Prologue

Steel against steel.

Clang!

The land is covered in red with not a single shred of nature in sight. Lifeless corpses lie as far as the eye can see. Weapons of all kinds stick out of the ground like a meadow of iron. Thunder rumbles from the ground. The roars of iron-clad soldiers howl underneath the dull sky.

A woman in white with bright golden hair stands beyond them. She swings her sword against a soldier’s blade and then knocks another away. An axe swings at her. She grunts and immediately jumps back. The soldier brings the weapon back around. Wings open like a fan behind the lady in white, flap vigorously, and propel her away from the crushing blow. She soars high into the colorless heavens.

Arrows, fire, and lightning bolts blanket the air. The woman zips like a roll of thunder as a rain of colors trails her. The white golden sword in her hand radiates a furious light. She shouts once and slashes through the barrage of attacks. A wave of golden light splits the sky, disintegrating all the rain.

A swordsman appears above the woman. She gasps and hurriedly moves her blade to block.

Clang!

The woman descends toward the ground as the swordsman pushes her down. With all her strength, she shoves him off, but another soldier comes from above and strikes. Her heart pounds like a drum as she raises her sword just in time. The soldier’s blade clashes against hers, but the impact knocks her out of the air. She crashes into the ground, staining her white dress with dirt. Her wings break apart and scatter like fireflies. She hastens to stand back up as the rumbling of soldiers becomes louder with each passing second.

A soldier with steel gauntlets fills the woman’s field of vision and strikes a blow to her gut, knocking the air out of her. She cries out as she rolls back, dropping her sword. Gasping for air, she lies on the ground, barely able to move.

The rumbling comes to a halt; soldiers wearing different uniforms and emblems surround her with weapons at the ready.

“You did this, Dwelleen,” a soldier growls at her. “This is all your fault.”

Dwelleen gasps for air, unable to form words. Neither does she meet the glares of many.

“Because of you, people have been killed in this war. You created this! And now, we humans must mend it ourselves!”

“No …” Dwelleen finally speaks. She slowly lifts her head from the ground and meets their stares. “I gave you all Armaments as a gift to protect your loved ones, cure the sick, and give you all fortune, not as a weapon to kill each other.” Her eyes begin to sting, and her vision blurs. “He did not sacrifice himself for this …” Tears rolls down her cheek.

“Your Armaments are exactly what caused this nation to go to war, and now we will use the very weapons you gave us and end you.”

The Armaments—swords, bows, lances, axes, grimoires, daggers, maces, and many other different weapons—surrounding Dwelleen glow in outrage.

“Because of you, my father and brother were killed!” yells a lady knight with tears streaming from her eyes. She aims her bow directly at Dwelleen, the end of the arrow engulfed in flames.

“No, I never meant for any of this to happen,” says Dwelleen.

“You will pay for my fiancé’s death,” a young mage says, holding a staff that radiates blue with icicles surrounding him.

“I just wanted to protect all of you …”

One by one, the soldiers cast blame upon Dwelleen for the deaths, the fall of their countries, and for the war.

Dwelleen apologizes to everyone and begs for forgiveness. But then …

Everyone roars.

Magic from all sides strikes Dwelleen and explodes. A storm of destructive colors unleashes, tearing the land and sky apart.

Dwelleen screams at the top of her lungs as she’s burned, frozen, drowned, crushed, and ripped simultaneously. I can’t do this anymore! Her eyes shoot open and glow gold. A bright white barrier surrounds her and instantly expands like an eruption, breaking through the storm of magic and knocking all the soldiers away. She curls up and clutches her chest as she, surrounded by a bubble of light, rises higher into the sky.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll find another way to save everyone as we promised.”

A barrage of magic from below blasts against the barrier, but nothing can break it.

A rift opens in midair below Dwelleen; she gently floats into it and disappears. The barrier dissipates as if it were never there.

“She got away.”

Every soldier glares at where Dwelleen once was in silence.

Boom!

A gunshot grabs everyone’s attention; a man falls into a puddle of blood.

Everyone stares at one another with ice-cold eyes. Grips on weapons tighten. Then roars from all sides collide. Magic flings back and forth. The sounds of explosions, screams, and shouts grow across the barren land. The ground beneath their shoes turns red. More and more soldiers fall, creating a valley of corpses …

And the war never ends.