The wounds burned into my skin, so painful that I can still feel them. The World of Men rejected me because of the Faeric blood that ran through my veins. They feared me, they hated me, and so they cast me out. They feared hurting me—for they feared what I would become—but they didn't bother to save me from the cruelty of the forests.

  Aldwyn's voice echoes in my mind as I approach the village. I can barely hear the horses galloping without its influence reaching me. Ahead of me, Dufae's shattered barrier scatters across the ground like translucent shards of glass.

  Alone, the merciless darkness of the natural order and of such hateful reality snuck up on my back and took the strength of my legs. It loomed over me and shone like the hot sun on my face. Tyrannical, it burned—and from the bottom of my heart, I hated it. I hated the humans. I hated the world. Especially, I hated being born.

  Smoke billows over the horizon. Gray clouds take the place of the clear black of night and hide the moonlight. Even at my command, the horse refuses to approach, so I undo my spell.

  I put Elron on the beast and whipped it so that it went around the village, betting that it would be safe enough—after all, no monster would want to go near Aldwyn.

  With Lugnir and my staff in hand, I step up and run towards the village. I feel the evil fairy's mana moving through it, visiting the houses one by one.

  Then a being approached. A child with white hair and crimson eyes. Powerful, his voice was like that of a lion. He stretched out his hand and told me that my loneliness was proof of my superiority. He transformed the flame of my heart into strength, and gave me the ultimate power of rebellion.

  “And he commanded me to be on earth as we will be in heaven.” Aldwyn says.

  I stare at the scene. Maybe it's the demonic blood, maybe it's an unconscious force—but the apathy earned by the disregard or lack of interest in emotions makes me feel numb to any kind of feeling. What happens in front of me, however, unlike anything I've ever witnessed outside my nightmares, terrifies me.

  Houses burn in sapphire-colored flames. Villagers scream and cry at the loss of their families, but run to avoid becoming the next victims. The skies close in black clouds that try to consume the moonlight, and rivers of blood flow down the cobbled streets.

  Aldwyn stands over the destruction and watches the suffering as if hypnotized. He smiles and whispers to himself when he's not telling me a story, daydreaming of death and destruction.

  Making it a reality, he finished devouring the limbs of the corpse in his hands and impaled it on one of the five wooden spears he had conjured. At the back of the village, he could see a glimpse of more of them—in the dead-end corridors, on the armor.

  Morgana's golden eyes conveyed many things. Hate, joy, boredom. Aldwyn's, however, are empty—as if I were watching the night sky with a single, bright blue star in its center. They stare out from behind my soul, as fairies are wont to do. This time, he seems to steal it too.

  “It was here.” He says. “Right here, marked by the spears, the place where we first met. Before Dufae existed, this was the edge of the civilization of one of the peoples that preceded it. I destroyed them, then let their descendants survive if they gave me their firstborn. Without you around, I sacrificed them to the old gods, the only ones who would help me win my position.” He turns to me. “There's still meat to be sacrificed, Sieghart.”

  I frown, but don't answer.

  “I see.” He says. “You look different.”

  Although the terror remains, the shock is fleeting. I nod to myself.

  “I feel different.”

  “Your mana recovers faster than you spend it. It's not demonic. It's not faeric. It's not natural, either. You've discovered it, haven't you? One of the paths to becoming a god.”

  My veins burn. The anchor holding the magic seems to break and rebuild. Behind the gates, the light leaks like blood from a wound. I squeeze through the gaps in the gates to sneak into the light and see a small, strange figure smiling at me on the horizon.

  The first question that comes to mind is “why?”

  Why was I chosen to inherit Chaos? Why did I do what I did? Why was I allowed to do it? Why did I return? Why was I forced into this fate?

  Sieghart watches me, his torn jaw still stained with blood. His figure grows as I force my steps behind the narrow passage. My heart writhes, for he knows the answer to my doubts, which I whisper so they won't be spoken aloud. Loving to lie to myself and going against this desire every day, I find myself facing the inescapable abyss that is the admission of the truth:

  I did it because I was free to do it, and I was born this way because if I wasn't, I wouldn't have been born. If the divine thinks—for whatever reason—that my birth is better than my existence, then they know what I don't know. It's enough to know that they're right, even if I don't give in to them.

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  No. Not giving my heart away is exactly why I'm here.

  “I'm not sure.” I reply. “To be honest, I'm still trying to understand. I feel like I can do anything. I feel like that's what you want, too.”

  Aldwyn spits out a laugh. “Even granting you an epiphany, you rejected the Lion. Have you finally realized that he can't make this decision for you?”

  I nod to myself and confirm the doubt I had. If what differentiates magic from a miracle is the ability to make the impossible possible, then the one who produces it is different from a man and a god.

  My body broke when the Lion injected Chaos beyond what it could bear, but it didn't when I myself walked to infinity. Transcendence is individual. In a despicable and failed attempt, the trinity tried to circumvent this.

  “Neither you nor he can help me control Chaos. Not forever. Not as I should.”

  Aldwyn smiles. “Now, Sieghart, there are very few who have that power. Look at the houses I've burned. Listen to the melody of their cries. I did it because they prayed against me—and even more outrageously, because they prayed for me to save myself. This is the path I chose. Without you, the only ones who didn't turn against me were the old gods.”

  I wander through the field. Sapphire-blue flames sicken me with the smell of burning flesh.

  “… The Forest. The people of the village before Dufae who sacrificed their firstborn to you. You used them as fuel to grow the Forest. To appease the old gods. You want to become one of them. A false god.”

  “Everything has been prepared for this moment. Even with your Chaos, I couldn't invade the Unknown as easily as I did with you in your dreams. When you came to the village to save them from their transgression, you devoured part of my flesh. Your eyes see magic; your blood precedes damnation; the Forest offers divinity, and we share the same flesh. Our fates are intertwined.”

  “There is nothing more to be accomplished. The Demiurge has been sealed. The Sieghart you knew is dead.”

  Aldwyn laughed and scratched his chin. “Are you sure about that?”

  I frown.

  “As long as your cursed existence persists in this world, the Dark Age will still exist in your heart. Even if you somehow defeat me, the Lion will still be able to possess your body at the night of the Blood Moon, and he shall use It to create the conditions for the Eclipse.” He says.

  “I didn't destroy you out of respect for the First, and if you turn your back and let the lives of these villagers fall into memory, I won't pursue you. But if you continue without joining me, I shall consume you and take my flesh back. You will be my new sacrifice, Sieghart, and I will spread the roots of my forest across the continent.”

  Sapphire light creates a sea of shadows. I push my hand against the shadows below me, then conjure and store an Ignite within the darkness.

  “You already knew the answer you'd get. You wouldn't be here if you didn't. I'm going to kill you and save the village. I won't be a slave to myself. The cycle ends here.”

  Aldwyn spits out a laugh.

  “How?”

  He raises his arms. The ancient language of the runes is written by waving his fingers and increasing the power of their emission.

  “Boomburst.”

  The skies brighten for half a second before a dark, unholy aura bombards me.

  “Aegis!” I charm and solidify the red aura in front of me. Earth explodes next to the uneven cobblestone streets, the impact spreading around me like the deep roots of a tree.

  As if the explosion were shaking the inside of my body, I feel my stomach turn over, and I inhale so as not to pass out. The red barrier shatters like glass and falls to the ground, its fragments disappearing into thin air—but it has done its job.

  Aldwyn narrows his eyes.

  A third of the village had already been annihilated within half an hour of his arrival. Even weakened by decades of imprisonment and manipulation of the entire forest, Aldwyn is the strongest being I have ever faced. He reminds me of the demons within the Unknown who, without the power I have in the realm of nightmares, would be invincible.

  But I have that power now. There is no villager nearby—no house that hasn't already been consumed. My heart pounds, and a smile forms on my face in reflex.

  The demons are right when they say I was born cursed. Sieghart's only destiny is corruption, death or victory.

  Against him, I don't need to hold back.

  I invest. My body moves on its own and sails towards the fairy, its speed intensifying. I feel the power of my emission returning to my body, a red aura overflows and turns fire into ice as my figure approaches. I concentrate my mana, absorbing the heat of the flames and the surrounding smoke into the tip of my staff.

  “Ignite!” I shout and jump, then blast the spell at point-blank range at Aldwyn. Red flames explode down the street, consuming the bodies and pulverizing the surrounding wood.

  Thunder roars in the sky. Lightning strikes near the village as the storm rages above us. Rain pours down from above and hits the fairy's blue flames, but they refuse to go out. Acidic, the drops of water hurt on contact with the skin.

  At least, they should hurt.

  Thrown into the air by the impact of the spell itself, I face the heavens and let these mortal restraints be pushed out of my body. My heart burns as if it were bleeding, black envelops its muscles as I struggle to reach the light that dwells within my soul.

  In the midst of the fading red fire, Aldwyn's calm silhouette is protected by the dark blue aura that surrounds him. The beast spins, the water concentrates on its hand and freezes in the shape of a spear. I feel the accumulation of mana intensify its power and resistance, and the creature moves in a figure to throw it at me.

  “Ifrit.” I whisper and avoid the spear exploding fire from heaven to earth. Crystalline, it passes centimeters away from my face and explodes into snow as soon as it passes me.

  Aldwyn moves his hands as if pulling threads around his fingers. Behind me, the presence of the snowflakes increases—shaped like little needles.

  “Umbra!” I say, and expand my shadows to create a shield as strong as steel. I cover myself with layers, only to be pressed down by the hundreds of thousands of micro-needles. A rain made of diamond dust surrounds me—and soon becomes a storm. The layers of shadow break like a knife through butter and drain my mana.

  The only way to win is to tire him out and destroy him with the power of Chaos. To be put on the defensive is death. I let my shadow swallow me up and the needles explode the ground I was standing on. I join the shadows created by the sapphire fire and hide my presence. Ten seconds are my limit for moving within the shadows—but it's enough to cross the distance between me and-

  The shadow stops before it gets close to the fairy. Aldwyn turns to her, a sign from his hand locking me in place as I struggle to master my own magic.

  Impossible.

  He's not strong enough. He shouldn't be. Its claws dig into my chest narrowly through the darkness and pull me towards it. Smiling, the creature opens its mouth and approaches.

  “I found you.”