Nelion

Nelion is a standalone book about a secondary character from the Milear series. It contains many references to the main storyline, but it can also be read as a slow-burn journey from hate to something more.

If you want to understand what shaped Nelion — welcome to ‘Flowers of Shiatal’. That’s where the Milear series begins: adventure, growth, and a fair share of pain.

The two-story house on the absolute edge of Marg was frozen in a ringing, damp half-light. Blowing from the sea, barely rolling the heavy waves, a cold pre-dawn wind brought the thick stench of salt and rotting kelp into the rooms. In the sky, Fadon was drowninginits final moments—the massive, pale moon of Drem, drenching the second-floor balcony in streaming silver.

Nelion opened his eyes with a jolt, as if thrust from the bottom of a well. A centuries-old habit of survival kept his body perfectly still, but his lungs frantically wheezed in the freezing air. His heart hammered violently against his ribs.

A nightmare. Again, that hell of the Abyss, the Darkness, and someone’s bones snapping beneath his fingers—bones he had unsuccessfully tried to piece back together with his wild magic.

Beneath the thin, rumpled silk of the bedding, the primary barometer of his personal torment instantly flared. The elegant, frost-like patterns of scars covering his torso, neck, and wrists filled with a venomous ultramarine. They pulsed raggedly, unevenly, literally searing through the bedroom’s darkness with a sickly, azure light. Nelion froze on his pillow, clenching his teeth until his jaws ached, and forced himself to exhale slowly, extinguishing the frantic outburst.

His eyes, which retained their clear blue color, slid habitually across the room and locked onto the glass door of the balcony.

In the dying silver light of Fadon, right behind the pane, a motionless silhouette was sharply outlined.

In that exact heartbeat, the elf’s relaxation vanished, replaced by a coiled steel spring. An old rule clicked dryly in his mind: If it feels like you are being watched, it means you are. His fingers silently curled against the blanket, ready to spring.

He glided from the bed, barely disturbing the sheets. Bare soles silently met the cool wooden floorboards. His wild magic, still seething in his scars after the nightmare, stood ready, capable of striking without a single sigil or incantation.

One silent, blurred step. A second.

Nelion wrenched the glass door open and burst onto the balcony, ready to clamp a death grip onto an unfamiliar wrist or tear the breath from the nocturnal guest. A sharp, freezing gust of sea wind struck him full-force, slinging salty spray into his face and tearing through his long, golden bangs.

Empty.

The balcony was entirely barren. A thin crust of sea salt had settled on the wooden railing, and below, the sea crashed hollowly against the coastal rocks. Nelion closed his eyes for a second, shook his head, and cursed through his teeth. Paranoia. Yet, cutting through the ocean freshness, a barely perceptible, cloying trail of moon lilies lingered, and in the darkness of the corners, right against the planks, azure, sparking threads flickered for asplit second before melting away. It was as if someone had just greedily licked clean the remnants of his own magic—the essence that had spilled out during the flare of his scars—and dissolved into the pre-dawn haze.

The elf leaned heavily with his palms against the cold railing, exposing his face to the wind, and rubbed his cheeks hard to dispel the illusion.

He turned and stepped back into the twilight of the bedroom.

By the bed, Nelion paused. In the gloom, one arm flung to the side, Krosis slept. The elf lowered his gaze, and for a moment, his face softened. She possessed none of that delicate, stiff grace to which the light elves were accustomed. Krosis was a Dezdir—a true daughter of harsh Drem. Her pale skin looked as if it were sculpted from marble, and the dark blood-mage tattoos on her shoulder and collarbones shimmered with a faint, crimson glow in her sleep, like dying embers. She slept with the light alertness of a predator in its daytime lair: the fingers of her relaxed hand rested mere inches from the hilt of a dagger hidden beneath her pillow, and her beautiful, sharp features remained intent, as though she were continuing to carry out an order even in her dreams.

She was magnificent. Honest, sharp, ready to tear anyone apart for those she held dear. Nelion genuinely admired her, valued her wild, unrefined sincerity. Half a year ago, when fleeing Sator, he had truly believed that this woman, who smelled of iron, could become his anchor—his home. He believed that beside her, he could quiet down, cast off his eternal fool’s mask, and simply live.

But looking at her rhythmically rising shoulder, Nelion felt that familiar, dull emptiness stir predictably in his chest.

The void within sickened him with a deep-seated, chronic loneliness that could not be washed away by the sea of Marg, the finest silk, or good wine.

Nelion slowly lowered himself onto the edge of the bed, careful not to shift the mattress. His wrists trembled faintly. He looked down at his palms, then back at Krosis. He wanted to howl with rage at himself. She had given him everything. Her loyalty, her warmth, her bed, and her soul—pure and real. Any ordinary man in his position would worship her.

Yet Nelion sat beside her, suffocating with guilt, because looking at her, he still remembered HIM.

Two hundred years. Two hundred miserable years walking the edge of someone else’s paradise. Being the jester, the numbing balm, watching Laest and Sylar dissolve into one another, and smiling while swallowing bloody tears so as not to ruin their shared eternity. Nelion had believed that fleeing to Drem would fix everything. He believed a new life, freedom, and Krosis would burn this slavish, incurable devotion out of him.

But time marched on, and the weight did not lessen. The past refused to leave. It sat like a dead weight in his lungs, reminding him that no matter how far he ran, he would never be anyone’s first choice. The one for whom they would choose to stay. All his vaunted freedom was nothing but a cowardly retreat, and the vibrant mask of a mocker was merely a rotting bandage over a wound that had turned to gangrene over centuries.

Nelion was sickened by his own impotence. Sickened by the fact that he, a powerful swordsman and mage, was utterly helpless against a phantom in his own mind.

On the horizon, splintering the silver light of Fadon, the first golden needles of Yol began to pierce the sky. Sunrise was stepping on the heels of Drem. Krosis stirred in her sleep, pulling the blanket over her shoulder with a sigh.

Nelion forced his eyes shut. Enough.

He pressed his palms hard against his face, digging his fingers into his skin until it hurt, as if trying to shove his feelings back down, deeper into his ribcage. To wash away, crush, destroy this momentary weakness. When he pulled his hands away, his face was already blank. His eyes grew dull, driving the azure radiance of his scars back beneath his skin, and his lips stretched effortlessly into his customary, light, half-indifferent smirk.

The mask was back in place.

Half an hour later, the kitchen was flooded with the dense, golden light of the risen Yol. A cool breeze drifted through the windows flung wide to the ocean surf, but the house itself was warm and comfortable. Nelion adored luxury. He stood by the heavy cast-iron stove, clad in a loose, flowing tunic of expensive dark-blue silk, softly humming some lighthearted human cooking ditty under his breath. Having grown up among humans, domestic chores did not daunt him; succulent meat sizzled appetizingly in the pan, and strong tea steamed in clay mugs. It gave him genuine pleasure to arrange their temporary nest.

Quiet footsteps sounded from behind.

The elf turned instantly, a festive smile blooming across his face—his unbreakable shield. His eyes gleamed with irony.

“Good morning, my fierce delight,” he sang out with his usual lazy grace, instantly shattering any sense of personal boundaries.

Nelion pressed softly against her back, wrapping his arms around her waist and burying his nose in her disheveled fair hair. His presence, as always, radiated a soothing, enveloping warmth. He kissed her pale neck, feeling her rigid, trained warrior’s body stiffen beneath his palms.

Krosis was groggy and sullen. She wore only simple canvas trousers and a loose shirt that exposed her pale shoulders, which were mapped with the dark tattoo-scars of blood mages.

“Nelion, let go,” she mumbled hoarsely, but she did not push him away, merely letting her head rest limply against his shoulder. “You make entirely too much noise so early in the morning. In Drem, people get struck in the jaw for that.”

“Oh, but we aren’t in the Citadel of Sator, my love,” the elf chuckled, daringly brushing his lips against her cheek before releasing her. “We are in Marg. Here, one is allowed to be loud, drink wine right at dawn, and pretend that royal taxes and Dezdir arrogance simply do not exist. Sit, before the meat turns to leather.”

They sat at a rough wooden table by the window. Nelion ate heartily, pausing constantly to jest, brandish his fork, and share his plans for the evening—he intended to drag Krosis out for a walk along the cliffs.

Krosis, however, barely touched her food. She sat upright, keeping her spine straight out of habit, lazily moving a piece of meat across her plate with her knife. She remained silent for a long time, listening to his chatter, before setting her knife aside with care.

“We need to return to Sator, Nelion,” she said quietly, but clearly, looking him straight in the eyes.

Nelion froze mid-sentence, a piece of meat suspended on his fork. Deep beneath the silk of his tunic, his ultramarine scars jerked with a sharp, ragged spark of azure light. Sator. The Citadel. Aluen, whose draconic presence would serve as a constant reminder of Laest. Grim corridors smelling of reforms, blood, and lingering shadows. To be there again. To stand once more as the superfluous third wheel on the threshold of someone else’s joy.

The elf lowered his fork and flashed a wide, serene smile, deflecting the gravity of the moment with his habitual irony.

“Oh, come now, Krosis!” he dismissed gaily, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs. “Sator smells perfectly fine of jasmine without our presence. Aluen is occupied with the Spire, and Orion is busy counting the king’s sacks of gold. Do you truly wish to trade this sea, this sun, and me—such a spectacular caretaker—for dusty ledgers, edicts, and the sour faces of grim Dezdirs?”

Nelion laughed, expecting her to scoff in annoyance or call him an incorrigible chatterbox, as she usually did.

But Krosis did not smile. She looked at him heavily, with a chilling seriousness, and in the silence of the kitchen, Nelion felt his vaunted mask begin to slip for the very first time.