The laughter came again.
It was light, high, innocent—yet in the stillness of the deep forest it twisted the air like a knife. It was a child's laugh, the kind that should have belonged to games in a sunlit courtyard, not to this black tangle of trees where no bird dared sing.
The sound rooted the search party in place. Torches sputtered. Men glanced at one another, white-faced, as if to confirm they had all heard the same thing.
Madeleine's lips trembled. Her lantern quivered in her hands, spilling weak circles of light onto the gnarled roots. "That's him," she whispered hoarsely. "That's my boy. My Rogue…"
Guillaume de Braye raised his hand, halting the column. The scar across his cheek caught the torchlight as he scanned the trees, sword raised. His voice was hard as iron. "Stay sharp. That sound is bait if ever I heard it."
But even he could not halt the tide that swept the others. Hope. Desperate, fragile hope.
Servants strained forward with wide, fever-bright eyes. Guards clutched their weapons tighter, as if courage alone could shield them from the dread curling through the trees. The priests pressed sunburst pendants to their lips, muttering invocations that trembled like leaves in a storm.
Still, the laughter beckoned.
They pushed forward.
The forest pressed in with every step, branches snatching at their cloaks, shadows twisting unnaturally in the torchlight. The silence was too complete—no insects, no wind, only their breath and boots crunching leaves.
And then the trees fell back.
The party stumbled into a clearing, breath catching as one.
At its center stood the boy.
Rogue.
He was small in the vastness of the clearing, his red hair glinting like fire in the torchlight. But it was not his hair that stopped their hearts—it was the glow. His entire body shimmered faintly, golden light spilling from his skin as if he were a lantern lit from within. The light pulsed like a heartbeat, expanding and contracting, rippling across the grass in waves that pushed the shadows back.
His arms hung limp, his face pale, his eyes wide and shining far too brightly for any mortal child. He looked both fragile and unearthly, like a statue of glass lit by a sun hidden within.
"Rogue!" Madeleine's cry broke the spell. She surged forward, relief and terror crashing together in her chest. For one blessed heartbeat, she believed she could reach him, sweep him into her arms, carry him back to safety.
But the world split open.
A seam tore in the air above the boy, jagged and black, as though night itself had been ripped down to earth. From it poured a ray of shadow, a spear of writhing Dark Origin that blotted out every torch, every prayer.
The priests shrieked, stumbling back. "Darkness! Dark Origin!"
The hunters flinched, their leather creaking, eyes wide with naked fear. Even Guillaume, veteran of a dozen campaigns, went pale as he shoved a squire behind him. "Hold your ground!" he bellowed, though his voice cracked. "Hold!"
The ray crashed downward.
But it did not strike.
The golden glow around Rogue flared, swelling into a dome of light. The black spear slammed into it with a shriek like iron on iron. The earth buckled beneath the impact, soil cracking, roots ripping free. Half the clearing was drenched in searing gold, the other in writhing black.
The boy's body arched. His small hands clenched, trembling as though straining against chains. His eyes blazed like molten suns, every breath rattling from him a cry of defiance.
The priests fell to their knees, weeping, faces pressed to the ground. "He is chosen!" one cried, voice shrill with terror. "The Light shields him! The Sun God shields him!"
The guards stood frozen, torn between awe and dread. The hunters exchanged looks of raw disbelief; none had ever seen such a clash. Guillaume's jaw was clenched so tight his teeth ground.
But Madeleine… Madeleine saw only him.
Her boy. The child she had bathed, scolded, coaxed to sleep. The boy who sulked when kept within walls, who sneaked wooden swords to spar with guards twice his size. Her little lord, her little light—standing alone beneath a sky ripped open by shadow.
No one moved.
So she did.
"Madeleine!" Guillaume roared, voice hoarse with fury as she tore forward. "Stop! Are you mad?!"
She did not hear him. Or rather, she refused to. The world narrowed to one point: the boy's wide, burning eyes fixed on hers.
She ran. Skirts tangled and tore, thorns clawed her legs, but she did not stop. Her lantern fell from her hand, glass shattering on stone. Flames sputtered out, leaving her lit only by torchlight and the searing glow ahead.
"Rogue!" she screamed, voice cracking with the force of it. "Hold on, mon petit! Hold on!"
The boy's lips parted. His throat strained, but only a weak gasp came. His eyes burned, molten, pleading.
She hurled herself into the path of the Dark.
The ray struck.
The impact was cataclysm. A blinding flare tore through the clearing, white-gold colliding with abyssal black. Madeleine's scream cut through it, raw and piercing, as the shadow ate her alive.
Her body unraveled. Flesh and bone dissolved into drifting ash, stripped away by the Dark. For one impossible instant she burned brighter than the torches, her silhouette made of pure light.
Still, she spread her arms wide, shielding the boy.
The priests sobbed openly. One clawed at the ground, nails ripping, as though he could drag her back from death by sheer will. Guards cried out in horror, stumbling back, faces pale with sickness. Even the hunters—men hardened to blood and death—could only gape as her sacrifice tore them to their knees.
Guillaume surged forward with a roar, sword raised, but the ground itself split beneath the clash of powers. He skidded to a halt, eyes wide with helpless rage.
"Gods damn it!" he bellowed, his voice breaking.
Rogue screamed.
The golden shield shuddered, cracks racing across it like glass under strain. His left eye blazed brighter than the right, molten fire spilling down his cheek. His cry tore from his throat, half pain, half terror.
Madeleine's face—half ash, half light—turned toward him in her last instant. Her lips formed a single word: "Live."
And then she was gone.
Her ashes whirled into the black ray, drawn like sparks into a storm. The golden shield shattered, collapsing in shards of light. The boy's body jerked, his small hands clawing at his face as his scream rose higher, sharper, until it was no longer human.
The clearing trembled with it. Torches flickered wildly, priests cowered, guards wept. Even the hunters felt their stomachs twist, for the sound that left Rogue's lips was not merely a child's scream. It was the cry of something greater, something caught between heaven and abyss.
And still, no one dared approach.
Rogue dropped to his knees, golden light and black shadow swirling together around him. His left eye blazed so brightly it seemed the world itself bent toward it, before the light burst apart in shards and collapsed inward. The shadows dragged Madeleine's ashes with them, piercing the boy's eye.
The scream that followed shook the forest to its roots.
And then silence.