The Primeval Era

Damian’s grip tightened further.

But the words had already been said!

They had already carved themselves into his consciousness with edges sharper than any blade. They had already begun to reshape everything he thought he understood about that night, about his survival, about the eight years that followed!

Oh!

Mana boiled around him.

His human body blazed with blue-gold flames that erupted without conscious command. His beast form roared behind him, nine tails lashing with violence that sent crystalline shards flying in every direction. The cavern itself seemed to respond to his anguish, walls trembling, floor cracking, ceiling groaning under pressure that had nothing to do with physical force.

It felt like a volcanic eruption.

Power that had been building throughout the confrontation finally found release in forms that defied containment. The very earth of the Cradle of First Flames shuddered as its entity experienced emotions that transcended mere anger!

Damian roared!

The sound emerged from both throats, human and beast, a harmony of grief and fury that echoed off walls and penetrated stone and reached upward toward the paradise above. It was not a battle cry and it was not a threat. It was the sound of something breaking inside a being who had already lost so much and had just discovered he had lost even more.

His Ama’s soul was still intact.

She had never joined the Ancestors.

She was in the hands of demons this whole time!

For eight summers, her essence had burned in whatever hellish place demons kept their prizes, suffering torments he couldn’t imagine while he had been hiding in the Threshold Lands. For eight summers, she had endured alone while he had been pretending to be a Dross farmer, surviving rather than fighting, hiding rather than searching.

Eight years.

His mother had been a prisoner of demons for eight years!

And he hadn’t known.

He hadn’t even suspected.

The guilt crashed over him like a wave capable of drowning mountains. The rage followed immediately after, fury directed at himself as much as at the enemies who had orchestrated this atrocity. His hands squeezed tighter around Sir Alex’s throat, the urge to simply crush this being’s windpipe and be done with it nearly overwhelming.

But he stopped.

Oh.

"..."

Damian waved his hand.

The gesture was sharp and dismissive, a motion born of emotions he may no longer be able to control. The golden chains binding Sir Alex responded immediately, dragging the broken figure across the cavern and suspending him alongside the other Imperators. Their bodies hung in a row against the crystalline wall, ruined forms that had once commanded armies and terrorized the weak.

Now they were nothing but prisoners awaiting judgment.

Damian remained where he was.

His beast form settled onto the cavern floor behind him, massive body curling around his human form in a protective arc. The nine tails grew still. The Crown of Kingship dimmed its rotation. Even the flames dancing through the golden mane seemed to quiet.

He sat down on cold stone.

His legs simply stopped supporting him, strength bleeding away as the weight of revelation pressed down. He sat in the dim blue light of crystalline formations, surrounded by enemies he had broken, in a cavern beneath a paradise he had created.

And he thought of his Ama.

Her face surfaced in his memory with clarity that made his chest ache. That gentle smile she had worn when teaching him.

She had fought for him that night, and now she was burning.

Why...did he not fight for her?

For eight summers, her soul had been held in the Lands of Demons. For eight summers, she had endured torments he couldn’t imagine, suffering at the hands of creatures whose cruelty exceeded anything the mortal world could produce. For eight summers, she had been alone in darkness while he...

While he had been hiding.

Something wet landed on the stone between his feet.

Damian stared at the small dark spot with confusion that lasted only a moment before he understood. His hand rose to his face, fingers touching moisture that shouldn’t have been there.

He was crying?

For the first time in days, he was crying again? Was he so weak?!

"..."

He couldn’t speak.

There were no words adequate for what he was feeling, no language capable of expressing the collision of grief and guilt and rage that churned inside him. His mouth opened and closed without sound, throat constricted around emotions that refused to become speech.

He thought of his pure, innocent Ama undergoing torture.

He thought of her burning in the hands of demons this whole time.

And he couldn’t help but feel the guilt of every single day he had lived as a farmer.

Every morning he had woken in that simple hut. Every day he had tended Dross crops and pretended to be something less than what he was. Every night he had gone to sleep telling himself that survival was enough, that staying hidden was the right choice, that revenge could wait until he was ready.

While she suffered.

While she burned.

While demons did things to her soul that he couldn’t bear to imagine.

Why didn’t he try to Persevere eight summers ago?

He had the Primordial Tongue now. He had Doctrines that defied everything. He had power that could massacre armies and create paradises and challenge beings of many decades of power!

If he had discovered this eight summers ago, he could have accomplished so much.

If he had found that letter of Persevere in those first desperate days after escaping the capital, if he had pushed instead of hidden, if he had fought instead of survived...

Could he have saved her?

Could he have crossed the River of the World and torn through whatever demons stood between him and his mother?

Could he have brought her home before eight years of torment had accumulated?

If he had just...

Oh!

The tears fell freely now.

They streamed down his face without restraint!

He had been strong for so long.

He had maintained composure through the discovery of his resurrection, through the battles that followed, through the creation of his Doctrines and the expansion of his power. He had been cold and calculating and imperial, the prince his parents had raised him to be.

But right now, in this cavern beneath the earth, surrounded by broken enemies and crystalline light, he was just a boy who missed his mother.

A boy who had learned she was suffering.

A boy who blamed himself for not saving her sooner.

The tears fell, and he let them fall.