As the sun warmed the magnificent white marbles of Luxaris, the sounds of swords and the energetic shouts of young soldiers echoed across the vast training grounds. Kaelrin, out of breath but with a wide smile on his face, had lowered his wooden training sword. He had just knocked down the two Luxaris recruits opposite him with a masterful maneuver, joking as he showed his friends how effective the newly learned techniques were.
Inside him, there was a sense of pride and a fresh hope for the future. He had accumulated so many things to show Auren, Lysera, and the others in the village upon his return.
However, this joyful moment was suddenly shattered by a sweating messenger who rushed through the gates of the training grounds and headed straight for the commanders. The messenger's face was completely white. After a few minutes of whispered, tense conversations, the drill sergeant's gaze slowly found Kaelrin, who was standing in the middle of the grounds. That pitying, heavy expression in the sergeant's eyes pierced Kaelrin's chest like an invisible dagger.
"Kaelrin..." the sergeant said, as he approached and placed his hand on his shoulder. "Your village... There is news from your village. They have been under a massive attack. Almost nothing...".
Kaelrin could not hear the rest. The wooden sword in his hand slipped through his numb fingers and fell to the stone floor with a dull thud.
The world began to spin around him, and voices became muffled. His mind hadn't even registered how he got permission, how he ran to the stables, or how he leaped onto the saddle of one of the fastest horses. He only remembered setting out, shooting out of the colossal gates of Luxaris like the wind.
The journey was pure madness. He tried to cover that long distance, which normally required days of travel with regular rest stops, as if he were in a nightmare. Night fell, he did not stop; morning came, he did not slow down. Hugging the horse's neck, he rode the animal to the point of exhaustion, merely whispering, "A little more, please, just a little more!".
But no living creature's body could withstand this savage pace. As they approached the depths of the forest, white foam began to pour from the poor horse's mouth, its trembling legs gave out, and it collapsed to the ground with a pained neigh.
Kaelrin was thrown to the ground, rolling in the dirt, but he did not feel the pain in the slightest. He quickly sprang to his feet. He left the dying horse there, gripped his sword tightly, and relying on his own legs, began to run madly into the forest.
His lungs were burning as if they would burst, and the muscles in his legs were screaming on the verge of failure. Kaelrin did not even remember how he crossed that final hill where the forest ended, nor how he crushed the stones beneath his feet. Only one thing echoed in his mind: the faces of the villagers. Auren's mocking smile, Lysera's affectionate gaze, Thalos's harsh yet protective demeanor....
But when he crested the hill and arrived at the entrance of the village, his footsteps, numb from running, were cut short like a knife.
The scene before him was like a nightmare straight out of hell that his brain refused to comprehend. The intense, acrid smell of burnt flesh and soot that filled his nose made his stomach churn. The gray ashes blowing in the wind were scattered like dead soil over the streets they had once joyfully run through.
The houses... Their houses were gone.
Those warm homes where his childhood was spent, the wooden roofs, the streets where they played had now all turned into pitch-black, smoking ruins. Every inch of the ground was covered with dried blood and pieces of wood splintered by sword strikes.
Kaelrin's knees gave way. His pupils trembled with sheer terror. Massive Luxaris soldiers in their white armor roamed among the ruins of the village like a swarm of ants, lining up corpses wrapped in heavy, bloody shrouds side by side. A soldier walked past just a few steps away from Kaelrin, carrying a burned corpse whose identity could no longer be recognized. Bitter bile rose from Kaelrin's stomach to his throat.
"No..." he whispered in a cracked voice. "No, no, no...".
Stumbling, he took a step forward. His eyes scanned the surroundings madly, searching for his own house. His heart almost stopped when his gaze drifted to that familiar corner at the end of the street. In place of his home, there were only blackened wooden pillars, stripped to the skeleton, and a completely leveled roof.
As his world collapsed around him, the only thing that tore through the deafening ringing in his ears was that familiar, deep voice barking orders among the ruins.
Kaelrin quickly turned his head in that direction. In the middle of the ruined village square, he saw Darven, standing in his heavy silver armor with a harsh, uncompromising expression on his face. He was receiving reports from the soldiers around him and coordinating the transportation of the bodies.
The pure terror inside Kaelrin gave way to unbridled panic. Stumbling, he began to run, almost falling over himself. As he leaped over the rubble, his boots sank into the bloody mud and his legs were scratched, but he didn't care. When he stopped right in front of Darven, he was out of breath, his body trembling violently.
"Commander!" Kaelrin shouted. His voice was so full of pain and so broken that even a few soldiers nearby stopped their work and turned to him.
When Darven turned his head and looked at the young man, the stone-hard expression in his eyes softened for a moment. Even though he was secretly one of the architects of this destruction and had personally plunged his sword into Auren's chest that night, he wore a flawless mask of sorrow on his face. His goal was to bind this youth, whose mind and talents he knew so well, to Luxaris with an unbreakable bond and the fire of revenge.
Kaelrin reached out his trembling hands and, ignoring all military discipline, grabbed Darven's silver-armored arms. He could barely stand.
"Commander... My brothers and sisters..." Kaelrin gasped, as tears began to stream down his cheeks covered in soot stains. Words caught in his throat, and he couldn't breathe. "Where is Lysera?! Where is Auren?! Did... did you see them?".
Darven placed his own large, armored hands over Kaelrin's trembling hands that were clutching his armor. He looked into the young man's eyes with his masterful, manipulative affection.
"We were too late, Kaelrin," said Darven, his voice heavy and muffled. "As soon as we received the news, I rode out with my knights, but... when we arrived, everywhere was in flames. This wasn't an ordinary bandit raid. They were very organized, very brutal.".
Kaelrin's grip weakened, his knees were about to give way. Darven deliberately continued, taking his words slowly.
"Auren..." Darven said, narrowing his eyes slightly with feigned sorrow. "At the edge of the forest, we found a torn piece of clothing that we believe belonged to him and a lot of blood trails. But his body is nowhere to be found. With that much blood loss... it would be a miracle if he survived.".
"Lysera..." Kaelrin whispered. His voice now sounded foreign even to his own ears.
"We couldn't find her either," Darven said ruthlessly. "Neither among the corpses nor in the forest. They took her with them.".
Kaelrin's breath caught in his throat. As his eyes frantically scanned the area, his mind drifted to the others. Remembering that Darven didn't know them, he tried to describe them in a muffled voice.
"What about Sira?! Thalos?!" Kaelrin's voice had now turned into a high-pitched shriek. Looking at the burned village around him and the body bags on the ground, he struggled to explain in panic. "You don't know them, Commander, they raised us!. They were like our parents.... Thalos was a broad, upright man, I'm sure he threw himself to the front to defend the village.... And Sira would have given her life to protect us all.... Please tell me they are not in those damn body bags!".
Darven took a deep, mournful breath. His silence only deepened the dark abyss in Kaelrin's mind. Averting his eyes, he slowly shook his head.
"We found the couple you described, Kaelrin," Darven said in a low voice. "In the village square... They fought shoulder to shoulder until their last breath. They were surrounded by enemy corpses. They sacrificed themselves to protect the remaining ones. I am sorry, son. They both walked into the Light.".
This final blow completely shattered Kaelrin's resistance. The strength in his legs instantly vanished, and bursting into sobs, he fell to his knees in the blood and ash-covered mud in front of Darven. As he covered his face with his hands and wailed, Darven stood over him with the imposing presence of his silver armor.
Darven slowly knelt and placed his hand on Kaelrin's shaking back. He adjusted his voice to the unwavering tone of a father giving his word to his son.
"Cry, son. Experience your pain. But then I want you to wipe away those tears," Darven whispered. His words were planted in the young man's mind like a poisonous seed. "We will find whoever took Lysera. We will find who burned this village, your home. I will introduce them to the justice of the Light, I swear to you. But for this, you need to give me not the cheerful boy from the training grounds, but an unshakable soldier of Luxaris who will pierce the darkness with his sword. If you want to take your revenge, rise and join me, Kaelrin. We will find them.".
Kaelrin's sobs slowly ceased, replaced by an eerie, dull silence. Tears continued to stream down his soot-stained cheeks, but the vitality, the fire of life in his gaze seemed to be completely extinguished. His soul was drained from his body, leaving behind only an empty shell molded by pain.
"I want to see them," he muttered in a barely audible, trembling voice. "Sira and Thalos... One last time...".
Darven slowly shook his head side to side without breaking the fake mask of grief on his face at all. In truth, he had already ordered all the corpses to be loaded onto wagons to leave no evidence behind of that night's massacre, none of those distinct wounds inflicted by Luxaris swords.
"We can't do that, son," he said in a soft, fatherly, yet equally absolute voice. "Their bodies... were severely damaged. We transported them to the central wagons accompanied by our priests so that they could properly appear before the presence of the Light and be buried. I would not want you to remember the people who raised you in that state.".
Kaelrin could not even find the strength to object. Darven's words easily seeped into his shattered mind, which was too broken to question the truth. With slumped shoulders, he slowly stood up. His eyes locked onto that dark spot at the edge of the forest Darven had just mentioned. Staggering, he began to walk towards it like a ghost.
When he reached the border of the forest, he saw that dark, dried pool of blood on the muddy ground. And right in the middle of that blood... lay a tiny piece of fabric.
A torn piece of cloth ripped from Auren's clothing, smeared with mud and his own blood.
Kaelrin's breath caught in his throat. *He was just a tiny child...* he thought to himself, his heart shattering into a thousand pieces. A tiny, defenseless child. What could he have done when he couldn't even hold a sword?.
Slowly, as if all his strength was depleted, he fell to his knees. With his trembling, blood-and-ash-covered hands, he picked up that small, bloody piece of fabric from the mud. As he clenched the fabric between his palms, the tears streaming from his eyes had grown silent, replaced by a breathtaking, suffocating pain. He gently pressed the cloth to his forehead, then to his chest, right over his heart.
His lips moved with a quiver. His voice started as a feeble whisper in the deadly silence of the forest.
"I swear upon the name of our Goddess of Light...".
Kaelrin slowly raised his head. The dull pain in his eyes morphed within seconds; it gave way to a dark, savage, and inextinguishable hatred. The knuckles of his fingers gripping the fabric turned stark white.
"I swear... I will find everyone who did this," he whispered. Then his voice cracked, rising and taking on a tearful yet equally deadly tone. "I will find them all... and kill them in the most painful way. I will poison every second they breathe!".
As he tightly shut his eyes and bowed his head, his shoulders began to shake violently. The names of everything he loved and possessed in the world mixed into the soil like the last and most broken prayer spilling from his lips:.
"Auren... Lysera... Sira... Thalos...".
As Darven silently watched him from a few steps back, a faint, dark smile appeared at the edge of his lips. He had created a flawless pawn, a flawless sword. In that moment, that innocent and joyful boy crying in the mud completely died; in his place, Luxaris's most loyal, most dangerous emissary of death was born.