A bloody battle field
Smoke lay over the field in sheets, too thick to be called air. Somewhere below him the fires were still eating, and the heat from them rose through the corpses and warmed him. He breathed it in. Cooked flesh, iron, and wet earth. Blood had run down his face and dried at the corner of his mouth, and every time he licked his teeth he tasted metal.
At the top of a mountain of corpses, he stood.
The wind tugged at his torn black cape and threaded through his brown, battle-worn hair.
"I'm. so. tired."
The words fell on nothing but the ears of the dead.
"Countless lives pissed away, and for what?" The breeze kissed his cheek, drying the red smeared across his face. "What… exactly, was even the point?"
His grey eyes were lifeless as they passed over the massacre without catching on any of it. Stretched to the horizon were corpses and fire, the scent of eternal rest hanging above them like a fog.
His gaze fell downward, to the dried blood caked into the lines of his hands and underneath his nails. "All this killing without purpose clings to me like a stench," he said. "Rotting my soul."
He walked through the battlefield with careful feet, his eyes fixed on the ground as he avoided the fallen soldiers that littered his path. His boots, once gleaming with silver plating, were drowned now in a sludge of blood and mud. Every step dragged free with a wet squelch.
At his side, the hilt of his short sword caught the sun, its dragon-engraved hilt tapping faintly against his armor with each step. He never lifted his head, only studied the last expressions one by one as he passed over them like a breeze.
He didn't bother looking for survivors. No, he already knew such a possibility was hopeless. The silence that crawled up his spine was proof enough. The only figures who walked the battlefield were him and the Reaper, who was collecting his harvest of souls.
As he stepped onto untouched green grass, the putrescence of death faded with each breath.
He raised his head to the sky. Clouds kissed the sunlight goodbye as rain began to fall, rinsing the blood from his face. He pulled off his black, legionary-styled helmet, its red, war-torn plume, which had once stood tall to signify that of a general, was now mere brittles. He tossed it to the ground without a second thought and closed his eyes so he could savor each raindrop against his skin.
Just as quickly as it came, it passed all the same. The sun reclaimed the sky, leaving crimson drops trailing down his armor and dripping onto blades of green, painting a perfect red circle around him.
"Everyone died here today. My body simply forgot to follow," he announced to the heavens.
One by one, he stripped away pieces of his armor and cast them aside. He drove his sword into the ground, placed his helmet upon the pommel, and knelt before it with his head bowed. His words were softer than the clouds that had just wept upon him.
"Brothers… mother… forgive me. I have failed you. I led you into a war I knew we could not win. Made promises I could not keep. Yet you still gave your lives for me in the end. For that is a sin I must always bear."
A single tear traced his cheek and fell, striking the ridge of his helmet as he stood.
"I can no longer be a part of such senseless, pointless death. So I, Edric Lucian Bloodthrone, general of the Ashen Dawn of house Bloodthrone, have also died upon this field today with the rest. From this moment on, I am simply… Lucian."
Without another glance, he turned and walked, as his name was carried away by the souls of his comrades. With each step, the bloodprints of his boots slowly faded, leaving only crushed grass in his wake.
***
"How long have I been walking? Two… no, maybe three days?" he asked himself as the sun beat down on his neck.
His words slurred as his feet dragged one after the other, in no hurry to keep pace. He wandered beside a faint dirt road until he found the ruts of carriage wheels carved into the soil. Hoping they might lead him to a city, he followed.
Cresting a hill, he saw a village below, bathed in the last glow of sunset. His parched body moved toward it of its own accord.
"Water…"
The villagers froze mid-task as he came through, a woman with a basket on her hip, a boy who stopped carrying his bag of rice, an old man who simply set down what he was holding. He ignored them and staggered to the well at the center of the square, and like a corpse pulled forward by instinct he dropped the bucket, hauled it up, and drank until his throat stopped burning.
"Why's it gone so quiet?" he asked himself as he looked up.
Everyone had gathered. Everyone was watching.
They didn't see a ragged man, half beaten and dead. No, they saw an aura shimmering around him like a blazing flame the color of smoke. They saw a battlefield given human form. Mothers clutched their children. Men reached for tool handles.
To even the untrained eye, his soul burned visible and suffocating, and his bloodied clothes and lifeless eyes only deepened the terror.
All species possess one and call it a Soulflame, the strength of a soul, leaking off peasants and kings alike. Most burn too faint to notice. Only a few possessed one strong enough that could be seen by ordinary eyes. Fewer still possessed one that could be physically felt: a pressure behind the eyes, a taste like metal on the tongue.
Whispers erupted around him.
"My father said if you see a soulflame like that… you run."
"Run from what? He's just standing there."
"Leave us," a man shouted with a shaky voice. "We don't want any trouble!"
Others joined in, voices rising, urging him to leave and never return.
Lucian looked around, confused as to why he was being treated like a monster. Locking eyes with the boy, realization set in.
*Oh. I get it now.* The boy's face was riddled with pure fear. A look Lucian had come to know all too well.
He sighed to himself as he tried to pull in his Soulflame. He reached for it the way he'd reached for it ten thousand times, but it did not answer. Three days without sleep, two without water, along with the stress of war, and the flame had stopped being something he wore and started being something that was wearing him.
A stone struck his forehead. Blood spilled into his left eye, clouding his vision with crimson.
Lucian didn't react. He touched the wound with his finger, studied the smear of crimson between thumb and forefinger, then looked once more at their twisted, scared faces.
*After all I've done… so be it.*
He sighed. At the edge of death a man could only focus on so much, much less care if his Soulflame leaked out against his will.
Without a word, he turned and walked on, into the endless sea of green hills.
Days rose and fell. He carried on, hoping the next step might offer a purpose the last had failed to give.
He drifted deep into a forest, far from any road or sign of civilization, and stayed there a while snaring rabbits, drinking from a river cold enough to hurt his teeth, sleeping when his body finally made him. Strength refused to come back into him, but he didn't mind, nor did he particularly want it to. He was searching for a cave, or a quiet rise of earth, somewhere to lie down for a long while.
Humming.
It was faint, fragile, almost lost beneath the rustle of leaves and the melody of the wind. Before he realized what he was doing, his feet carried him toward it.
Through the trees, he saw her.
Her hair was the first thing, and for a moment the only thing. Long and white as moonlight, shimmering like silver under water, tucked neatly behind one ear and spilling down her back, swaying as she leaned into the bush.
Then the rest arrived. A young woman kneeling in the dappled light, setting ripe berries into a woven basket one at a time, as if each of them deserved the care. Pale, slender hands. Lips, plush and red, curving around a melody with no words. Crimson eyes catching the sun where it came through the canopy.
Her humming did not belong to the forest, yet the forest seemed to listen.
Lucian drifted closer, half-dazed, as though something had a hand on his chest and was pulling.
"Excuse me, miss," he said hoarsely. "What is your name?"
She paused, then shook her head faintly and returned to the bush, dismissing the sound as nothing.
He cleared his throat and spoke louder, his voice carrying like a command.
"Forgive me for interrupting! I only wish to know your name!"
Startled, she looked around for the source and locked eyes with him. She was on her feet in an instant, pale as a ghost, the basket forgotten in the leaves.
"A-A-Amira!" she stammered, slowly backing away.
"Amira," Lucian repeated, dazed, leaning against a tree. "Princess of the moon. Fitting and breathtaking. It suits you perfectly."
His unexpected reply seemed to root her in place.
"I didn't mean to startle you," he said softly. "And I hope this doesn't sound strange, but your hair is the most beautiful thing I've ever laid eyes upon."
Amira's breath caught. Her face flushed pink.
"I'll take my leave now. Apologies if I scared you." Lucian turned to leave, but only managed a single step before collapsing to the ground, unconscious.
***
"Beautiful… my hair?" Amira whispered, staring at him on the ground in disbelief.
His Soulflame flickered as he lay there, soft and unguarded, with no one behind it steering. Instead of recoiling, she tilted her head, her crimson eyes catching the faint shimmer of it.
She crouched down next to him and observed it curiously.
"What an unusual color," she murmured. "And he's human?"
She rested her cheek in her palm and twirled a strand of silver hair with her free hand, looking down at the blood, a cut peeking from his chest that was clearly infected, the ruined clothes, the wound over his eye.
"I suppose I can't just leave you here." She whispered it to him, her smile betraying the memory of his words.