The Forsaken Hero

The sudden, crippling cold forced me back into my body, and I awoke with a gasp. Sweat streaked my body, yet I was racked with chills, shivering so violently that I’d already exhausted what little strength I’d managed to recover from resting. It felt as though I was back in the slave wagon in the middle of a snowstorm, frost coating my hair and fingers turning numb with frostbite.

The fact that I’d regained consciousness at all was surprising. I’d half expected myself to drift deeper into the darkness, perhaps never to wake up. But the thought brought less fear than I expected, my heart so filled with sorrow that there wasn’t room for much else.

The two apostles were gone, vanished without a trace. They claimed to be scouting out the fort while I rested, but I found it much more likely they were fleeing, getting as far away from the city as possible. Everything I’d seen, all the inconsistencies in their behavior, made their intentions clear. I was too unstable to keep in the camp, too dangerous to their army. But unleashing Haven here? Suddenly, an intimidating fortress and overwhelming defenses became a deathtrap where the shadows themselves did the dirty work.

The realization hit me with the force of a physical blow. I had been used, manipulated, and abandoned. And in the process, I had become an instrument of destruction, a harbinger of death for an entire city. The weight of it all was crushing, and I felt a sob rise in my throat.

Why did it have to be Luke? Was this Fate’s way of teaching me I had made a mistake? That trying to trust someone would only end in suffering?

No, that wasn’t fair to him. Luke wasn’t anything like Soltair. The Sun Hero promised me everything, from love to protection, yet had sold me to a monster the moment I became inconvenient. Luke hadn’t promised me anything, and had made it very clear he would do anything to bring his vengeance down on the gods. I wasn’t betrayed, I was sacrificed. All Luke had done was to keep his word.

But that didn’t make me feel any better, and I curled up, shivering. Tears began to trickle down my cheeks. I had been fooled by our entanglement into trusting him. I thought he felt the same as I, that there was something binding us together. I didn’t know what it was or what I had actually felt for him, but it had obviously been a lie.

The room filled with swirling shadows, billowing out like black mist. The cold within my body wasn’t just a feeling anymore, either. Small swirls of frost coated every surface, creeping across the sheets and growing on the walls. Though my wards kept the literal cold from touching me, the bitter chill within only rose, until my breath came in shallow gasps, my mana far away and slippery.

It appeared before I fully registered it, standing halfway between me and the door—a Remnant.

It didn’t materialize out of shadow or rise up from the floor. It was just there. Its aura hit me like a wave, momentarily suppressing even my shivers. Without seeing its soul, its level was difficult to determine, but it felt close to the beginning stages of the sixth circle.

With a growing sense of dread, I waited for it to turn its head and reach for the sword I could see hanging from its belt. It took a step, but not towards me. And when its foot landed, it dissolved into a cloud of darkness and flowed forward like living water, seeping beneath the crack in the door. Then it was gone, leaving me alone again.

At least until the screams started. The entire inn shuddered as an explosion roared outside, and then three more Remnants were in the room. These ones didn’t bother leaving so peacefully. One took its sword to the wall, releasing a wave of energy that blew apart the thick stone, tearing a hole to the streets outside. Another did the same to the ceiling, and I cried out as fragments of wood and stone rained down on me, one slashing a shallow cut across my cheek.

The sound drew the attention of the third. It turned towards me and raised what seemed to be a spear. I grasped at my mana, trying to form my wards, but the bitter chill of my soul froze the runes before they could form a circle.

The other two Remnants had vanished, replaced by several more who similarly departed, while the one with the spear just stared at me, its glowing red eyes locked with mine.

”Xiviyah!”

I heard a distant shout amidst the screams and explosions echoing outside, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the Remnant. It hadn’t moved, just standing there like a silent sentinel. I didn’t know whether to be more surprised that they were capable of intelligent action like this or that its focus seemed to be outside the room. Perhaps it deemed me harmless, or maybe it understood that my survival was crucial to their purpose. If the city’s defenders tracked the Remnants to this inn, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill me to try and sever the source of the remnants.

As more and more of them materialized within the room, a chilling realization dawned on me. The shadows and mists grew more tangible with every passing second, carrying with them the same unsettling wrongness that permeated Haven. This wasn’t just a simple influx of Remnants; it felt as though the realm itself was descending upon Enusia, its mysterious laws attempting to overwrite the reality of the world.

If that were to happen, the catastrophe I had desperately tried to prevent would return with a vengeance, compounded many times while isolated by Haven. The rift had surely grown to the point where the consequences were impossible to predict, but with Remnants free to roam and wreak havoc, millions would surely perish. And that was the best-case scenario, assuming the world itself wasn’t torn asunder by the strain on Fate.

The faces of my friends flashed through my mind—Elise and R’lissea waiting for me to return, Korra with her head resting on Gayron’s shoulder. I didn’t have much hope for myself, but I couldn’t allow them to see their world destroyed.

My hands curled into fists, clutching the sheets tightly as I brought my entire soul down on the conduit with Haven. It became apparent right away that I wasn’t strong enough to close it entirely, but the realization came by way of an interesting discovery.

From the moment I’d first awoken in the demon camp, my strength, mana, and even concentration had been severely limited. Before today, the best I had managed was a full day of wakefulness, but R’lissea claimed I’d slept for almost two weeks straight after that, just recovering. Today, even after inventing a new spell with the Life Hero and traveling through the mountains and city, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. There were countless distractions and moments of fear, yet they lost their importance in the face of the need to rest, barely managing to renew my strength for a few minutes at a time.

R’lissea had theorized it had something to do with recovering from the sunpurge, but even she’d been skeptical. Inwardly, I’d suspected it was related to Haven, but only now was I proven right. It wasn’t that I was weak or suppressed, or even my soul tired. No, if anything, I was stronger than ever.

It was just that, as I tried to bring my strength against Haven, I found I had nothing else to give. Sometime after Fyren pulled me from Haven, the realm had begun to revolt, unable to contain itself just within my soul. Unconscious at the time, my soul had reflexively worked against it, like a dam against a flood. It hadn’t ceased the entire time since then, so constant I hadn’t even noticed something was off when I awoke, attributing it to simple weakness.

It was simply a new state of being. The brief periods of wakefulness I had weren’t due to fluctuating strength, but to my body and soul desperately hoarding enough energy to grant me a few precious hours of consciousness. Perhaps that constant stress was also the reason behind my continued growth and the increase I saw in the level of my soul even when I was unconscious.

In essence, I had been holding back an entire realm with the sheer force of my will, a constant struggle that had consumed my every waking moment.

Unfortunately, my body and soul had reached their limit. Had I known this before, I would have seen what happened in the demon war council as an early warning, but now it was too late. There would be no more containing the rift, and whatever destruction it brought with it. I could only be grateful there was no pain, just the steadily growing chill that would soon steal the last of my life away.

As Remnant after Remnant materialized and disappeared into the city beyond, the distant chorus of explosions and screams grew louder, a haunting symphony of pain and death. I lay paralyzed from the cold, shivering and helpless, unable to do anything but suffer from guilt and depression.

Why had Luke done this to me? Had he really needed to pretend to care about protecting me, or to carry me when I got tired? If he just planned to abandon me, why make me feel like I could rely on him?

The questions piled up with every scream and cry for help that drifted into the destroyed inn. It was all my fault. I had trusted an apostle, whose stated purpose was destroying this world. What else had I even expected to happen? That Luke would actually keep his word and spare the innocent?

The explosions had been growing more distant as the Remnants spread out into the city, but now some were drawing closer, as if backtracking. Had they found terrified civilians hiding in their homes, returning to finish the job? Or were the city’s defenders pushing back, coming to kill me and sever the link to Haven? Or maybe... could he have...? No.

I ruthlessly crushed the flicker of hope. Even now, after he had abandoned me, why couldn’t I hate him? Luke was gone; he wasn’t coming back for me. He’d accomplished his mission, and once this city was reduced to rubble, he would gain countless reinforcements from the demon gates. He wouldn’t spare a single thought for the cost of sacrificing me. It was simply the price of victory, one he had gained by simply neutralizing a threat to his demon army.

I had to believe that. Otherwise, it hurt too much. He was gone, and I would soon–

A terrifying aura swept through the room, driving all thoughts and questions from my mind. The pressure was stifling, suffocating even, yet I forced my muscles to move, desperately raising myself into a sitting position. My body groaned in protest, but I had to see it for myself. Was it an inquisitor come to end me, or had the remnant in Fate’s cathedral finally arrived?

What I hadn’t expected was a dark-robed figure standing with a black knife in hand. Or the familiar dark horns curved above his dark hair, and the black tail twitching with anger. But most of all, the eighth level soul blazing with power, the soul I knew almost as well as my own.

”Why?” I whispered, tears filling my eyes. ”Why did you come back?”