Arc 2: Chapter 7: Golden Elder, Briar Brother
I woke with a start, unsure at first of what had ripped me from sleep. I thought I was dreaming still, for a moment — as I got my bearings. The left side of my face itched, more than usual. Fire, a molten shade of angry gold, filled my vision, searing my eyes.
Then something flew across the room and crashed against the wall a foot from my head. A decanter of water. It drenched me, but I had no attention to pay a bit of damp. Maxim was up, and he stumbled through the room, gibbering nonsense. His graying hair hung wild around his ravaged face, sweat darkened his night shirt, and his eyes—
They burned. Golden flame filled the old knight’s eyes, spilling out in flickering bursts. I could smell burning flesh, see his skin blistering around the blazing sockets. He turned to me, opened his mouth, and more of that gold flame was in it.
“I did not break faith!” Maxim wailed at me, clawing at the air. His nails were bloody. “I did not! I did not heed him! I would have stopped it, I would have stopped it.”
His words echoed with auratic power. The man’s blazing eyes went to the hearth, and up, alighting on the sword there. He grit his teeth, trapping the fire inside for a moment. When he spoke again, more plumes burst forth like a wyrm’s spit. “I must show them. I will redeem myself.”
He went for the sword. I leapt to my feet and was across the room in an instant, grabbing him. The old man snarled and struck at me, catching me in the teeth. He was hellish strong — even bent with ill health, he’d been near as tall as me and just as strong once. One of my teeth cracked. I hissed in pain, managed to get the man’s arms in my grip, and took him to the ground.
“Enough!” I snapped into his ear. “Enough, captain. The war is over, we’re not in Seydis.”
“I will kill them!” Maxim twisted like an injured beast, spitting gilded flame with every word. “Alicia, Ghislain, Hildebres, Lishan, all of those traitors, those butchers!”
“They’re dead!” I didn’t know if it was true, not for certain, but I shouted the words anyway. “They’re all dead, Maxim! It’s just us.”
“They killed him,” the old man sobbed. His struggles had become less frantic. Molten tears carved wounds into his cheeks. “Queen of Heaven, they killed him. He was so beautiful. I’m so sorry, your majesty. I did not know.”
In that moment, the old man’s memory filled my own vision, overlapping with my own, as the maimed oaths hammered into both our souls flared as one. I could still see it, clear as clean water. A royal elf, crowned in holly and gold, kneeling on a marble floor. A dozen blades ran him through. His blood ran like rivers along the platform’s many depressions, painting the images carved there red.