The Gold Devil and The Last Bow

Bows had always been part of the world. They weren’t made, discovered, or summoned. They simply appeared—shimmering arches of rainbow light where waterfalls met the sun, linking two nearly identical worlds. The only difference was the seasons: when one side basked in summer, the other froze in winter. The link ran deeper than weather. Cut down a tree in one world, and its twin would wither in the other. But the bond stopped at nature. No mirrored beasts. No second selves. Humans lived singular lives.

For generations, people passed freely through the Bows. That ended when the families took control.

The Goldsmiths, among the oldest and richest, were the first to seize a Bow. They stationed armed guards and began charging tolls. Other families followed, and soon all the Bows were taxed. Trade slowed. Freedom vanished. The world split.

The New Side prospered. It was paved, polished, and powerful. The Old Side—where tolls kept farmers and laborers penned in—crumbled. Crops and livestock were pushed into the Old. Artisans were allowed into the New, but only to sell their wares at family-run markets where taxes left them barely making ends meet.

His father, wanting him to be more than a nobleman, once sent him to work the family Bow.

That’s where Brian met Margret. She crossed daily, her hands rough from soil, her eyes sharp as she navigated the New Side’s market, selling her family’s produce. Brian, bored by the endless stream of faces, found himself watching her. Her quiet determination, the way she haggled with fierce dignity, intrigued him. She initially avoided him, knowing he was a Goldfarmer. He’d offer her a lower toll, just to hear her voice, to see the surprised lift of her eyebrows. Their talks stretched from pleasantries to weather, to crops, to the injustice of tolls. Beneath the shimmering Bow, they fell in love.

They married in secret, in a quiet ceremony performed by a hidden priest on the Old Side.

When word reached Brian’s father, it was too late. Margret was pregnant. The news hit like a blow. Brian was dragged home, and Margret was banished. Her family barred from all Bows, their livelihood shattered. The marriage was dissolved with a stroke of a pen, and the Goldsmiths paid her family off.

Parker was born under a cloud of shame. In the Old Side, he was despised for the Goldsmith blood in his veins. In the New Side, he was a smudge on an immaculate name. He belonged nowhere.

The first rebellion flared over a toll hike. Farmers and merchants stormed a Bow and slaughtered the guards. More uprisings followed. The Old Side rose.

Margret’s village joined them. Rebels marched on the Bow. Brian got word hours later, but he came anyway—with a dozen Goldsmith guards.

He found battle. Steel clanged. Rebels surged from the forests. The Goldsmith Bow shimmered beneath the waterfall. Brian and his men charged.

He fought like a man possessed. Rebels fell. A defender’s shield wall formed around him. The tide turned.

“Hold the line!” he shouted.

A rebel with a torch rushed to burn the bridge. Brian hurled his dagger, striking the man in the throat. Another wave charged. Brian met them head-on.

The bridge held. The Bow stood.

Brian found Oliver, his old arms master, climbing from the river.

“Didn’t think I’d see a real Goldsmith out here,” Oliver said.

“I’m not here for the Bow. I’m here for Margret.”

“Take three men. Go. Hurry.”

Brian plunged into the river with three men. Two died on the road. When they reached the village, Margret’s house burned.

Inside, her skull was caved in over a crib. A man stood at the door, a bloody club in one hand, a sack of Goldsmith-marked coins in the other.

“Thanks for the gold, Goldsmith,” he sneered.

Brian froze—then heard a whimper. Parker.

Rage exploded. He fought the man through fire and falling beams. Blood and steel. The man fled into the woods.

Brian lifted Margret’s body, trembling. He pulled Parker from the crib, gave him to his last surviving guard. “Nothing happens to him.”

Back at the Bow, rebels gathered for the final charge. Oliver lay dying.

“Did you find her, boy?”

“Only her body.”

“The child?”

“Safe.”

“You know what you are. Use it. Make them pay. Take him home.”

Brian had discovered it young—the Taking. A bite of a heart, and knowledge, power, memory became his. He hadn’t used it in years. Never from a man.

But now?

Oliver pressed his knife into Brian’s hand.

“Let mine save one.”

Brian nodded. Drove the blade in. Took the heart. Bit.

Power surged. Time slowed. Memory flooded him.

He rose, twin blades in hand.

And he killed them all.

Rebels fell like wheat to the scythe. When it ended, the bridge was red. Brian stood alone.

He took Parker. Ordered the bodies burned. The Bow guarded.

They say he fought his father. Refused to give up the child. A deal was struck.

He became something else. A whisper. A myth.

The Gold Devil.

The rebellion dragged on. Families fell. Bows were destroyed—rivers flooded, cliffs collapsed, waterfalls shattered. Each vanished Bow took a piece of the world.

Except one.

The Goldsmith Bow.

And it stood because of him.

They say he eats hearts. That he sees your secrets. That where he walks, rebels vanish.

Only one Bow remains.

As long as it stands, so do the Goldsmiths.

And the Gold Devil.