—Where Names Meant Nothing, and One Meant Everything—
The village of Erl'twig was less a place than a question—an unfinished thought on the map where even the gods seemed reluctant to pause, and mortals knew not to linger. Crooked paths wound like veins through a forest older than memory, stitched by gnarled roots and breathless mist. Here, silence was not absence, but worship.
Something watched.
At dawn, the procession emerged. The sun barely pierced the canopy; light trickled down in thin, hesitant shafts, as if afraid to touch the earth. They stepped from the treeline with regal poise, yet no herald followed—no banners, no sigils, only the quiet folding of the wind.
No prints marked the dew. Birds fell mute. The air stilled. No dust clung to their cloaks, as though the forest itself had bent aside to let them pass.
Whispers ran ahead of them like shadows. A boy claimed he saw a man with sun-gold hair who cast no shadow. A woman swore a veiled priestess had crossed the river without breaking its glass. A bard's song was heard hours before the bard himself arrived.
Even the trees leaned from their path—not by wind, but by reverence, or dread.
They make their way along Erl'twig's narrow lanes, past timber-framed homes hunched together like conspirators. Smoke curled from low chimneys, carrying the scent of peat and boiled root. A blacksmith's hammer rang somewhere deeper in the village, steady and defiant. Merchants, still arranging their stalls for the day's trade, paused mid-motion to stare. Bread hung cooling in open windows; a pair of children abandoned a game of stones to watch the strangers pass, wide-eyed and silent.
Some villagers made the warding sign of Mar'aya in the air, fingers trembling. Others clutched amulets or pressed a palm to the lintels of their doorways. One old man turned his face away entirely, muttering into his sleeve as though reciting a charm against unseen eyes. A young woman, basket in hand, stepped back until her skirts brushed the wall, as if giving the strangers too much space might keep them from noticing her at all.
The street curved toward the open space at the village's edge where the road split—one way vanishing into deeper forest, the other leading to the weathered archway of the outpost where Fort Dawnrise's presence began. This was where Lady Arkeia kept her post—a quiet checkpoint dressed in the trappings of authority, its worn banners stirring faintly in the morning air.
And there she stood.
Daughter of Mar'aya's holy order—chosen in clarity and flame—blocking the way. A stillness of command radiated from her, daring the world to sin. Her armor shone with a low, divine hum; the light haloing her form moved with deliberate intelligence, as if resisting the advance of what approached.
Arkeia lifted her hand, palm steady as a blade held in judgment.
"State your business," she commanded, voice carrying the tempered steel of divine authority. "And answer plainly—do you serve the one called the Promised One?"
The strangers halted as one.
Time lingered between breaths; even the wind seemed to pause, as if reluctant to move between them.
At their head stood a golden man—impossibly handsome, wrapped in a fine traveler's robe that hung too perfectly to be chance. His face was ageless, framed by hair like sunlight remembered in a dream. His smile could calm storms or seduce serpents, yet behind it lay something older, colder—an undercurrent that made the air taste faintly of iron.
His presence felt blessed… and entirely wrong.
Around Arkeia, her Crusaders shifted subtly—hands brushing hilts, boots planting deeper into the earth. Thalos's fingers flexed along the grip of his axe; Edmun's lips moved in a silent, imperfect prayer. One younger knight swallowed hard, his eyes flicking from the golden man to the trees, as though seeking a path that wasn't there.
Among the gathered villagers, a woman clutched her child tighter; an old man spat once into the dirt, then traced a warding sign in the air. Someone dropped a basket of early bread, but no one bent to pick it up.
The golden man's gaze moved over them all—measured, leisurely, as if he were reading a page already written.
Then he bowed with flawless precision, every inch of the gesture rehearsed before the birth of language.
"We are of House Rex. Well, at least my brother and I are—our companions share our nobility by proxy. Simple travelers, seekers, perhaps a touch theatrical. My companions and I are—let's say—on pilgrimage."
The name hit Arkeia like a hot nail to the ribs.
Rex.
The name struck her like a hammer on rusted iron, ringing through the sealed chambers of memory.
Her father—bleeding in chains, rusted links biting deep, eyes hollow yet defiant, an ember refusing the wind. The air smelled of iron and damp stone, a scent that clung to her memory.
Her mother—bent over a basin of cold water, wrists raw from endless labor, the skin of her hands cracked and bloodless. The dim light of the room caught in her hair, silvering it before its time. Her spine was straight despite the weight of exhaustion, her movements deliberate, precise, as though each act of care was a final rebellion. At night, when the world slept, her lips shaped silent prayers over the rim of a chipped cup, knowing they would never reach the goddess she once served.
She had grown beneath the heel of a noble house that ruled with silken cruelties and blade-laced decrees—its smiles as sharp as its punishments. She remembered the hunger, the kind that hollowed the marrow and left the mind sharp with desperation. She remembered the public floggings, carried out in the name of order, each strike met with the crowd's forced, aching silence. And always, that stillness where prayer should have lived—a stillness born not of peace, but of fear that even breath might draw notice.
And then, the tale—her grandmother's voice, low and bitter, each word a splinter driven deeper with age:
They were a decaying family once, child—walls rotting behind their velvet curtains. But they bred abominations and monsters. The worst of them was rarely seen… only born. A boy who vanished, as if the world itself refused to keep him. I saw him once, when I was still a girl. …He was beautiful… and wrong. Beautiful like the stillness before a shadow moves where no shadow should be—when the air thickens, the world tilts, and you realize too late that something unnatural has already noticed you.
The memory bit deep. Her vision burned; her thoughts ached. She felt her goddess stirring behind her eyes, a flare of sacred clarity urging her to act. Her hand went instinctively to her blade, fingers curling over the hilt.
And yet—her resolve was not untouched.
A voice flickered through her thoughts—quiet, layered, uninvited. Not her own. Not wholly divine. It spoke in overlapping murmurs, not to deliver words, but to bend her perception around them. Nothing it said could be held, yet she felt the shape of meaning.
The golden one—the speaker—was cloaked in humble finery. Too modest for royalty, too neat for pilgrims. His face bore no mark of divinity, yet the wind avoided his hair, and the light refused to glare upon him. His robe hung too precisely—as though concealing something vast and folded.
Her instincts turned traitor.
Something in her, beneath even faith, wanted to kneel.
Something is trying to rewrite my perception, she thought.
Her gaze swept over the group.
The first—a raven-haired man with a smile no mother could love—wore his charm like a blade hidden in velvet. His beauty was the kind that crept like mold into the corners of temples: refined in shape, but rotting in spirit. Shadows clung to him as though reluctant to leave, flickering behind him like drunken attendants chasing their master's stride.
Behind him stood a tall, graven figure whose presence was carved from solemn stone. Ashen wings folded tightly against his back like a cathedral's gates sealed for mourning. In his arms, he carried a sleeping girl—not as burden, but as reliquary, sacred and irreplaceable . Reverence hung in his hold, but so did sorrow, a weight that bent his posture with the gravity of memory.
The girl stirred faintly in his arms. Her lashes trembled. Her lips parted in sleep—
And she spoke.
"Galeel… It's not a dream if the forest hears it too…"
The sentence came out sideways, as if the words had waited lifetimes to escape. Then she fell silent again. Her breath shallow. Her skin not cold, not warm—but uncertain.
Beside the winged man moved a bard, his smile both unhinged and tuneful, shaped more by song than joy. His eyes shimmered like wet opals—too many colors in too little space, shifting with unseen tides. A low, ancient hum trembled from his lips, meant for something listening beyond the trees.
A moth landed on his cheek. He kissed it as though sealing a promise.
Near him stood the veiled woman, motionless as a statue carved from dream-bone. Her silence was a hymn. Though her face lay hidden, the air rippled faintly around her, strained by her presence.
Nearby, one of the cats tilted its head, though no one had seen it arrive. Its fur shimmered like oil on glass. It purred, though no sound emerged. Then it vanished—without stepping—folding out of sight like a corner of paper turned inward.
They all appeared normal… but to Arkeia's blessed sight, they shimmered—not illusions, not glamours, but distortions of consensus. Their forms moved correctly but cast wrong shadows. They breathed, but not always in rhythm with the world.
She turned sharply to the raven-haired man.
"You. I've seen your type. You reek of hidden knives and priest's blood. The kind who drinks prophecy like wine and strangles nations with poetry. What are you hiding, snake? Speak truth—what power trails you?"
The man clutched his chest in mock agony, as though her words had pierced straight through the silk of his composure.
"Lady Arkeia, you wound me. I'm but a humble twin of nobility, exiled from love, burdened only with charm and trauma. Surely you don't suspect me?"
"Yes," she said flatly. "I do."
He sighed theatrically, the sound almost a purr.
"Me? I'm but a mere noble. A tourist, if I'm honest. This whole continent is just so… rustic."
His smile spread—slow, deliberate.
"And terribly charming."
"You mock this land with every breath," Arkeia replied, her voice cold as drawn steel. "I can see the predator behind your eyes."
"Oh no," he said with a low chuckle, "you're thinking of my brother."
The grin sharpened, bright enough to catch the dying light.
Arkeia stepped forward, intent to strike with words—
—but before she could speak, the golden man's voice cut in. Smooth. Certain.
His smile was like sunrise over a graveyard: warm enough to deceive, bright enough to blind, and wholly indifferent to the bones beneath.
"Please, forgive Aethon. He was raised among bards and beasts. We're just noble sons on holiday. My brother is incorrigible, but harmless. No destinies. No prophecies. Only mud, maps, and mediocre food."
"Holiday?" Arkeia repeated, the word edged with disbelief.
Her suspicion faltered—not faded, but split like light through glass.
Was Aethon the Promised One, or merely the jester to a deeper king?
"Yes," he said easily. "Simple soul-searching. Nature. Peasant bread. Good times."
"Do you mock me?" Her jaw tightened.
His smile returned—not apologetic, but pleased, as if her distrust were a compliment.
"Mock you? Never. I admire your suspicion—it's almost… charming. The best foreplay is always verbal."
Her gaze flicked between the brothers.
Aethon's innocence was practiced, cut to fit him like a fine coat.
The golden one's composure was seamless, charm flowing so naturally it seemed unmade by human hands.
She could not tell which mask hid the serpent—whose smile was the lure, whose calm the coil.
Perhaps both did, twined together like fangs in the same mouth, waiting for the moment to strike.
A murmur rippled through the nearby villagers. A small crowd had gathered without her noticing, drawn as if by the scent of something dangerous. One of them gasped—an old woman, her hand trembling as she pointed.
"That's Caelinda… the veiled priestess. From Starsong Shrine!"
Eyes widened. Whispers tangled into one another, growing in pitch like a storm gathering just beyond the rooftops. Recognition rippled through the crowd—an unspoken shiver.
"She left weeks ago…"
"No—she vanished."
"I saw her walk into the shrine during the red moon… she never came out."
Caelinda stood unmoving, the veil draped over her like a funeral shroud that had learned to breathe. Her presence was a blade sheathed in silk—its edge unseen, but felt.
"The shrine's priestess… aiding these strangers?"
The villagers' gazes swung to Arkeia, fear glittering behind their reverence.
She clenched her jaw. Her instincts, her vision, her goddess—all urged her toward judgment. And yet… they had done nothing. Not yet.
Before the moment could sharpen further, two figures stepped in beside her—Thalos and Edmun, her captains, their armor whispering against the damp air like the hiss of a drawn blade.
"You… winged one."
Thalos's voice was flat, but his hand rested lightly on the haft of his axe, a question and a warning both. He stepped toward Galeel, eyes narrowed as if measuring not the man, but the silence that seemed to travel with him.
"Why does the lady sleep like the dead?" he asked. "What has been done to her?"
Galeel blinked slowly, the motion deliberate, as if drawn from an older age when every word was a measured tide. His voice, when it came, carried the weight of shorelines worn by centuries.
"She dreams of things we forgot to name," he said. "And she sleeps because to wake would be cruelty. She is not yet ready to stand."
A chord of strange cheer broke the stillness.
"In other words—" the bard chimed in, grinning, "—she rests and sings."
Edmun turned to him, startled. The Bard now cradled a lute in his hands—an instrument that had not been there moments before—fingers idly teasing out a melody that seemed to breathe more than play.
"What music is that?" Edmun asked, his voice wary. "It… bleeds."
The man's smile widened in delight, showing teeth a shade too white, too perfect.
"It's the song Elissa hums in her sleep," he said, nodding toward the girl. "I just borrow the tune."
Before the unease could fester, the golden man stepped forward, voice smooth and amused.
"Please, do excuse Vharn's odd response. He tends to speak in riddles. Bards, right? What can you do."
He said it with the ease of someone defusing a quarrel, yet there was an undertone—something that neither soothed nor provoked, but wrapped the moment in a strange, expectant quiet.
"You're all wrong," Edmun muttered. "Like paintings with the wrong colors."
"General," Thalos said, his tone even but his eyes deliberate, "I think it'd be best if they came with us. For further questioning."
Arkeia caught the look—more than suggestion, less than command. Between them, it was code. She trusted her captain's measure of a threat.
Her voice rose, sharp and resonant with the authority of her goddess.
"Then I decree this: you will come with us to Fort Dawnrise for interrogation—and judgment, if need be."
Aethon swept into a mocking bow.
"We've always wanted to see the inside of a holy prison."
The golden one only smiled, warm as candlelight over a crypt.
"As you wish, Lady Paladin. We do so love a trial. We would be delighted."
He bent at the waist in theatrical grace.
"There will be no incidents," he added gently. "On my honor."
Behind him, in the spaces between breath and silence, the bard murmured to something no one else could see. Galeel's wings shifted in a faint, involuntary twitch, as if remembering air they had once commanded. Somewhere behind them, a tree gave a slow, groaning protest—though not a breeze stirred its branches.
Caelinda tilted her head, the motion slight yet deliberate. Her veil shimmered like heat over a cooling corpse.
And far away, in a shrine still deemed holy, the statues began to weep blood.