Prologue
The battlefield shook with the sheer power of the opposing armies, the fields thick with the scent of gore and fire.
“Push forward!” their general commanded, his voice cutting through the pained screams heard throughout the plains while his soldiers responded with triumphant yells in tow.
A man in the middle of the fray rushed forward and narrowly avoided an arrow aimed right for his eye, only surviving thanks to the wet earth underneath his boots, slippery with blood. He immediately forced himself back up, using the body of a fallen enemy soldier as an anchor to push off of. The man could hear the squish of bloody robes as he pressed his palms down on them, feeling his hands soak in the cold, congealed blood. For a moment he allowed himself to simply breathe despite the chaos surrounding him, focusing on the feeling of his heart battering in his chest, before looking around the battlefield for his love.
This hadn’t gone as planned. It should have been an easy win, they had expected their enemy to fall within a few days. The other two countries weren’t an issue—either refusing to take part in the war or withdrawing early on. His country should have been able to win through focusing all their strength on them and them alone, but they had grown stronger with the rule of a new queen and the development of new strategies.
“Slaughter them all!” the enemy general boomed, her unnaturally loud voice echoing through the battlefield and making the man clamp his hands over his ears.
He took out a soldier as they rushed him in his moment of weakness, the man gritting his teeth at the clean slice through his leg armour they’d managed to inflict. He could feel the blood gushing out of the wound and wetting his skin, the pain and adrenaline making his hands shake in their gauntlets. Exhaustion was soon to take hold, black spots filling his periphery, but he couldn’t stop. He needed to find her.
She’s far back, his mind provided, remembering how she tried to teach him to use a longbow all those years back, when day-to-day life was still peaceful. He remembered the smile on her face when she hit her first bullseye, her beautiful laugh when he had tried to copy her, the arrow missing its target by a mile.
Promise me you’ll never leave my side? She asked, holding her pinkie out. It was a mild day. They had climbed all the way up Mount Firax, the mountain that overlooked his small town, just to see if they could. He still remembered the sight clearly. As beautiful as the sunset above and the lantern lights below were, he couldn’t help but watch her instead.
Promise, he replied, taking her pinkie with his own.
He limped onwards, new wounds littering his body every soldier he came across, but it didn’t stop him. Every new cut only drove him further to find her, to know she was safe.
He’d begun to drive his sword into the mud with every step to help him hobble onwards faster. The patch of the land he found himself on was mostly devoid of life, the ground littered with mutilated bodies, providing him with a short break between skirmishes. It was a vicious, animalistic growl from further ahead that answered his unspoken question of what had happened here, the man looking up to see a stand-off between generals.
“If you know what’s best for you, you’ll surrender,” yelled the harsh voice belonging to his general. The son of his nation’s leader.
The general was clad in blackened steel, the metal coated in blood and dents, though otherwise intact. Clouds of smoke escaped his mouth with every pant, his entire being burning hot with an intense anger. Despite the man’s distance from the general, he could still feel the heat radiating off of him and warming the air around. A faint glow from the general’s culacula caught his attention, the wood smoking and burning red around his grip.
“I’d sooner give up my soul than this battle,” snarled the enemy before pouncing.
The man quickly turned his head, scurrying away from the two before moving ahead once more. He had no time for this, he had to keep moving.
Soon enough he found himself close to enemy lines, head whipping around to catch a glimpse of blonde hair and black leather. He had to make sure she was okay, that she hadn’t been taken out by someone in his own rank. He had to make sure that his life still had meaning.
He could feel his eyes burn as tears formed in them during his search. He never even agreed to this war, no one had. But no one in Katavolu had any choice, those able to fight were forcefully drafted, ripped away from their homes and everything they knew by that warmongering bitch to fight a war with no reason to it.
“Keahi!?” he heard someone scream out, quickly whipping his head in that direction.
Keahi caught a glimpse of blonde hair in the distance before an arrow suddenly embedded in his throat, knocking him to the ground with the sheer force that the bolt carried. As he fell backwards, his head slammed against a stone half-buried in the earth, a sharp crack resounding in the air as a shock of pain ran through his body. He let out a pained gurgle, tears starting to stream down his face as he choked on his own blood. This couldn’t be it. Not yet. He wasn’t ready. Distantly, he could hear her voice. A horrified scream, which quickly mixed with the rest.
He weakly latched onto the blood-soaked earth with his right hand, trying to pull himself back up, but the other half of his body wasn’t responding. Soon, his remaining strength gave out. There was nothing else he could do other than to lay there, feeling his lungs fill with blood and heart slow as he felt himself die. With the last of his strength he moved his head to look forward, where he had last heard her scream his name. Despite his sight failing him and the blackness consuming his vision, he caught a final glimpse of a bright figure, as bright as the sun, approaching rapidly.
Please be safe… was his final thought as his eyes grew cloudy.
The man was dead.
