A Warrior's Death
Raziel frowned, he looked around the damp cavern he shook his head and turned around to where he came from. His mind whirled with each step. His muscles were sore, and his blade pulsed at his hip. Korrin was right about something. He had a past he had to sort out.
The young man closed the secret path and sat down on the cot. He shook his head and then lay back, trying to relax. The throb of his muscles set the eerie tone of his dreams.
Raziel groaned as he shifted on the hard cot, the thin blanket barely covering his battered body. His muscles ached, each movement igniting fresh sparks of pain from wounds hastily bandaged after the last fight.
The stale scent of damp stone filled the air, and faint whispers of distant prisoners drifted through the cracks in the walls. Tomorrow, he’d face the arena once more. Tomorrow, he’d fight for survival again.
Sleep clawed at him, dragging him down into a restless void. His mind twisted and turned, pulling him into a storm of visions.
Dark shadows coiled like serpents, weaving through his thoughts. In the haze of his mind, he stood on a blood-soaked battlefield. Figures cloaked in blackened smoke circled him, their jagged teeth glinting in flickering red light. The air stank of sulfur and rot. A deep, guttural voice called his name.
“Raziel…”
He turned sharply. A demon towered before him, a twisted beast of bone and sinew, its clawed fingers reaching toward him. The creature’s hollow eyes bore into his soul. His sword, heavy with the memories of past kills, pulsed at his side. He reached for it, but his arm felt like lead. The demon’s grin widened.
“Embrace the darkness,” it whispered, its voice slithering into his mind like poisoned honey.
“You fight for the light, but it chains you, blinds you. There is no truth in the light, only the lies they tell to keep you shackled. The truth, Raziel… the truth lies in the darkness. In your soul.”
Raziel clenched his fists, trying to shake the voice, but the shadows around him deepened, curling around his legs, pulling him down. The demon stepped closer, its grin stretching impossibly wide.
“Let go. Let the darkness guide you. You have always belonged to it.”
“Let”
“Go.”
The demon faded into the darkness.
A sudden jolt shook his mind. His breath caught in his throat as he was wrenched from the nightmare. His eyes flew open.
Torches flickered beyond the iron bars. The clanking of chains echoed through the corridor, followed by the heavy footfalls of approaching guards.
“Get up!” one of them barked, rattling the bars with a steel-clad fist. “Time for the arena.”
Raziel swung his legs over the cot, the cold stone biting at his bare feet. As the cell door creaked open, his gaze fell upon the other prisoners, Men and women from his own village, their faces gaunt with exhaustion and fear.
His heart twisted. He had to fight. But was it for them, or was it for the darkness that still whispered in his mind?
Before he could react, chains were fastened around his wrists, linking him to the long line of villagers. Their ragged breathing filled the air, their terror palpable. With each forced step toward the arena, Raziel’s anger burned hotter. He clenched his jaw as the scent of blood and dust grew stronger with every passing moment.
The heavy doors of the arena groaned open, and blinding sunlight poured onto the sand-strewn battlefield. The air reeked of sweat, iron, and death.
Cheers and jeers from the bloodthirsty crowd cascaded down from the stands, a wall of cruel noise that seemed to revel in the suffering to come. The prisoners were unshackled, their fate sealed. Raziel gripped his blade tightly, eyes scanning the horrors before him.
A pack of slavering beasts was already loose upon the field, their twisted bodies crawling with sores and patches of missing fur. Their jagged teeth gnashed and snapped as they tore into the helpless. Blood sprayed across the sand, pooling in steaming crimson rivers.
Blades clashed, metal biting deep into bone, and the air grew heavy with the coppery scent of slaughter. Screams pierced the air, raw, wailing sounds that clawed at the mind.
Raziel moved, carving through attackers with practiced precision. His sword slashed deep, spilling entrails across the blood-drenched ground. He tried to rally the villagers, calling for them to form a defensive line, but it was hopeless.
Limbs were hacked away, bodies crumpled under merciless steel, and the screams became wet, gurgling gasps as his people were slaughtered one by one.
A man staggered past Raziel, clutching at his throat, where a gaping wound spewed dark rivulets down his chest. His eyes locked on Raziel’s, a silent plea for salvation, before he crumpled face-first into the muck.
The sand, once pale gold, now clung to the dead in thick red clots. Dismembered bodies lay strewn like broken dolls, their faces twisted in agony.
His vision blurred with rage. His strikes became ruthless, precise. A hulking orc lumbered forward, skin mottled with scars, his teeth filed into jagged points.
The orc grinned as if the carnage delighted him, and he met Raziel’s fury with a monstrous axe. Steel clashed on steel, sparks flaring in the air. The orc was powerful, but Raziel was faster, his swordsmanship weaving a deadly dance. He pushed forward, striking again and again, forcing the brute back.
Then he saw him, the boy. A lone child cowered in front of the weapons rack, his small frame trembling, wide eyes locked in terrified disbelief.
Raziel turned toward him, lungs burning from exertion. The boy’s gaze froze him. A flicker of hope amid the carnage. Raziel moved on instinct, lunging to protect him.
A sudden searing pain tore through him. White-hot agony lanced through his chest. His breath hitched, and he gasped, looking down to see a crimson blade erupting from his ribs. Blood bubbled from his lips. His vision swam, darkening at the edges.
He turned his head, his fading sight catching the image of a figure cloaked in a menacing crimson aura. The Red Knight. The figure’s armor dripped with gore, its crimson scimitar pulsing like a beating heart. With a sickening twist, the blade wrenched free, dragging viscera with it. Raziel staggered, warmth spilling down his torso in thick rivers.
He collapsed to his knees, fingers twitching uselessly in the blood-soaked sand. The boy’s terrified gaze locked with his, just before a jagged spear found the child’s chest, pinning him to the wooden rack. The boy’s mouth opened in a silent scream, his blood joining the crimson flood beneath Raziel’s fingers.
Darkness surged in, swallowing sight, sound, and breath.
Yet, he did not slip into death.
His body lay motionless on the bloodied sand, but his mind… his soul… remained. Bound. Trapped. He could still feel the rage, the anguish, the twisted hunger for vengeance that writhed within him. And the darkness, the same darkness that had whispered to him in his dreams, now embraced him fully, whispering promises of power and retribution.
He could hear them. Distant voices, blurred at first, but sharpening with every passing second. His rage flared at the sound of Erikson’s voice.
“Well, this was not what I was expecting, Orien.”
A pause. The sound of shifting metal, the shuffling of boots on blood-soaked sand.
“I don’t understand either,” another voice responded. Orien. There was something uneasy in his tone, a flicker of hesitation beneath his words. “Why would Renaldo protect something so weak?”
A long silence stretched between them, filled only with the distant roar of the crowd and the flies already gathering to feast. Raziel could feel it, doubt, suspicion threading through the air like an unseen specter.
“I plan on finding out,” Erikson finally said, his voice lower now, measured. “Let’s pick him up and take him to the Priestess. We shall see if we can resurrect him.” A pause. “His pulse is gone, isn’t it?”
Raziel could feel fingers pressing against his throat, cool, deliberate. A moment of hesitation. They lingered too long, as if searching for something beyond a pulse.
“Erikson,” the voice of another, this one uncertain. “He is dead. There is no pulse.”
Another silence. It stretched on, thick with something unspoken.
“Fine.” A single word, but edged with something Raziel couldn’t name. “Take him to Aleramrine.”
A strange sensation crept over him as his consciousness faded deeper into the void, a whisper at the edges of his mind.
Erikson watched as the young man was loaded onto a stretcher. He was carried out of the arena. His gaze lingered on the still form, studying it.
With a sigh, he turned back to the bloody scene, but his mind was elsewhere.
Something didn’t add up. He turned and followed where they took the boy.
They carried Raziel through winding corridors, down into the depths of the citadel, where the air grew damp and thick with the scent of burning incense and something older, something wrong. The deeper they descended, the more the torches flickered, their light casting eerie shadows against the stone walls.
Erikson’s breath came shallow, his fingers tightening into fists at his sides. The further they went, the heavier the air became, pressing down on his chest like unseen hands.
At last, they emerged into a cavernous chamber, where a great sacrificial altar loomed at its center. The surface of the blackened stone was worn smooth by countless rituals, dark stains etched into its surface.
Hooded figures stood in the periphery, their murmured chants rising in volume as they placed Raziel upon the altar. The air was thick with an ancient power, an energy that crawled beneath Erikson’s skin, making the fine hairs on his arms stand on end.
At the far end of the chamber, seated upon an obsidian throne, was the High Priestess of the Nameless Queen. Her presence was commanding, though it paled in comparison to what he would soon witness.
She rose with deliberate grace, her crimson robes flowing like liquid fire as she stepped forward. Her hands, adorned with golden rings, hovered over Raziel’s still chest.
A murmur passed through the chamber as she began her incantation, her voice an eerie melody that sent shivers through those present. Symbols of old flared to life around the altar, glowing with dark energy. The air crackled as the ritual reached its peak—
And then the chamber fell silent.
A presence filled the room, suffocating, absolute. It wasn’t the kind of silence that followed speech; it was the kind that crushed, that devoured, that unmade.
The torches flickered and died, plunging them into darkness, save for the eldritch glow emanating from the altar. A chill swept through the chamber, curling through Erikson’s lungs like frostbite. The hooded figures shrank back, whispers of dread slipping from their lips.
Footsteps echoed in the silence.
From the shadows, she emerged. The Nameless Queen.
Erikson felt it before he saw her. An overwhelming, suffocating force that pressed down on his very soul. It was not just fear; it was despair, an understanding that whatever, or whomever just entered the room was beyond his comprehension.
Her form was indistinct, shifting like mist yet solid as stone. She moved with an unnatural elegance, her dark gown seeming to devour the light around her. Her cold gaze flickered like dying embers as she circled the altar, her presence oppressive, drowning.
She stopped.
Her gaze settled upon Erikson.
The weight of her stare was unlike anything he had ever known. It was deeper than terror, it was a judgment that existed beyond time. He was nothing before her.
No armor, no steel, no power could shield him from her scrutiny. The air itself seemed to solidify around him, squeezing his lungs, pressing against his skull.
He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. His limbs were frozen, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm in his chest.
The Priestess, trembling now, lowered her hands and knelt before the Queen, her voice barely above a whisper.
“My Queen… we seek to return this soul to the living, in your name.”
The Nameless Queen said nothing. Instead, she lifted a single hand, and the glow around the altar died instantly, snuffed out like a candle in the wind.
The silence was deafening.
Then, in a voice that was neither loud nor soft but carried the weight of eternity, she spoke.
“No.”
The word was a finality, a verdict from something beyond gods. The sound of it burrowed into Erikson’s skull, setting his nerves ablaze. But it did not end there.
She stepped toward him, her presence an all-consuming abyss. Shadows stretched toward her, drawn to her as if she were the center of the universe. Her gaze never wavered, her cold stare piercing into him like an unrelenting blade.
“You stand at the precipice, Erikson,” she said, her voice layered, echoing across dimensions, whispering in places unseen. “Your actions lead you upon a path from which there is no redemption.”
His throat closed, his knees weakened. The words did not feel like a warning; they were an inevitability, a truth spoken into existence.
The Queen leaned closer, the void of her presence pulling at his very essence. “To tamper with what belongs to him,” she continued, her voice a death knell, “is to incur his wrath. Even I won’t touch what is his.”
Erikson felt his body seize with terror, his thoughts unraveling. There was only one ‘him’ she could mean.
Renaldo.
A force that even the Nameless Queen acknowledged. A being whose claim upon Raziel was absolute.
The Queen straightened, her presence withdrawing only slightly, leaving Erikson gasping in its wake. The chamber remained silent, all eyes turned downward, no one daring to move.
“Leave this place,” she commanded, finality in her tone. “Take what remains, and pray that he does not find you.”
She cocked her head to the side, as if listening to something distant, unseen. A small, almost amused smile ghosted across her lips. “I take that back,” she murmured. “It sounds like Raelith and Capen are here. Perhaps now is a good time for you to flee.”
A flicker of confusion crossed Erikson’s face. He had heard no footsteps, no sounds of approach, yet something in her tone made his stomach knot. He turned sharply to the others. “Take the boy and let’s get out of here.”
The chamber grew impossibly still.
Then, without warning, the darkness coiled around him, pressing against his skin like living chains. A suffocating weight clamped around his throat, his breath seizing in his chest. The presence of the Nameless Queen had vanished, yet the remnants of her power clung to the air like a lingering death knell.
A whisper curled through the room, soft yet sharp as a dagger. “If you want to leave this chamber alive, you will not touch the boy.”
The torches flared back to life, their light flickering wildly as if struggling against an unseen force. But the Queen was gone. What remained was a silence so thick, so absolute, it swallowed the chamber whole. The only sound was the rasp of strained breathing, as though the air itself had been tainted by something unutterably ancient.
Erikson stood frozen, his heart hammering, his mind reeling. His fingers twitched at his sides, but he did not dare move. The command was not just spoken, it had been carved into the very marrow of his bones, a warning that went beyond words.
He had stared into something beyond gods, beyond comprehension, and lived to tell the tale.
But he understood one thing with absolute certainty.
They should have never brought Raziel here.
Erikson turned and staggered out of the chamber of the High Priestess, his breath shallow and erratic. The weight of the Nameless Queen’s warning clung to him like ice, and every step felt like he was moving through water. He needed to leave. Now.
But as he stepped into the grand corridor, he was met with chaos.
Screams echoed through the halls. Magic surged in waves. The stone walls trembled.
At the far end, Raelith carved a brutal path through the royal guard. They had formed a protective line, desperately trying to shield Erikson from the wrath that approached. Their armor gleamed under torchlight, blades drawn, fear behind their eyes, but it was no use.
Raelith was a force of nature.
His emerald blade cut with terrifying precision, cleaving through armor and flesh alike. Magical blasts erupted from his palms, sending shockwaves that cracked stone and shattered shields. Screams echoed down the corridor as bodies were flung like ragdolls. Some guards ran, others died standing, but all fell.
The air thickened with smoke and the stench of scorched metal and blood.
Erikson’s eyes widened as he stumbled back a step, his boots scraping on the cold stone floor.
Then Raelith saw him.
The emerald fire in his eyes flared with wrath. The world seemed to still for a heartbeat.
A tremor of raw fear rippled through Erikson’s chest.
“I WARNED YOU NOT TO TAKE RAZIEL!”
Erikson barely managed to raise his hand in defense when the blast struck. A wave of emerald force surged forward, obliterating the guards around him and slamming Erikson into the stone wall with bone-rattling force. The impact cracked the stone and knocked the air from his lungs.
He slid to the ground, coughing, stunned, his vision spinning. His ears rang from the blast, but even through the haze, he saw Raelith advancing, slow, deliberate, each step echoing with righteous vengeance.
Raelith stepped over the last fallen guard, emerald magic still crackling along his arms. His gaze locked onto Erikson, and with a scream of raw rage, he raised his blade.
“You stole him,” Raelith growled, his voice now low and venomous. He lowered his blade as he issued a deathly warning “I will ensure your death.”
The blade was raised again, shimmering with lethal intent.
Erikson, bleeding and broken, braced himself. He knew he would not survive the next strike.
Raelith snarled, emerald fire surging along his arm. With a roar, he brought his blade down toward Erikson.
The strike never landed.
His blade collided with a shimmering blue shield that flared to life between them. The impact sent a shockwave down the corridor, crackling with divine energy. Sparks of blue and green scattered across the stone as the force rebounded, forcing Raelith back a step.
“Damn you, Renaldo!” he spat, eyes blazing with fury.
Erikson blinked, realizing the shimmering wall had saved his life. The Queen’s warning still burned in his mind, but now it offered protection. He coughed a laugh, blood trailing from his lips, and looked up at Raelith with a crooked smile.
“You can’t touch me,” he rasped mockingly. “Not while he watches.”
Raelith tried to step forward, but the shimmering blue shield held him back. His fury boiled just beneath the surface, his fists clenched, magic crackling along his arms, but Erikson kept talking, feeding the fire with every breath.
“Your precious Raziel… he’s not yours anymore. He’s lying cold on the altar of the Nameless Queen. A trophy.”
Raelith froze. A flicker of doubt crossed his face, followed by something deeper. Horror.
“Liar.”
“Go see for yourself,” Erikson whispered, voice like poison. “Go find your dead friend.”
Caspen appeared beside Raelith, his expression unreadable. Without another word, the two descended into the chamber of the High Priestess, vanishing into the darkness below.
They found Raziel exactly where Erikson had said, his lifeless body laid out on the altar, dimly lit by dying candles and the faint, residual glow of forbidden runes.
Raelith’s breath caught. His knees weakened.
“No…” he muttered.
Desperation overwhelmed his fury. He staggered to the altar, falling beside Raziel.
Then, trembling with fear and rage, he raised his hands and screamed into the void:
“RENALDO!”
The chamber trembled, shadows recoiling from the sheer force of the invocation.
In the corner, a figure emerged from the shadows, his presence quiet, but commanding. He was clad in flowing robes of royal blue trimmed in radiant gold, the fabric shifting like starlight under the chamber’s dim glow. His boots made no sound as they touched the stone, and his eyes, glowing like frozen sapphire, swept the room with slow, deliberate intensity. The blue-eyed monster. Renaldo.
“Raelith,” he said, his voice low, calm, and dangerous. “You seem upset again.”
Raelith spun to face him, fists clenched, grief and fury warring in his eyes.
“Of course I am! You let him DIE!”
Surprise flickered in Renaldo’s sapphire gaze. He walked slowly toward the altar, eyes scanning Raziel’s lifeless body. His steps were silent, but each one radiated pressure, bending the air with raw power.
As he reached the altar and stood over Raziel, his expression shifted—something rare and unfamiliar. Shock.
Then came the fire.
It did not come all at once. It built slowly beneath his skin like a storm held back by sheer force of will. A sharp intake of breath. A flicker of emotion across his otherwise impassive face.
Then, like a dam breaking, a blinding flash erupted. Blue flames poured from his body, raw and alive. They danced along his arms, climbed his shoulders, and wrapped around his chest. They were sentient. Aware. Vengeful.
They did not burn the chamber. They consumed the silence. They swallowed the space and thickened the dread.
“Raelith. Caspen,” he said, his voice now echoing with divine authority. “You are commanded to find out how this happened. How he managed to kill Raziel. I authorize the use of the Army of Ages. Leave no stone unturned. No soul unbroken.”
“Erikson could not have done this on his own.”
His words hung in the air like a curse, thick and oppressive. The flames that licked his body darkened. They turned midnight blue and curled with tendrils of shadow. They did not simply burn. They devoured the light, casting flickering silhouettes of nightmare creatures along the chamber walls.
The High Priestess fell to her knees in silence, head bowed, trembling beneath the weight of the god that now stood in her sacred chamber. The hooded acolytes backed away, pressing their bodies to the walls, their chants long forgotten. A distant groan echoed from the stone above, as if the citadel itself feared his wrath.
Renaldo’s gaze returned to Raziel’s body. The stillness of it mocked him.
He raised his hands slowly, and the temperature dropped. The altar cracked beneath Raziel’s body, black veins spreading like rot through the stone. Magic surged. It was dark, primeval, and ancient. The same power that once split continents.
“This was not sanctioned,” Renaldo hissed. “This was theft. Desecration. Treason.”
He turned to Caspen and Raelith, his eyes now burning twin orbs of consuming fire.
“You will find the truth,” he growled.
Caspen nodded solemnly. The levity that once lingered in his presence was gone. He often deflected tension with a quip or a wry grin.
He had always served as Raelith’s counterbalance. But now, his eyes were shadowed with grim certainty. As Raelith’s best friend, he felt the weight of this loss not just as an ally, but as a brother-in-arms. And he too wanted blood.
Raelith bowed his head, fists clenched. “We’ll bring you names. And blood.”
Renaldo said nothing more. He turned back to Raziel and knelt beside him. With a reverent silence, he slid his arms beneath the boy’s lifeless form and slowly lifted him from the altar. The blue fire dimmed, flickering gently as if mourning with him.
He turned to Raelith and, without a word, placed Raziel into his arms.
“Take him to Issac,” Renaldo ordered, his voice stripped of emotion, yet heavy with unspoken warning.
Raelith moved quickly, carrying Raziel with the weight of vengeance and grief in every step. Evening shadows stretched long across the forest as they emerged from the shimmering light of a magic portal.
The air was still, unnaturally quiet. Mist curled at their feet, and branches loomed like reaching fingers. Even the crickets had gone silent.
The boy’s body was heavy in his arms. Not just with weight, but with meaning.
Caspen followed without a word. His cloak swept the earth. His face revealed nothing, though his presence spoke of shared sorrow.
Eventually, through the twisted trees and creeping fog, a manor rose from the earth like a slumbering sentinel. Its tall, ivy-clad walls stood proud against the deepening evening sky. The steeply pitched roof, shingled in dark cedar, framed the estate like a timeless crown. Banners fluttered lightly in the breeze, their colors vivid against the green of the surrounding forest.
Wide, arched windows glinted in the golden light, the leaded glass catching the sun and casting delicate reflections across the stone path. Intricate carvings lined the frames. Depictions of gallant knights, mythical beasts, and curling vines. Raziel had never understood them. His father had never spoken of any knights.
The front entrance was flanked by tall columns of polished marble. They supported a grand wooden door adorned with bronze handles shaped like falcons. Above it, a family crest was carved into the stone. A dragon perched on a cliff. Another symbol Raziel had never understood.
Lanterns burned dimly along the overgrown path, casting golden halos in the mist.
In the courtyard, Issac stood brushing his horse, unaware of the storm descending upon him.
“Issac,” Raelith called out, his voice sharp as steel. “I demand your assistance, or I will send you to the underworld myself.”
Issac looked up slowly, at first confused, then struck dumb with horror as his eyes landed on Raziel.
All else fell away.
“What have you done to my boy?!” Issac cried, his brush dropping from his hand as he rushed forward.
He tore Raziel from Raelith’s arms, cradling the boy like a father might a dying son. The horse neighed and pulled at its reins, disturbed by the energy building in the air, but Issac paid it no mind.
Without hesitation, he turned and bolted toward the manor.
Through the door. Down the silent corridor. Past the hearth, where a pot boiled unattended. Each step echoed with desperation.
In a room cluttered with relics and old scrolls, he laid Raziel gently on a velvet couch.
Issac vanished upstairs for mere seconds before returning with a silver staff gripped tight in his hand, ancient runes etched across its shaft.
He began to whisper incantations even as tears streamed freely down his cheeks. The walls trembled. Carved symbols in the wood and stone ignited with glowing sigils.
Raziel took a shallow breath, his chest barely rising.
The staff slipped from Issac’s grip and clattered to the floor. He fell to his knees beside the boy and wrapped his arms around him, his voice breaking with emotion as he whispered Raziel’s name.
Genuine concern twisted across his face. Tears spilled freely from his silver eyes, cutting paths down his cheeks.
But the moment shattered as Raelith stepped closer, his voice a blade.
“You will help us uncover the truth behind Raziel’s death, or be destroyed.”
Issac looked up, fury and fear battling behind his glowing gaze.
“You bring him to me broken and demand obedience?”
Caspen stepped into the room, voice cold. “Xanther’s hand is in this. We know it. And we know you have loyalties to your grandfather.”
A heavy silence settled.
Issac’s gaze fell once more on Raziel. The boy’s pale face, the faint rise and fall of his breath.
He closed his eyes and exhaled. “Then bind me to it. I swear my blood. I’ll help you uncover the truth… and stop Xanther.”
Issac sliced his palm and let the blood drip into the air, where it hovered, glowing, and twisted into a runic brand above Raziel’s head.
Ancient runes shimmered to life around the couch once more as Issac raised his hands. A soft, blue-white light washed over Raziel’s body, encasing his head in a translucent veil.
“His memories are now sealed,” Issac murmured. “Bound in layers of silence and shadow. He will not remember… not yet.”
He placed a hand on Raziel’s chest.
“And I swear,” Issac whispered, more to himself than to the others, “I will not interfere with what must come.”