The ruined stone-made temple breathed like an open wound left to the night air. Its stone ribs were broken and collapsed, with ancient pillars broken down to jagged stumps that clawed at the sky; the ceiling long gone so the stars stared straight down at them.
Wind tore through the messed up structure in whipping currents, dragging loose dust, dead leaves, and scraps of old prayer cloth across the floor.
And Bellum knelt in the center of it all.
He was eighteen, thin from hunger and stress, shoulders hunched like he was bracing for a blow that never stopped coming. His short black hair was a mess of uneven strands, hacked down in frustration rather than care itself, and it constantly whipped into his eyes by the wind.
Those eyes were a dark green overflowing with panic, framed by dark circles that no amount of sleep could have fixed even if sleep had still existed for him. Scars lined his neck in sick patterns, old and new, some thin and pale, others darker and more visible. Beneath his left eye, burned into his skin like a brand, was a black zigzag tattoo that looked less inked and more cauterized into place, seemingly only forming there once he started this ritual.
In front of him lay his parents.
They were sprawled across a shattered crest engraved into the temple floor, a black insignia cracked down the center.
Their bodies were still, dead even, blood had already gone dark where it soaked into the grooves of the stone. Their faces were slack and their eyes half closed, expressions frozen somewhere between surprise and resignation. They looked smaller like this, stripped of motion and voice they used to carry in his life.
Bellum's hands shook as he pressed them together, fingers trembling so badly they kept slipping apart, blood spilling from his wounded palms.
"No, no, no," he whispered, his breath lagging as tears streamed down his face and vanished into the dirt. "I can do this….I know I can!"
He sucked in a ragged breath and began to chant.
The words were not any language spoken by the living. They crawled out of his throat in weird jibberish-like syllables, a dark ancient tongue stitched together from harsh consonants and dragged vowels, sounds that scraped the inside of his mouth as he forced them out with desperation..
"Vaelreth… khorun… thessai na mor—" He stopped as his voice cracked. His hands twitched, he felt he messed up as the hand motions and syllables were being done wrong, the angle off by just enough to matter.
"Dammit!"
His fist slammed into his own cheek with a crack. Pain flared white behind his eyes and his head snapped to the side, but he did not let himself breathe. He dragged his face back forward, teeth clenched so hard his jaw ached.
"Again….!" His mouth bled.
He tried again, the chant warping as panic crept into it.
"Vaelreth khorun thessai narum vel—"
Wrong again. His panic and desperation was causing him to mess up over and over, not being able to truly focus.
His knuckles smashed into his temple this time, but harder. Stars burst across his vision and he nearly tipped over, catching himself on one knee, coughing as bile burned his throat.
"Again…!" he hissed, tears dripping off his chin.
He raised his hands, forcing them through shaking movements, fingers curling and snapping into shapes that felt unnatural, joints protesting as if his body knew it should not be doing this.
Green light flickered into existence above his parents' bodies, thin lines sketching themselves into the air like glowing veins. Symbols formed slowly, circles layered with runes and markings that pulsed like a heartbeat, like it was waiting for a command.
Their bodies reacted: A finger twitched, A chest jerked as if gasping for breath that never came, and Bellum's eyes got wide, hope crashing into him so hard it hurt like hell.
"Yes…..Yes, please. Please…!"
He rushed the words, voice breaking as he tried to adjust the chant on instinct alone.
"Thessai narum velkhar… velkhar mori—"
The symbols shuddered, and the light fractured, and nothing else moved.
"Dammit!" Bellum screamed, slamming his palm against the stone hard enough to split skin. Blood smeared across the black crest beneath his hand. "Why isn't it working?! Come on!!"
The wind screamed louder, whipping his hair back as black veins began to surface along his arms and neck, crawling beneath his skin like something alive. His vision blurred and his heart pounded so violently it felt like it was trying to escape his ribs.
"Come on… come on… please wake up!"
He shifted his hands again, slower now, changing the angle, the spacing, and the intent behind the motion. The green symbols reformed, brighter this time, more complex, rotating above his parents like a sick halo. The air grew with the scent of cold earth and old deceased blood.
Then the night split apart with light; The sound of hooves thundered against stone and soil as blinding white figures crested the hill surrounding the temple. Winged horses soared through the air in formation, their bodies pure white and bodies having glowing gold runes on them that burned against the darkness. Their wings beat in sync together like a church choir, pushing back the necromantic haze with sheer force. Warriors rode these horses, powerful warriors, called The Hierophants.
Their armor was a perfectly polished white marble color that was fitted perfectly to their forms and engraved with sigils that bantered against the night's darkness. Long white capes snapped violently behind them, and their smooth helmets concealed their faces entirely, adorned with small white dove wings at the sides. Each of them wielded a weapon forged of solid white light, blades and spears humming with restrained power.
"There he is! There's the boy!" A Hierophant exclaimed.
"He managed to take those bodies all the way out here from under our nose?"
"A brat trying to save his parents after catching them use dark magic….the darkness is this world is slowly invading the minds of the young! But even the young who use necromancy must be purged! I can see it from here! The Great Paladin will judge him!".
The horses feet make the ground shake with each thundering step, and In perfect unison, the Hierophants declared:
"Praise The Majesty of Fable!!"
They circled the temple at an impossible speed that matched the speed of light cutting on, those winged horses slicing through the air, trails of light tearing into the darkness. The necromantic energy from Bellum's ritual buckled under the pressure, the symbols flickering violently as the light tried to smother them.
Bellum felt it slipping.
"No!" he cried, staggering to his feet. His magic circle sputtered, lines collapsing in on themselves. "N-No! I'm not done! Please! Just let me finish this!"
His legs wobbled beneath him. His vision tunneled. Black veins throbbed visibly beneath his skin now, pulsing in time with his racing heart. His eyes were bloodshot and glassy now and his face was pale and bombarded with sweat.
"I have to save them," he whispered, voice barely there.
White boots hit the stone floor.
A Hierophant stepped into the temple, holding a lantern forged of pure light. As it swung gently at his side, its glow devoured the remaining green symbols without resistance, swallowing the darkness like it had never been there.
Another Hierophant approached, leveling a three sided white blade at Bellum, the sound of its light magic made a low hum noise but seemingly ready to strike, like it was craving more to devour.
"They should've known," the Hierophant warrior said coldly. "Living in our kingdom of Fable, watched over by the Seraphel, the Great Paladin, the god of Light and Sanctuary, means daily inspections. Our warriors enter the homes with our Lanterns of Cleansing, and the amount of dark magic we gathered out of your home. But apparently, you hid well. Did they tell you to hide?"
"It wasn't them!" Bellum shouted, staggering forward. "They weren't using it! I I—!"
The Hierophant vanished, leaving behind a quick flash of white, and pain exploded across the back of Bellum's skull as the handle of the sword smashed into him.
The world lurched sideways in his vision, light smearing into nothing as his body collapsed onto the stone beside his parents.
"Collect his unconscious body," the Hierophant ordered calmly. "And prepare it to be judged before Seraphel in the morning."
…..
…..
…..
When Bellum woke up, cold stone pressed against his back.
That was the first thing he felt. The second was the heavy weight in his chest, like his lungs had forgotten how to work.
His eyes fluttered open slowly, vision swimming as dim torchlight bled through the dark. Thick iron bars stood a few feet in front of him, sunk deep into the stone floor and ceiling, each one traced with faint light magic that was steady, crawling across the metal like veins of order forcing themselves into place.
Bellum sniffed and covered his nose, the air smelled of damp rock, old rust, and the tingly iron-like smell of blood.
Bellum shot upright with a sharp gasp, hands clawing at the ground as panic surged through him.
"No!"
His voice cracked against the dungeon walls, echoing back to remind him how big this dungeon actually was. His heart hammered wildly as memory slammed into him all at once: The temple, the light, the ritual, and his parents. His breath stuttered and he hunched forward, fingers digging into his hair.
"This is my fault," he whispered, shaking. "It's my fault…"
A dry laugh echoed from the cell beside him, rough and bitter.
"Haha. It's all our fault, boy," a man's voice said. "In the kingdom of Fable, it's never their fault. No matter how fucking fanatic they are about their confused he-she god. This place seems great on the outside, but fuck up one time if you want."
Bellum blinked, turning his head slowly toward the neighboring cell, squinting through the bars and shadows.
"He she?" he asked quietly, the word slipping out innocent and confused.
"The divine bastard's statue is all over the place," the man replied. "Looks like a girl to me, but he's a man. The only divine being to rule over a kingdom as its ruler in this entire realm. And we had the misfortune of being here. Still, I've never heard of a kid being taken by them. What did you do?"
Bellum swallowed hard. His shoulders sagged as the strength drained out of him and he slid back until his spine hit the wall.
"…It's my fault," he said again but slower this time. "My parents they…they were always talking about leaving Fable if they had the coin. We lived in the slums in a clay made house, so we didn't have much. I found something in the wilderness. It was glowing, and it looked expensive. It was a gem, a nice looking green gem, that I thought was an emerald. I thought I could help, so I brought it back and was planning to sell it to the vendor in the morning. But when the Hierophants did the inspection…"
"Ahhh," the man said, voice lowering. "And they used that dumb little lantern thing in your home and gathered something from that gem you found. Sheesh."
Bellum's hands clenched into fists.
"I was trying to be the hero they said I'd be."
The man snorted softly. "Heroes are nothing but goody good warriors who put strangers before them, which causes most of them to just die off by invading in someone else's shit. I've seen it too many times. But hey, it's too late now. You're gonna die anyway."
"You're wrong," Bellum said immediately, lifting his head. "They use whatever power they have to help those who don't have any. Even if they die."
A pause followed.
"And you tried to be a hero?" the man asked. "What power do you have? Definitely not enough to keep yourself from getting taken."
Bellum hesitated, throat tight.
"I… I don't have any magic or power. I never learned. Until today. That gem I took whispered to me after finding out what that god did to my parents and dumped their bodies in the middle of the kingdom to make an example out of them." His voice trembled. "It was talking to me. I couldn't physically hear it, but it still spoke, if that makes sense, like I knew what it was saying. But that thing was making it feel like it was my own consciousness talking to me. And like a dummy, I listened to it, and I know it was wrong. My parents always told me to avoid necromancy for my own sake and theirs, it's forbidden in almost all kingdoms of the world, but I was so desperate, I ended up using that gem as a conduit to try and raise them. Like it told me to. But I couldn't do it."
Silence filled the dungeon.
Then the man exhaled slowly. "Hmm. A green gem in the middle of nowhere looking like an emerald. That sucks. Could've been a trap. How old are you anyway?"
"Eighteen," Bellum replied. "Just turned eighteen yesterday. Today was gonna be the day where I finally left to help others out in the world. Maybe even join an army or something like that and climb my way up the ranks." His mouth twisted bitterly. "Guess not."
"Man… I'm sorry, lad."
Bellum didn't answer. His hands pressed against his head, fingers pressing into his scalp as regret washed over him in suffocating waves.
After sitting there for a few more hours, Bellum began dozing off, his memories replacing everything he saw around him. He was small again, standing off to the side of a dusty street while other children played together, laughter bouncing between buildings that felt far too big. Every time he stepped closer, the noise quieted, eyes flicked toward him, then away. He learned early how to sit by himself, how to watch instead of join. A child filled with too much anxiety about if fate is gonna make something go wrong if he talks to them, so he kept his distance to not take the risk.
Another memory bled in.
Warm candlelight, and a narrow bed in a house made of clay. His mother and father sitting beside him, a book open between them, its pages worn and dog eared. His name was written on the cover in careful ink, and his mother's voice carried the words of the pages written:
"Hero King Bellum let out a battle cry, and smited the disastrous hordes of Minotaurs, keeping them from blasting into the palace walls where the townsfolk were kept inside due to fear!"
Bellum's younger self bounced on the bed, eyes shining. "Ooh! Ooh! What did I do next?! What did I do next?!"
His parents smiled at each other, and his father took over reading.
"The ugly king of Minotaurs arrived, saying, 'King Bellum, I challenge you to a duel! If you win, my soldiers will retreat and never return. If you win, I'll take your city as my own.' And King Bellum accepted the duel!"
"Did I win?!" Bellum blurted out. "I had to have won! I never lost!"
His mother laughed softly and read the final part.
"And King Bellum took down the Minotaur, watching his army flee. And the kingdom was safe again, his people praising his bravery once more; King Bellum bringing the Minotaurs head to the capital to show everyone their triumph!"
The memory shattered, and there was a a loud bang. Bellum's eyes snapped open as the bars of his cell rattled violently. White light flooded the dungeon as Hierophant warriors stood before him, floating a few inches above the floor, armor gleaming with that same power.
Their presence made the air feel heavier and made it harder to breathe.
"Bellum Arrowfen," one of them said, voice echoing coldly. "It is time for you to be judged by the Great Paladin himself, Seraphel, our Majesty of Fable.
Bellum stood slowly, and he said nothing.
Inside his head, his thoughts spiraled quietly.
'This is what I get I guess. It has to be. A hero would do this, surrender if he did something wrong. He wouldn't try to break out, would he?…Who am I kidding? I couldn't even if I tried. The damage has been all done already and I'm screwed. A hero would accept his wrongs. Yeah. Yeah they would.'