"BECAUSE YOU ARE FRAIL"
"TERESINA IS DEAD."
"YOU BANISHED ME."
"YOU ARE NOT STRONG."
"WHO MADE YOU LORD? HAHAHA!"
I jolted awake, gasping for breath, heart thundering in my chest. Those voices finally stopped echoing. My hands clawed at the sheets. Wait… where am I?
I sat up, eyes scanning wildly. And then they widened—stretched in horror.
"No… no, how… how?"
I stumbled out of bed, rushing to the switchboard and flipping on the lights. The ceiling fan whirred softly. The wooden floor stretched out beneath my feet. The bed—my bed. The windows showed the familiar city skyline.
It was my apartment. The same apartment I'd bought just a month ago, planning to stay here for only a few days after escorting those children from the museum.
I moved like a ghost to the window, pressing my palm to the glass. Outside, the world looked undisturbed, blissfully ordinary.
Was it all a dream?
But then a sharp throb flared through my side. I glanced down. My belly was bandaged—pain still gnawed there. Especially my left shoulder, where Clara had nearly driven her blade clean through me, leaving a savage gash across my shoulder and waist.
If it was just a dream… why does it still hurt?
And where were the priest and Nara? Why hadn't they healed me—
Wait. Why would they need to heal me? I've always healed myself.
I muttered under my breath, pacing. Room to room I went—hallway, kitchen, bathroom—searching like a man possessed. But there was no sign of them.
Heart hammering, I collapsed back onto the bed, taking in long, jagged breaths.
It's fine, Xavier. They're probably just outside, guarding the apartment… keeping demons at bay.
I covered my face with my hand, rubbing at tired, stinging eyes. That's when I noticed a paper lying on the wooden table.
I rose slowly, as if moving through water. Picked up the note. Ancient script scrawled across the page—but it came easily to me. I'd learned this language as a boy, obsessed with its curling letters and hidden power.
I began to read:
We are sorry for dragging you into this. Perhaps the gods meant for you to live a splendid life, unburdened by your past. You have suffered enough. You deserve peace now. From here on, live freely.
Teresina is dead. It is not because of you. We will find another way to save our realm, so rest assured.
You will feel pain at your left ribs—one of your swords is dead. Your shoulder and waist will heal in human time. Do not trouble yourself with needless thoughts. This is your world.
But even so… I still consider you our lord.
—Nara
The note slipped from my hands. I collapsed onto the bed, every sound around me vanishing into a hollow, ringing silence. My entire body went cold. Tears splashed onto the letter, smudging the ink.
"How… how can you both do this to me?" My voice cracked into a whisper. "At first I couldn't even trust you, and when I finally did… you abandon me? How can you—how can you say this is my world? No… NOOOOOO!"
I screamed, louder and louder, until it tore from deep in my chest like a wounded beast.
"You all did this because I'm not as strong as you, isn't that it? How am I supposed to live happily knowing my people are dying? That some are still prisoners in the demon realm? Their voices never stop echoing in my head! WHY? WHY?"
My tears soaked into the sheets, hot against my chilled skin. My body felt hollow, like something had been scooped out of me and thrown into the void.
I pulled my knees tighter, pressing my forehead against them, trying to muffle the raw sobs that wouldn't stop tearing from my throat.
In the silence that followed — a silence so deep it felt like the whole world was holding its breath — I heard my own fragile whisper:
"Teresina… I'm sorry…
I swear… even if it kills me… I'll bring you home."
Then darkness pulled me under, swallowing my grief, my guilt, my desperate vows — leaving only the sound of my ragged breathing in the quiet, broken room.
My plane landed at dawn, its wheels skimming the runway as the sun cracked open the horizon with a thin line of gold. I barely felt the city waking up around me. My mind was already far ahead—at a small house that smelled of old wood and spices, where laughter used to echo through sunlit rooms.
It had been months since I last saw my grandfather. Too many months. I'd bought a few paintings on my travels, just like I promised him—landscapes of rivers and misty hills I thought might brighten up his old study.
When I finally reached the familiar doorstep, my chest tightened. I knocked. No answer. I lifted my hand to knock again, more urgently, when the door creaked open.
A thin, cautious face peered out at me.
"Who are you?"
A smile tugged at my lips despite everything. "It's true I've been away too long, but it doesn't mean you get to forget me."
I stepped inside before he could protest. A slow smile broke across his weathered face, and he pulled me into a hug, his arms surprisingly strong for his age.
"I wasn't entirely wrong," he said with a chuckle as he eased back into his chair, "but you don't look much like the Xavier I remember."
"Oh, that's only because you haven't been seeing me every day," I laughed lightly, trying to shake off the dark weight clinging to my shoulders. I grabbed an apple from the bowl on the table, biting into its crisp sweetness.
He watched me with careful eyes. "What kept you so long? What made you delay your return?"
I hesitated. The words clawed at my throat, begging to come out—but not these words. Not the truths dripping with blood, betrayal, and grief.
"I was… betrayed by someone."
He sighed, leaning back with a knowing look that made something ache inside me. "That's why I always told you not to get tangled up with girls. Matters of the heart—they're crueler than any sword."
If only he knew. If only it was that simple. He couldn't possibly understand that in the months I'd been gone, I had stood on battlefields soaked with screams. That I had watched realms crumble and heard voices of dying children echo in my skull. That I had lost comrades—no, family—in ways that still made me wake choking on my own breath.
And I would never let him know. I would never drag him into this darkness. This was my war. And one way or another, I would see it end.
He smiled again, that same gentle, patient smile that had once comforted me after scraped knees and broken toys. "Ah, my son. Look—forget these shadows for now. Go wash up, meet your old friends, laugh a little. You'll feel better."
A ghost of a smile curved my lips. "Alright. I will."
But even as I made my way to my old room, the walls hung with fading photos of happier times, I couldn't stop the thought:
There's no washing this away. Not ever.
Still, for his sake, I would try—at least for tonight—to pretend I was just Xavier. Just a grandson coming home. Not a fractured king with blood on his hands and ghosts that still whispered his name in the dark.
I opened the door to my old room, and memories crashed over me like a flood. How I used to be so easily thrilled by the smallest things—collecting anything unique was practically my hobby. Sometimes it was a carved trinket, sometimes a scrap of parchment covered in ancient script. Back then, my biggest concern was getting to college on time, learning dead languages, wandering through old libraries. Never once did I think I was some sort of king tied to realms drenched in blood.
"A failed king, huh?" I scoffed, catching my reflection in the mirror.
He was right—I didn't look like the Xavier he remembered. My hair had begun turning white at the edges, strands like bleached ash. He probably thought I'd dyed it for style. I hadn't. It was happening on its own. And the marks—they'd spread to my shoulders, inching steadily up toward my neck.
I pushed aside my hair, studying the creeping darkness. "It's moving fast," I muttered, voice hollow.
Peeling off my white shirt, I stepped back to get a full look. The marks crawled up my left arm like burned branches, starting at my pinky, snaking over my wrist, twining around my shoulder. They were ash black, as if some fire had just finished devouring them.
I focused, trying to read meaning in their twists. But all they looked like were the naked branches of winter trees—haunting, skeletal.
"I've seen you glow plenty of times," I whispered to the marks, almost like they were alive. I couldn't stop the twisted grin that curled my lips. I stared at them without blinking, willing them to respond. A moment later, they flared softly, pulsing with a dark, hungry light.
"Yeah… I can feel my mana. Whenever I use my power, you always answer me." I chuckled under my breath, then stripped off my jeans and headed for a shower.
Later, after dinner with Grandpa—a long, wandering conversation about everything and nothing—I retreated to my room. I'd hidden the worst of my wounds from him, but my ribs still burned where the cuts refused to heal. I didn't know how long I could keep him from noticing. Even my hair was paling faster, and deep inside I could feel a reservoir of mana swelling, coiling, restless.
"If I'm getting my powers back… then why did they abandon me? And these wounds…" I let out a long sigh as I lay back on the bed. "Maybe they pitied me. Or maybe they were scared when they saw I couldn't heal."
My eyes drifted from the ceiling to a dark corner of the room.
What's that…?
I shot up, crossing the room in quick strides. There, tucked away and forgotten, was an old box, dust thick on its surface.
"I remember… I bought this the day before I left for Italy." I squinted at the ceiling, trying to jog my memory. "Where did I even find—"
Then it struck me all at once.
"MOUNTAINS!" I shouted, startling myself. Whenever I was searching my mind for something lost, Grandpa would laugh and say, 'Why stare at the ceiling when you've forgotten?' But somehow it always worked.
The memory hit me hard: I found the box tangled in the hanging roots of a banyan tree high in the mountains. It had looked ancient, almost waiting for me. That was always my weakness—old things seemed to call out to me, and I would answer. And then they'd vanish from their resting place, following me home.
I let out a small grin, pulling the box onto my lap.
It refused to open, the lid stuck firm. I wrestled with it, twisting and prying until frustration got the better of me.
"Alright then—"
I punched it hard.
The box gave a brittle creak—and split down the middle, splinters popping free.
"Oh… well… sorry. Guess it's not open anymore, it's just… broken."
I smirked faintly at my own bitter joke. Then leaned closer, peering into the dark hollow to see what secret it had tried so hard to keep from me.