The Song of Two

“Caden. We’ve waited for you. Far longer than I could have ever imagined.”

Seredain’s voice cuts through the stillness, steady yet weighted with purpose. “It’s only now that I’ve been restored that I truly remember the function of this place. And now, I’m here to finish what I began. The Flamepool has deemed the time has come. As High Flamewarden, I am bound to remind you of what you once knew, and to convince you to honour our arrangement.”

He speaks as if we are old friends. But that cannot be. I meet his gaze, and for an instant, I see not the warrior before me, but the man he once was. The Mirukai no longer stands at his side, but his bride eternal. Their laughter rings out across the daisy fields as he chases his two daughters through the sunlit bloom.

Then the Mirukai screeches and the image dies in my chest, leaving only the dull ache of shame and despair.

“What are you saying, Seredain? What arrangement?”

“This place, known to many throughout the ages as the Flamepool, The Waters of Destiny. But it was not always warped by time and bound to the threads of fate. It was once my home, a lush countryside of rolling hills that cradled the clouds in the cool morning light. A kingdom unlike any other, with silver towers gleaming against the sky, rising high into the clouds and sinking deep below the earth. Not a castle, but a fortress of silver glass.”

As Seredain speaks, the black void surrounding us begins to shift, as if colour is bleeding in from beyond the darkness. A blinding light engulfs us. I shield my eyes, but it breaks through regardless. Then I hear it, a bustling market alive with voices. The world outside glows with vibrant life and colour.

I lift my eyes and find myself standing at the centre of a courtyard worthy of kings. Its floor is a grid of black and white marble, but beneath it must lie rich soil, for towering trees spread their boughs overhead. Their blossoms of pink and yellow bathe the courtyard in the soft warm light of a spring evening. And beyond the canopy, a night sky stretches so deep and rich with stars it feels almost imagined.

I turn and look up. Above me towers a fortress of silver glass, catching starlight like a gateway to the heavens themselves.

Even the Mirukai holds a stunned gaze, peering up at the wonder before us. Then I see her expression shift to sadness, as if a memory had risen to wound her. Seredain’s voice cuts through the market’s buzz like a spear through flesh, “This is Thalrindor, once known to many as, The Argent Bastion. But to you, it is The Cracked Fortress.”

The crowd swells to life as singing begins to hum across the air. I feel Zephyr’s steady breeze spin and swirl beside me, locking in rhythm with the music. A song, long forgotten. Or from another life.

The words are of an ancient language, yet familiar, and I feel the irresistible pull towards home once more. The melody rises on the wind, as if Zephyr guides the sound towards me. And then I hear it… They sing of Vaelor, the Emberbound.

Guardian eternal, tethered by fate to her soul.
 Should she fall, so shall he. Yet until that hour,
 He walks the path between ash and eternity.

He is yet to come, lost still in unwritten time.
 But he and she shall stand where the world breaks,
 To deliver the Night’s Edge to its final bearer.
 For Gloomsheer will stand at the end of time,
 Singing a chorus of the dead.

Seek the last blood of the shadow wolf,
 O legend long unbidden.
 You and your Bride Eternal,
 Shall stand beside those who fight at the dying of the light.

The song lingers in the air like embers caught on the wind, stirring something ancient within me. I swallow the lump in my throat and turn to Seredain, searching his face for meaning.

“Why are we here?” I ask. “What does the Flamepool want from us?”

Seredain’s gaze drifts upward toward the sky, as though he’s stealing one last look before the end. A quiet breath escapes him. When he speaks again, his voice carries the weight of rehearsed truth, as if he has spoken these words to the void a thousand times before.

“Thalrindor,” he begins, “once stood as humanity’s greatest bastion. A kingdom of silver and glass, born from unity and brilliance. But it became the very seed of its collapse. Greed festered in its heart, ambition rotted its roots, and those who held power turned upon one another.”

His eyes harden. “At the height of Thalrindor’s rise, clashes erupted with the immortals of the Spiralling Towers, and among them, their leader, the Magnum Opus. In his hunger for power, he led an assault upon Thalrindor. And in his folly, he shattered the seal upon a mythical power… one bound within a blade unlike any other. A weapon forged to mirror both creation and destruction. The Sword of Myth.”

Seredain sighs, pausing to look at the Mirukai, who remains locked in awed stillness, as if memories of a lost past flicker behind her eyes.

“This is where our stories collide, Caden. In truth, my story is yours… as yours is mine. We are of one blood, you and I, from an age long buried beneath the turning of the world. Within eternity, all that can be, will come again. Myself, Serenya, you, and your priestess… we are bound through the ages to the first of men. And so we carry their burden, until the next of us rises.”

Seredain’s words strike me like a dagger to the heart; sharp, inevitable. Yet the feeling is familiar, expected, as if I’ve lived this moment a thousand times before.

“There are always two, Caden. And only ever two. For that sword will sing a chorus of the dead at the world’s ending… and its song will be carried by the bond of every two who came before.”

The weight of his words settles over me like ash. This is no mere tale, this is memory given form.

“There is one last task you must complete before you can continue.” Seredain pauses, his eyes fixed on the Mirukai, as though glimpsing the woman buried beneath the beast. “You now stand within a gravity well. The Black Seal of Erethon. Its purpose is to ensure the compliance of the next sword-bearer. There is no escape except to spill the blood of your previous self and rise from the ashes. For we are bound in service to the blade and its duty. Our voices will be with you at the end, Caden.”

The memory folds away like ash caught on the wind, leaving his words behind, heavy as stone.

The Mirukai snaps from her trance the instant danger touches the air. She thrashes against her shadowed bonds, but they do not yield.

“You dragged me here against my will!” she screams. “You tore me from my daughters, and now you’ve finally come for my life! Release me, Seredain!” Her thrashing is wild, desperate. Not to attack, but to flee.

I see the fierceness in her eyes as she cries out for her children. “Sylverra, Ashyra! Please, Seredain… where are my children? I just want to hold them one last time.”

Her tears betray her fury, revealing the raw depth of her suffering. I take a step toward her, but her eyes snap to me like a cornered beast’s, wild and desperate.

Is this what awaits Zephyr and me? To stand at the edge of the world, bound by duty, forced to cut down the ghosts of who we were?

I stand motionless, unable to reconcile what is real. And yet, somewhere deep within me, I know this to be truth.

The silence that follows is heavier than any blade. I look between Seredain and Serenya, caught in the web of their choices, their sacrifices. It’s not just their story I’m witnessing, it’s a mirror held to my own future.

A shiver crawls through me, not from fear, but from the quiet understanding that some paths were laid long before I ever walked them.

“Seredain, I… Is this the fate that awaits Zephyr and me? At the end? If… we are the same…”

Seredain cuts me off sharply.

“No! We are all carved from the same stone, but each face is different. Mine and Serenya’s fate was unavoidable. The world as we knew it was falling. Great wars broke out, and by the end, so much blood had been spilled that neither side would cease, because to stop would mean admitting that all that death was for nothing. So they fought to the last man. And when the slaughter ended, a single figure sat upon the throne in silence… before taking his own life.”

His voice tightens.

“It wasn’t long after that the mythic power sealed within the Sword of Myth began to twist the land and everything in it.”

His eyes find the Mirukai’s. No, Serenya’s, and the pain in his gaze hits like a blade.

 “I had no choice,” he says quietly. “I gathered the remaining warriors of the Ninth House and brought Serenya here. The world had become too dangerous. If Gloomsheer had fallen into the wrong hands, the final battle would have been lost before it began.”

He breaks eye contact with Serenya. “She wouldn’t come with me. She wouldn’t leave the children. But if we had stayed, we would have lost everything, not only our lives, but the legacy of all who came before us. I don’t know what awaits you at the end, Caden, but I do know this: you are the last of us. You will stand with the wolf’s pack at the twilight of the world.”

His gaze lifts to meet mine, and for a moment there’s awe in his eyes, as if a long-forgotten prophecy has manifested before him.

“I see it in you both,” he says softly. “To stand against Serenya, even as a Mirukai, at your age, that is the stuff of legend. And Zephyr, your priestess, though imprisoned within her own mind, her power stands beside you even now. You are drawn to one another like flame to wind.”

Seredain clears his throat, and for the first time, I hear a tremor in his voice. “It’s time, Caden. Go find her. Finish what you came to do. Strike swift and true, my friend. We will be with you until the end. Make us proud.”

Before I can respond, he looks away and calls to his bride eternal. “Serenya… look at me. Please.”

She flails against her bonds, screaming, not words, just raw fear and agony. Seredain’s face hardens. He reaches out to her, but Serenya recoils like a wounded animal.

Then, his voice softens, pleading. “Caden… please. Release us from this torment.”

He turns back to her one last time. “Serenya, I love you…”

Zephyr’s breeze flows over my hand, tightening my grip around Gloomsheer’s hilt.

The blade reacts in turn, a low pulse running through the steel, as if it too anticipates what must come next.