its eyes, glowing with a cold, purple flame, looked past everyone and everything else in the square. They looked right at her. She felt its gaze, cold and sharp, and she knew, with absolute certainty, that she was no longer hidden…