Chapter 7

Kai was a child again.

He was in his room, where the sunlight bled through his window, casting its gentle hue across the soft carpet. On that carpet, Kai had set up a mix of his toys and his father’s fantasy miniatures plus what he called “terrain,” a smaller version of buildings, trees, or whatever else was outside.

After finishing the setup, Kai nodded to himself. It was perfect. In fact, everything was perfect back then.

Kai heard the front door to the apartment open and his heart nearly skipped a beat. He heard a male voice greeting his mother before finally, his father appeared in the doorway to his room, wearing a suit and carrying a small briefcase. He crouched, smiled, and held his arms out for a hug.

“Kai!”

“Father!” Kai ran into his arms and the two embraced. It didn’t matter if he saw him every day, he never got tired of father nor the adventures they’d had.

Speaking of which…

Kai pulled from the hug and pulled his father toward his setup while his mother leaned against the doorway, smiling. His father chuckled.

“Couldn’t wait, huh?”

Kai shook his head as his father took off his coat, loosened his sleeves and sat in front of the setup. Kai mimicked his posture as his father assessed it.

“Ah…where shall we begin?” he asked. “Same place as yesterday? Outside Starlight Forest?”

Kai nodded eagerly as his father began to narrate using his deep voice. “And so, the story continues, young adventurer. A warrior named Kai is trekking through the forest in search of…”

He listened as his father continued, beaming. Without warning, his father’s voice—along with his surroundings—began to fade, replaced with a set of sharp, eerie beeps and shadows that filled his visions.

The beeps got closer. He had to run. He had to get away.

And so, Kai ran. Farther and farther until his thudding footsteps began to drown out the beeping. Kai stopped to catch his breath, though it only worsened as a deep, sick feeling began to overtake him. Memories of those dark days spent alone in his apartment, or that look that Emily had given him filled his mind.

Falling to his knees, the surrounding shadows began to dig into him, tormenting him with that voice.

Kai.

“No, no,” Kai whispered. “I don’t want to think about that.”

Remember, Kai.

“I don’t want to!”

It’s the only way.

Kai moved to speak again, but suddenly he felt something else in the dark space with him. Something he had felt before. Something he had fought.

Spinning around, Kai found himself face to face with Lamentis, the Vielfiend he had fought only yesterday. Its hands clasped behind its back, Lamentis stared at him incredulously, before it spoke.

“Interesting. So it was right.”

“What was?” Kai asked, scooting back. “Right about…what?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.” Lamentis’ expression both hardened and shifted to something resembling amusement. “So, you’re a Spellblade. That’s how you managed to resist me at the village?”

Kai didn’t answer. Looking at Lamentis, he was reminded of that terrible moment in which someone had taken the blow from the beast and been corrupted in his stead, someone he’d promised to save. Kai’s fists tightened.

“Where is Brannick?”

“Doing my bidding,” Lamentis said. “Preparing my troops to help my siblings wage war on the rest of Astraven. His experience as a war veteran is…quite valuable, I must say. Even if his suffering from said experience is great.”

Kai grit his teeth. “I’m going to save him. And I’m going to kill you.”

Lamentis scoffed. “You and the others want so badly to kill me. True, if they somehow manage it, the entire legion of Shadows under my command will fall as well. But that includes Brannick.”

Kai froze. “What?”

“Yes,” Lamentis continued, his deep voice echoing around Kai within the shadows. “Everyone corrupted by the Shadows under my command is bound to me, an extension of my power.” He met Kai’s eyes. “If I die, they die with me.”

Kai felt as if a stone had dropped in his stomach. He fell to his knees, visualizing the looks on Lydia and her mother’s faces, finding out that their father was doomed after all.

He would fail. He was going to fail, like he always had.

The shadows around Lamentis intensified. “Of course, I may be willing to bargain for that man’s freedom.”

Kai looked up. “What do you mean?”

“I’ll exchange him,” Lamentis said. “For you.”

“Me…?” Kai asked, his voice trailing off. “What do you want with me?”

“Nothing important,” Lamentis said quickly, stiffening and hardening his gaze at the same time.

Kai’s eyes narrowed. He remembered back at the village, when Lamentis had specifically pointed him out among the crowd. He had made a similar demand then: that they surrender him and the village would be spared.

That meant Lamentis wanted him for a reason. Whatever it was, it had to be a damn good one…which meant the thing was lying.

“Rest assured,” Lamentis continued. “If you surrender yourself, then I will keep my word. Brannick will return to his family. Alive and as he was.”

“And if I agree,” Kai said. “What do I have to do?”

The imagery around Kai shifted, and suddenly he was in front of a towering castle carved into the side of a mountain, cast in darkness with shadow-corrupted beasts roaming around and some howling into the storm-filled night. Lamentis gestured to it.

“Inevitably, you and your companions will find me here,” the Vielfiend said. “But when you arrive…you will surrender to me. And I will take you into Shadow.”

Kai shuddered, then looked away. He clenched his eyes shut. “I…I’ll think about it.”

“Good,” Lamentis said. “I look forward to it.”

The area around Kai began to twist and warp. Shadows whipped at him as the floor beneath Kai gave out, and with a scream, he fell into the infinite dark.

###

Kai snapped awake as he felt the warmth of sunlight on his cheek.

He was back in camp, lying on his makeshift bed as Lyra sat on the log nearby, tending the now-weak fire with her blade. She looked at him and pulled her blade out, sticking the white-hot end into the dirt to cool it.

“Is everything alright?” she asked.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine,” Kai said. “I just…”

“You were screaming,” Lyra continued. “Calling for your father.”

The hair on the back of Kai’s neck stood on end. He forced himself to relax as he avoided Lyra’s piercing gaze. “Y…yeah. Just a bad memory.”

“You…lost him?” Lyra asked.

Kai’s chest tightened. He nodded.

Lyra’s gaze softened slightly. As she opened her mouth to speak, the flap to Jahanes’s tent opened and the man himself emerged, donning his Battlemage robe loosely and stretching. He yawned, focusing his attention on Kai.

“Good morning, Kai,” he said. “Sleep good?”

“Mostly,” Kai said, his thoughts drifting back to the dream with Lamentis, with the truth of Brannick’s corruption and the offer that the Vielfiend had made him. The more he thought about it, the more dread twisted his stomach into knots. When the Shadows from Lamentis touched him, he had felt what they felt: agony, like all his deepest regrets in life, were playing like a movie in front of him, over and over.

Kai didn’t want to become a Shadow, at least, not if he could help it. But should he tell them? And even if they did, could they help?

“Hey, Jahanes,” Kai began, turning around. “I—”

An icy feeling in his chest froze him in place. A warning.

Don’t, a voice said. Not if you value Brannick’s life.

Kai relented and the feeling faded. When he looked up, he saw Jahanes and Lyra staring at him, eyebrows arched.

“Something wrong?”

“No, not at all,” Kai lied. He had to think of something to derail the subject. “I…I was just going to ask who you did that. Is that the inventory spell you talked about? The one rolled in with the EG?”

Jahanes' eyes narrowed for a moment, and part of Kai panicked, wondering if maybe he had seen through him again. He then looked at his hands, out of which two diagrams were breaking down his tent and bedding into mana and drawing it into his chest, which glowed slightly. He chuckled.

“Oh, this? No, this is an inventory storage spell. Probably a little complicated for you, but you can go ahead and copy the blueprint, if you want to try it” Jahanes finished and dismissed one of his Diagrams, sending the other toward Kai. It stopped and floated in front of him.

Kai studied it. It was still the basic Diagram, but with no less than a dozen other runes placed at strategic points that crossed over, intersected and broke apart like a circuit board. Kai blinked.

Huh. Okay. Kai inhaled, then decided to try something. “Uh…copy spell.”

Several lines of light began to trace the spell, then his essence gauge appeared and Kai saw it added.

<<Inventory Storage. Spell added to personal Arcanum>>

Jahanes’s copy faded, and Kai held out his hand, pointed it at his mat, and tried to form it. The Diagram manifested easily, but the rest of the runes struggled and sizzled out. Kai sighed and Jahanes clasped him on the shoulder.

“Just takes some practice, that’s all,” he said. “Anyway, we should get going.”

Kai nodded as Jahanes used the spell on his mat, and he watched as it dissipated into pure mana. With their camp packed up, Jahanes and Lyra crossed the clearing, with Jahanes briefly stopping to look back at him.

Kai trotted after them, annoyed that he couldn’t make the inventory spell work, but those thoughts were merely a distraction from his bigger problem.

Brannick. If Kai didn’t surrender himself, then Brannick would be lost forever and his family would never see him again.

That, and his promise, his oath to them would be broken…and that was one thing he would not do.

Maybe it's a fair trade. Me in exchange for a better man.

Kai lost himself in his thoughts as the three of them packed up what was left, extinguished the fire, and entered the forest opposite the clearing.