Rane's Point of View
The boy sat alone, arms wrapped around his knees, head bowed. He hadn't said a word since Brevil's speech. The other recruits shifted away from him like his silence was something contagious.
Rane watched Khaos from the other side of the tower chamber, his hand resting on the hilt of his blade. There was a familiar stillness around the boy one that made Rane's chest tighten. One that made him remember that day.
Seven years ago.
The night Velmira burned.
The sky was screaming.
That was how Rane remembered it.
The Xylen had broken through.
The cold wind bit through the silence as Rane pushed deeper into the ruined woods, every heartbeat thundering with urgency. Smoke clung to the air like a ghost, curling through the trees, masking the scent of blood and burning bark.
"Shion!" he shouted, voice hoarse from yelling, from panic. "Shion, where are you?!"
He stumbled over cracked roots and fallen branches, his hands scraped, his cloak torn. He didn't care. Every step away from the others was a step closer to her he had to believe that.
And behind that desperate need, lies love feelings for the one called shion.
Shion was light. She was warmth. She joked with him. She teased him. She made him forget he was afraid.
And that made him want to protect her more than anything.
He had been planning to tell her about his feelings . He didn't even know what he would say. Only that after this destruction, when they were safe, when the blood and fire faded he would take her aside and speak from the heart. Maybe she'd laugh. Maybe she'd say nothing.
But maybe, just maybe, she'd stay.
"Rane." A voice behind him, steady. Familiar.
He turned. Rothan stepped out from the shadows, his face tight with concern.
"She's not at the last checkpoint," Rothan said. "We'll find her. But you can'tkeep wondering on your own cadet."
Rane looked down, gripping the hilt of his sword with trembling hands.
"I have to find her," he murmured. "I told her I'd always have her back. And I meant it."
Rothan walked forward, his gloved hand resting gently on Rane's shoulder. "Then let's find her together."
For a moment, Rane's eyes softened. In Rothan's presence, even the fear thinned. That touch calm, anchoring reminded him of why he followed him so loyally. He believed in me. When no one else did after all he was they trainers in the knight's training program.
They moved in silence through the charred woods.
Then they found the clearing.
And everything stopped.
A Xylen hunched low over the ground, its limbs blackened like burnt wood, its red eyes glowing through the smoke. Its jaws moved slowly and mechanically ripping at flesh with wet, cracking sounds.
Beneath it lay what was left of her.
Rane froze. His heart seemed to stop mid-beat. A hand slender, bloodied stretched lifeless from the rubble. A strand of black hair, soaked and matted with blood, clung to the edge of a shattered helmet.
"Shion…"
He stepped forward.
Then fell to his knees.
"No…"
Rothan grabbed his arm, pulling him back, shielding him as the Xylen raised its head and growled low. But Rane didn't care. He didn't move.
His body felt hollow. Numb.
The world bled into darkness.
She was gone.
He had been so focused on seeing her smile again, hearing her voice again, just finding her that he never once considered this.
Rothan's voice reached him through the void, but it felt so far away.
Shion was gone.
And the words Rane had rehearsed in his mind, the confession he had waited for the right moment to give...
Were now nothing more than ash in the wind.
The Xylen snarled after noticing them with r
Rane still on his knees and it lunged at Rothan, but the knight moved like a shadow his blades flashing, drawing black blood with each strike. Yet even with all his skill, this was no ordinary beast. It was a xylen after all. The beast of myths
Rane, half-dazed, dragged himself up from where he had been kneeling. His vision blurred, ears ringing but he could still see her.
Shion's body, or what was left of it, sprawled in the Xylen's wake.
He staggered forward, grief burning hotter than the pain. His sword felt heavy in his grip, but he raised it anyway.
"Stay down, Rane!" Rothan called again. "You can't fight like that."
"I don't care!" Rane yelled back, voice cracked with rage and anguish. "It took her! It took her from me!"
The beast turned to him, lips curling, mouth steaming with dark mist.
It pounced.
Rane swung
but not fast enough.
The Xylen's claw slashed across his face, a burning line of agony tearing from the bridge of his nose down across his right cheek and jaw. Blood burst from the wound, hot and blinding.
He dropped to one knee, screaming.
"RAANE!"
Rothan darted in with a fury he rarely showed, leaping onto the beast's back and driving both swords down into its neck. The Xylen thrashed, howling, flinging him off but Rothan landed in a roll, already lunging again.
Through the haze of pain, Rane forced himself upright. His face slick with blood, the world spinning but he still held the sword.
And he still remembered her.
With a final, raw scream, Rane ran forward. Rothan parried a wild swing from the Xylen, opening its chest and Rane drove his blade straight through its glowing red eye, the same eye that had watched Shion die.
The Xylen shrieked, body convulsing, black ichor gushing in all directions. Its legs gave out.
It hit the ground and didn't rise.
Rane dropped beside it, blood pouring from his face. He barely noticed Rothan at his side, pressing cloth against his wound.
"You're losing too much blood," Rothan said, panic behind his steady voice. "You need to stay awake look at me, Rane. Look at me."
But Rane was shaking. Not from pain—from grief.
"She's gone," he whispered. "And I never got to tell her."
Rothan swallowed hard, then leaned in close, voice low and firm.
"She knew. She always knew."
Rane's vision blurred again not from the wound this time, but from the tears finally falling.
As the sun dipped low behind the trees and the ash swirled around them, the boy who had once hoped for love was gone.