He saw himself as a boy, laying in a too-large bed. He saw the terror in his eyes, the way his mother had frowned down at him as he’d begged her to stay.
And she didn’t.
He saw himself paying penance, the smoke rising from his skin as the Masters branded him into repentance. But every time they marked him, something darkened in his heart. Every time they tried to fix him, that part of Kinlear Laroux that had never once wanted to bow to their laws...
It fed the monster inside of him.
And the darkness grew and grew and grew.
He saw himself standing on the training room floor, struggling to keep up with children half his age. He heard their laughter...saw the way they only respected him when Arawn was watching.
He was just the spare.
The second born.
The forgotten prince.
He saw every moment of his life, played out. The illness and the day his mother first brought him to Touvre, how he’d beenso alone, for so long, clinging to letters and a speaking stone for happiness, until he met Magnus. Until he received his Veilblade and understood what dreams and destiny could do.
He saw the moments with Ezer and Six, every beautiful second up until this.
“Two paths,” the monster hissed, its voice echoing to him as he watched his life unfold. “Which will you choose, Little Prince?”
It sped forwards. The cave, the kiss, the darkness. He saw the Acolyte on the throne, the blade in his hand...but this time, he buried it deep into the Acolyte’s chest. He killed the beast the way he was always supposed to.
But the Acolyte did not fall. He didn’t even bleed.
Instead, he took that same blade and thrust it into Kinlear’s heart.
“Fool boy,” the Acolyte hissed.
And Kinlear watched himself die in a puddle of crimson on the throne room floor.
Ezer screamed. The sound was animalistic. It split through the Acolyte’s throne room, until every darksoul eye was upon her next. She couldn’t even fall to hold Kinlear’s lifeless body before the wolves were set free...
And finally, at long last, they finished what they had once started and ended her with their claws and teeth.
Kinlear sobbed as he watched it play out.
Himself, dead on the floor. Ezer, dead beside him.
“No,” he sobbed. “Please, no.”
But the vision refused to release him.
It moved forward again, until he saw Arawn standing alone on the cliffside, his shoulders heavy with snow. He stayed until the Long Day ended...until darkness fell like a blanket, over the north...and he realized that Ezer and Kinlear were never coming back.
They’d failed.
They had failed their mission, their only chance at glory.
And as time wore on, and the war raged, and the once-great Kingdom of Lordach dwindled…nobody remembered Kinlear Laroux’s name.
The vision went dark.
He found himself standing in the woods again...tears soaking his face.
“Why?” he asked. “Why would you show me this?”
