“I’m not,” Trik said.
He reached, not recklessly, but with the precision of the assassin he’d once been, every movement controlled, deliberate.
Darkness answered.
It rose smooth and alive, curling over his skin—not violent, not devouring.Familiar.Welcoming.
Cush’s breath hitched as black smoke climbed Trik’s forearms like living ink.“You swore you’d never use that power again.”
Trik didn’t look away.“I swore I wouldn’t let it own me,” he said.“That’s not the same.”
The presence leaned closer, warm as breath against his ear.
We were once part of this world.You could have been our king, too.
Trik smiled, slow, merciless.“But you weren’t content to simply belong, remember?”he asked softly.“And don’t mistake exile for erasure.”
Power surged, rattling the room.The castle shuddered, not an explosion, but a deep, resonant tremor that rippled through walls and wards.Above them, warning bells tolled, their echoes swallowed by the hum of magic spreading across the realm like a spark through tinder.
Trik felt it in his bones.Everyone would.
The Book snapped open.
Light and shadow poured out, twisting but never merging.Faces flickered inside the chaos, half-formed, eyes gleaming with resentment and longing.
Voices overlapped, a chorus both holy and blasphemous.
We are the forgotten.We are the ones who kept the dark from devouring the light.We are the balance you feared.We were the result of light and dark killing each other.Shadow elves, he named us.He led us to safety, and then he fled before you could seal him away, too.See?Sacrifices.Everyone makes them.
Trik stepped closer.His own power answered, light and dark meeting as equals, weaving together, ancient and alive inside him.The union became something more, like the Shadowed, born from light cast into night.“He?”Trik racked his memories for who they spoke of.“Who are you talking about?”
The warrior born of the light and dark from two who willingly laid down their lives on their own swords.They called out for an end to the battle as they watched the creation of our kind, and realized it would be the light and dark that destroyed the realm if left to their own devices.On their swords they fell, and the light and dark collided, creating the shadow ruler.Reed and Zire they were so named and their creation was?—
“Rezer.”The name felt as if it was sucked from Trik’s lungs.Rezer was a shadow elf.More memories flooded his mind as he looked over the battlefield.Thousands dead on both sides and hundreds of the newly formed beings.Some looked terrified, some shocked, and others determined.Trik heard a shout and his head whipped around and he saw Zire, a light elf warrior with a ready smile and quick laugh.He stood beside Reed, a dark elf warrior who was the complete opposite of Zire and yet somehow, they had become friends.Brothers in arms and forced to fight against one another.They stood side by side staring out in horror at the waging battle.Reed’s voice boomed as he roared.“STOP.”The fighting continued.Zire’s eyes danced around the area wildly, his panic clear on his face.Then he turned to Reed.They were speaking but Trik couldn’t hear them even with his supernatural hearing.Not above the screaming, the clanging metal, the whirling magic.Then to his horror, the two elven warriors switched swords.Then took each other in a warrior’s handshake before impaling themselves on their own swords, held in their “enemies” hand.And the moment their bodies collided, two forms erupted from their swords and entwined until it became one form.Unlike the others created, this form wasn’t just a shadow with red eyes.This was a fully formed warrior, his armor was a mixture of the two races, and when he turned and looked at Trik, his eyes swirled with light and dark.
“I AM REZER,” the new warrior roared.“FOLLOW ME.”And he ran.The shadow elves that had been formed from the battle turned to him, and they did follow.
“Rezer?”Cush asked, his voice rough.“How?How did we not remember this?”
Trik shook his head.“I don’t know.He wasn’t there when we went to the Chamber.I let them go.I waited to see how it would turn out.I allowed our dead to be dealt with and then the power began being pulled.”
Cush nodded.“I remember.It felt like all of the oxygen was being sucked from our realm.Like my bones would be crushed beneath the pressure.But, again, how the hell did we forget all of this?”
Sometimes the mind doesn’t want to remember.The shadow elves answered, as if they were welcome in their conversation.It’s easier to live with our choices, if we pretend we weren’t the ones that made them.
“Is there any way to shut them up?”Cush asked, his voice deepening with the anger that Trik felt.
“Why are you revealing all of this now?”Trik asked as he allowed his eyes to refocus on the present.
Once again dark and light have made peace.Not the races, but in a few who realize that one cannot exist without the other.Even you, king, have found balance, a child created of light and dark.Our leader, Rezer, has found his light and soon he will bring it to us.We will have them all.
“Youneedthem,” he said flatly.
The voices fell still, the weaving of shadows slowing, then whispered almost tenderly:They are the key.
Cush’s head snapped toward him.“The key to what?”
The air thickened.Their presence sharpened.
