Elysium

The wheat whispered again. The same endless field, swaying beneath a hollow skin, just as he had seen it in his dream.

With his royal garb discarded, and his pale mask left behind on the porcelain floor, the Amber King stood transformed into a perfect reflection of Lucius, the crescent scar, the green hair. A rippling mirror in the waves of a haunted beach.

Lucius’s voice cracked. “You were there too. I knew it... in my mind, in my dreams.”

The double’s lips curled faintly. “I have always been there.”

The air bent around them, a terrible stillness. The double tilted his head, his eyes filled with a scarlet fire that didn’t belong to the boy Lucius remembered being.

“You are all alone, Lucius. Don’t you see?” he asked, voice low but steady. “I have removed all the obstacles, all those who just took up space. Now it is just you, alone in walls of your own mind. You hate them all don’t you? You hate them because they drag you down. All you’ve ever wanted was to be alone, to sit in a dark room with nothing but your own thoughts. Wouldn’t it be easier if it was just you, if there was no one else to hold you back, no one else to change your plans? How easy it would be, if you were the only one in the whole world.”

No…don’t listen, it isn’t true. He’s trying to break you, to open your soul so he can reach in and take it.

Lucius’s throat tightened. “No-no I don’t want that, I don’t believe that.”

The double shook his head slowly. “Do you feel it, that little lump in the back of your throat, that little taste of sickness that drips down into your soul? You feel warm, you feel hot, you feel like your skin’s on fire. Do you think being all alone would cool you down? Then let it happen, let what needs to be done occur. The cup needs to be emptied in order to be refilled. Let it all out. It's just as you said it was, as you’ve known all along. It’s just you, Lucius, just you and the world.”

Lucius shook his head, his nails digging into his palms. His own eyes staring back at him made him sick. “You don’t know anything, you’re not me!”

The Amber King stepped forward, calm, deliberate. His hand reached out, fingers brushing against Lucius’s chest. A pulse of amber energy, heavy and molten, flared from him, wrapping around Lucius like chains of heat. The green glow of Lucius’s own dimmed resonance flared in resistance, crackling against the pull.

“There it is again, that fire that burns so deep. Don’t you feel better that the truth finally hits the light? You’re weak, you’ve only been acting as something strong. But here’s the real you, nothing but a shriveling boy. Everything you cared about, everything you loved is erased. Accept the hidden stone that breaks all hearts. Allow me in, into the edges of your soul.”

The wheat bowed under a phantom wind, stalks snapping as the field shivered.

“You cannot hold it,” the King said softly. “Your essence... your power... it must flow to me. It is the only way to cleanse it all. This is the end, Lucius, there is nothing to be afraid of anymore.”

Lucius shook his head, gripping the King’s wrist, feeling the amber fire of the extraction dig into him, trying to draw the light out of his chest. Pain shot through him, every nerve screaming, but he didn’t let go.

“You’re wrong!” Lucius yelled, letting the full storm of his being pulse into the contact point. “You’re wrong about all of it!”

The Amber King’s fingers pressed closer, amber energy clawing at him, trying to siphon the light, but Lucius held fast. Every memory, every lesson, every bond he had formed flared through him, all of it burning into the heart of his essence.

“Everything I learned in this city, what I took in from the people who helped me, gave me a way out of you, not into you.” Lucius’s gaze flicked once over the groves of memory that made Pareidolia. “From Lain, I learned tenderness under impossible distress. From Surazal, how courage looks when it’s fighting for a noble cause. Ultra showed me the strength of trusting others. Umbra showed me the clarity of seeing the truth, even when it’s painful. And Caesar, the weight of loyalty and sacrifice, what it really means to fight for the hope of a better world.”

The Amber King’s face began to contort, feeling immense strain counteracting his attempts.

“And from you,” Lucius said, speaking right to the embodiment of his own image, “I’ve learned the depth of my own reflection, the darkest parts of myself that I had to face. The parts I had to let go.”

He inhaled deeply, and the air in the fields tightened like the pause before thunder. “I forgive myself,” he said, louder now, not begging but claiming. “I forgive myself for every act I’ve committed, every instance of cowardice, and every sin I buried under all the dirt.”

A wind rose, hard and sudden, whipping the wheat into silver foams. The Amber King’s composed face cracked, for the first time Lucius saw something like fear flicker across his eyes.

Lucius didn’t stop. “Thank you,” he said, fully genuine. “I needed to go through the fire first, I had to experience the full fall, the complete self loathing, in order to come around. I walked through the door. I felt it all. And I’ve come out the other side.”

Lucius reached out and wrapped his arms around the Amber King. The double trembled for a moment, then relaxed into the embrace. All the tension, the resentment, guilt, and rage, all absorbed in a single act.

“I forgive myself,” he whispered, voice steady, carrying through the fields. “And I forgive you.”

The Amber King faltered under the surge of green, edges flickering like embers. Lucius’s touch became a merger, their twin essences flowing together and combining as one.

The wheat around them shook violently, dissolving into nothing as the storm of energy consumed the field.

When the last remnants of the wheat vanished, Lucius found himself back in the palace courtyard in front of the bleeding tree, a shimmering amber gemstone gleaming in the palm of his hand.

“I still have it? Of course...it wasn’t yours to take.”

He raised a finger, green light shimmering at the tip.

The essence resonated from him, spilling into the gnarled wood. The tree shivered as colour returned, branches stretching skyward, awakened from a long slumber. The red blood that had soaked its veins now transfigured into cascading jade starlight, flowing down each branch like liquid life.

Every droplet of essence seemed to cleanse the tree from decades of corruption, transforming poison into life, rot into renewal.

Lucius stepped back, his chest rising and falling with exhilaration, feeling the warmth of his resonance coursing through every nerve.

And then the tree exhaled. Its entire essence poured outward in a luminous cascade, the poison and blood renewed as pure water that shimmered with life.

The courtyard dissolved in his perception, replaced by a vast, dreamlike expanse. A tranquil beach stretched endlessly, waves rippling with life that reflected sunlight into a million tiny diamonds. A lone tree stood proudly on the shore, its branches serene and perfectly balanced, smooth rocks dotting the gravely sand and a mountain peak silhouetted off in the distance.

Lucius felt the entire landscape breathe beneath him, the culmination of the tree's purpose, the life it had longed to give now flowing freely into the world. And then, as softly as a sigh, the vision vanished.

The gnarled tree had disappeared from the courtyard, its mission complete, yet the place pulsed with an irrepressible vitality. Green shoots sprouted along paths, fountains sparkled with renewed clarity, and the palace gardens bloomed in beautiful abundance.

Lucius closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.

The tree had given everything, a single act of true creation.

He smiled faintly. He was free, fully himself, and everything he had lost was not gone, but given the chance to grow again.