Dutybound

by Mark Aaron Alvarez

  “Look out!” Lucia screamed, holding out her hand. A light pulsated from the Light Wings, flowing through her and into her palm. From it shot a light so brilliant it sent out a blast that turned the surrounding ice into vapor while tossing up the phantom with white-hot fire. Lucia sprinted forward and picked up the girl as the figure rose into the air and dissipated into a cloud of smoke.

  A deep fog encompassed them, and the monster was inside her head. “You cannot escape me. I live inside you, within your darkest nightmares.”

  “Show yourself,” Lucia said, “or leave me alone!”

  “Your fear will make you reckless!” It snarled in the shadows, with its many voices. “Your confidence shall fail you when you least expect it, and when it does, I will be waiting.”

  “Stop it. Get away from me. Let me go!” Lucia’s scream evoked a pillar of light from her chest, causing a volley to shoot into the sky and erupt into light. From the pendant, a wave of light burst through the city, tearing through the shadows and engulfing the buildings in flames. “No,” she said, dropping the girl suddenly as she screamed in agony, burning in the light Lucia had summoned. The girl’s body was enveloped in white fire, squirming as she reached out toward Lucia in pain. “This isn’t real. This isn’t real,” Lucia cried, holding her head in her hands.

  “You are responsible for their pain. You are what’s most dangerous. Your power will consume you and all you hold most dear, just as pride will consume this city.”

  The figure manifested itself overhead, floating above the burning city as Lucia became dizzy from the heat. Buildings began to crumble and fall as her strength left her. She collapsed in the smoke, coughing and wheezing as she tried to pull herself to her feet. The buildings toppled down and over her, trapping Lucia under the burning rubble. Why does this feel so real? It’s only a dream. Isn’t it?

  Slowly, the dread pulled her into darkness and shot her back into the reality of her chamber, only to realize that the same figure she had seen in her dream was hovering there above her, so close to her face that she could see the light of her pendant being drained into its hood. She tried to move but was bound to her bed, incapacitated by the terror of the nightmare.

  ***

  The sound of screaming woke Leo, causing a jolt in his gut. He gasped for air as he moved upright and panicked. He went for his door, tumbling as he called to her. “Lucia, I’m coming!” What could be happening? He thought about tearing the door open. Has it found us? The corridor was empty as the lightning seeped from the windows, illuminating it. Leo was still bleary as he took careful steps. He could no longer hear it, the screaming that had woken him, but instead the whistle of the wind from outside the walls of his home came beneath a wake of thunder, sending a chill into the halls and frightening him. A haunting presence loomed in the air as the walls distorted, changing miraculously in the shudder of the lightning as if Leo were falling in and out of one of his darkest dreams. The walls became grotesque, peeling with decay and overrun with moss, but then in the distant flashes, they alternated between normal and disarray.

  The illusion nearly broke him, disturbing his sanity as he cowered backward. “No.” His heart sank as its voice seeped into his mind, planting its seed within his thoughts. “Father . . . ” He ran back and past his room, his heart beating with every step as he raced toward Sigranole’s quarters. The walls were still changing around him, though he did not notice. He kept his eyes fixed on his destination at the far end of the hall, determined to find his father alive and well. But thorns emerged from the walls and in his mind, coiling around his deepest fears.

  His shadow stretched out, far in front of him, extending within the light of the storm outside. He watched it rise from the floor and run ahead of him like a doppelganger, a vision of himself. Leo slowed, observing as his shadow reached for the door to his father’s chamber. “I must be dreaming,” he said softly. “This can’t be.”

  His doppelgänger turned the handle while reaching for his knife, pulling it from its sheath as he pushed his way inside. “What is going on?” Leo watched as the door closed and the lock latched from inside. “No!” he shouted, running to and rattling the door. His blood heated beneath his skin as the walls changed yet again. Blood rained down from above the door and onto his hands. Leo cried as he brought his trembling hands to his face, staining his cheeks crimson. He slammed his fist against the door, his fears alive, breathing. “Father, please, open the door!” At that moment, he heard it click. A breath of relief left his chest as he pushed through the door, finally open, only to have the air ripped from his throat as his father wobbled toward him from across the room and collapsed with his hand over his neck, gasping as blood spurted from it. Leo’s eyes widened, the terror seeping in. He watched as Sigranole turned to face his killer, the boy he had raised and loved, looming as a shadow over him with his dagger dripping red.

  “Leo, please,” he tried to say as the heavy flow of blood ran over his tongue.

  “Goodbye, Father,” the shadow whispered, his voice sounding exactly like Leo’s, with its eyes a glaring purple. With one fell swoop, the dagger fell into Sigranole’s chest, and a scream echoed in all directions through the halls.

  “Papa!” Leo fell to his knees and crawled toward his father, the shadow brushing past him to dissolve into its true form. The figure’s laughter filled the room, roaring from its hood as it peered backward with its pale red eyes. It dissipated as Leo pulled Sigranole into his lap and rocked while tears burst from beneath his blue eyes. “Papa, stay with me, I beg of you. Please! Somebody, help me!” Leo wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his dagger and tugged it from his father’s chest as he called out in agony. “Somebody, please!” Sigranole’s eyes stared blankly upward, and the sound of his last struggling breath hissed through the silence. “Father . . . ” Leo uttered, his lips trembling. Within his eyes, his walls fractured. Cracks splintered, chipping at his psyche. “Father!”

  “Leo—” There in the doorway, Lucia stood shocked. Her hand dropped from her mouth as she watched Leo sob over his father’s corpse. “Sigranole,” she whispered. “It’s not real. This is another nightmare.” She came to Leo and put her arms on his shoulders as he let out another agonizing scream.

  Wrapped in woe, he shouted, his temper flaring within his roar, “Get off of me! Leave me in peace!”

  “Leo,” Lucia said, pulling backward. “It’s found us. The darkness is here.”

  “I saw it. I saw it happen.” Leo stuttered, “It—it was me. I . . . I did it. I . . . I killed him.” He hunched over his father’s body and cradled him as Lucia looked at the dagger lying covered in Sigranole’s blood.

  “What do you mean you killed him?” Lucia asked, confused. “You couldn’t have.”

  Leo cried. “It was me. Or at least, it looked like me. It had my dagger, and it thrust into his heart. I felt it. My heart stopped beating.” Leo was shaking. “I could feel his fear. He knew he was going to die.” Leo’s voice roared and echoed through the chateau. “I saw it in his eyes!”

  “It was not you. The darkness is messing with your head.”

  “But my dagger . . . ” Leo put a free hand over the silver hilt as his conscience riddled with guilt.

  Suddenly, the sound of a stampede came from the distance. Men shouted, rushing through the halls. “Hurry, to the master’s quarters! The master’s in danger!”

  “This was its plan,” Lucia said, realizing now exactly what the phantom had done. This wasn’t merely a murder. It was a set up. “We have to go.” She pulled on Leo’s arm, but he was stiff, frozen by his despair, unable to let go of the boy he once was. “Leo, get up!”

  “I can’t leave him, not like this.”

  “The guards will come for you. They will have your head once they find him murdered.”

  Leo’s eyes wandered. His emotion lay adrift. “So be it.”

  Lucia felt a blow to her c
hest as her face flushed. “They’ll find you with me and think Moz has something to do with it. This is what it wanted. It wants the provinces at each other’s throat. You have to come with me. We have to flee. Now!” She fell beside him, desperate for him to understand. “Leo, please. Your father had a mission for us, remember?”

  Leo shut his eyes, letting his tears stream down and drop onto his father’s pale face. He closed his father’s eyes, remembering the promise he had made. “Did he die thinking it was truly me? Does he know I love him?”

  Lucia shook her head and pleaded, “I’m not sure, but if we stay here, we won’t be able to avenge him. So many people will die, including us.”

  Leo turned his head and grabbed his dagger, the one that killed his father. He wiped it clean and stowed it in his sheath. His eyes hardened as he contained himself, calling to whatever light was left within his mind. “Goodbye, Papa.” He rose and turned to the door.

  Lucia grabbed his hand before hugging him. “Let’s go.”

  They took their leave. Sigranole lay within the silence, his life taken in cold blood. His light diminished in the storm and swept into the night, deep within a dream. As they fled, avoiding the guards and with heavy hearts, burdened by the horror they had witnessed, Leo brought them to a secret passageway beneath the chateau, accessed through the library. They hurried through the crypts, the very place Leo would not get to see his father buried, emerging on the surface of a graveyard within a dark forest. He closed the door to the passage and used a candlestick from the base of a broken headstone to hold the handles together, buying them some time as they prepared to leave Pinea behind.

  Lucia wondered what Leo must have been feeling. Just like her, he was forced from his home, but worse, he’d lost his father. He had watched him die. She observed how it pained him to turn away and take the blame, but he had no choice. The Light Wings had not only cursed her in this process, but had also brought an unimaginable grief upon the only person she thought she had left; and that, too, was another burden to bear. Who else had to die for this mission to be met? What more must the world sacrifice to protect her?

  “It’ll be a long journey to Aldric. We better stop at the nearest town and get supplies. We won’t make it without any food or water,” Leo said.

  “But we don’t have any money,” Lucia worried.

  “Well, if word doesn’t travel fast, I’ll use my name to get us what we need. The neighboring villages are loyal to the Feral line. They will greet us with good intentions.” Leo removed his bloodstained shirt. He walked quickly to a nearby spring where he dipped his shirt and scrubbed as much of his father’s blood off its gentle fabric as he could. “Keep quiet about your heritage, just until we make it out of the Pinean territory.”

  “Of course.” It was eating at her, watching Leo this way. His muscles tightening as he continued to scrub his blood-stained shirt so wildly. Eventually, she could hardly tell there was any blood on it at all. She looked away as Leo turned and threw his shirt around his shoulders, leaving it open. Was he broken?

  When the darkness had released Lucia from her bed earlier that night, she had no idea what it was after. She had thought it was only hunting her—but now she knew. The darkness had a taste for sadistic and cruel torture. It was fond of playing games and causing suffering beyond anything she had ever seen. Lucia looked away as she spoke, unable to grasp the reality of it. “I’m so sorry. I know this must hurt you. I can only imagine.”

  Leo remained silent for a few moments, his eyes hollow as he looked ahead into the forest. “Let’s hurry, before the rest of the world knows my father’s dead.”

  Lucia nodded as Leo passed in front of her. She followed closely behind him, her stomach rumbling as the dawn sprinkled light in through the trees of the vast forest. The night had been long, the darkest it had ever been, and it seemed as if things would only grow worse.

  Chapter Eight:

  Light’s Folly

  What little joy she had in seeing the world had been drained from her now. Leo’s faith, too, was tragically broken. How could their world become this? Why would their lives take this turn? Was it fate that their minds were left so mangled and torn? What was there to gain from all this?

  The duo made their way from the woods and to the top of a rocky hill. It was not long before they could see the destruction. The smell of ash and decay rose into the air, darkening the sky. Lucia gasped as she stared across to the broken city, now shrouded by smoke and burning in the distance.

  Leo’s eyes turned to stone. He clenched his fists as he watched Pinea’s walls crumble and his fortress fall, his heart pounding as his anger swelled.

  Lucia placed a hand atop the Light Wings, remembering the dream she had of the burning black city. Had her nightmare been an omen all this time, or was it she who had brought the blaze? Though there was this guilt buried deep within her, like a secret she had to hide, Lucia knew the phantom had done this. The darkness wrought this misfortune.

  “This is terrible.” Lucia tried to hide the shame in her voice. “In my dream, I saw it burning just like this. Except—” Lucia sighed before confessing. “I was the one who caused it. I had lost control.”

  Leo shook his head, his expression almost blank. “You didn’t do this,” Leo said, his voice long and low. He lowered his eyes, using every ounce of will he had to contain his emotions. He lifted his eyes, staring toward Pinea in the distance. “One day, we will destroy the darkness. I will not rest until we rid Terestria of this plague. I swear it.” Leo turned away from the chaos, his chest broad. He wiped away his tears while holding his composure and building his strength, changing suddenly.

  There was something fierce within his gaze, something Lucia could not quite understand. Was he angry, or sad? What was once so apparent became hidden, behind an impenetrable wall, like a dam holding back a sea of emotion. It must’ve taken an incredible amount of will for Leo to hold back how he truly felt.

  At that moment, Leo wanted nothing more than to be reckless. Flashbacks to his childhood, his training with the other boys in the courtyard, scrambling atop the grass with blood dripping across his knuckles, the memories filled his head. Anger. Wrath. Pride. That wasn’t him anymore, it couldn’t be. He had more self-control than that, but in this moment he wanted nothing more than to fight, to face the force that killed his father and show it he was not afraid. But he couldn’t. He was not strong enough—at least not yet.

  ***

  As they proceeded onward, each knew the journey would change them. Loss had become too common, and grief more certain. They stopped at a nearby village for supplies. Lucia waited patiently at a crossroads as the sun began to set, shining a magenta haze over the horizon. Her worry only increased as night approached. They had been traveling for some time, and there was no telling if word of Pinea’s doom had yet reached the outskirts, but Lucia held on to hope. It was frightening enough running from a malevolent force that could strike at any moment, but it was even more so running from Leo’s fellow countrymen as fugitives. Leo’s name would be tainted by his father’s blood, and no sane person would believe him when he told them of the things he saw that dreadful night. Lucia bowed her head, growing paranoid.

  “Come on, Leo.” She saw him scurrying toward her. He was newly dressed, wearing a dark blue jacket over a pristine gray tunic. Something suitable for traveling north, Lucia thought, looking then to her own southern clothing. She sighed. Leo had a large brown sack cast over his shoulder, beneath which she noticed a quiver of arrows.

  Leo held up a bow and handed it to her. “Do you like it?”

  Lucia looked confused, dangling the bow from her fingers. “What’s this for?”

  “It’s for you. It’ll come in handy when we run low on food. I thought I’d teach you how to hunt.” Leo smiled. “Not to mention, if we run into any enemies on the way up to Aldric. It makes for a good weapon.”

  “I’v
e never . . . ”

  Leo moved toward her and placed a hand on her forearm. His eyes met hers, somber at the gesture. Something hovered over her skin as she held her breath. “I’ll show you.” He raised his hand to the side of her face and caressed her cheek with his thumb as Lucia’s sight almost failed her.

  She knew he was hurting. So was she, but in that moment, there was something else building up between them. Lucia blinked, clearing her throat as she broke away from him. “Thank you, Leo. I really do appreciate you.” She found it hard to breathe. Her face was a bright red, like a ruby shining in the sun. Leo seemed to chuckle a bit before taking the quiver from his back and handing it to Lucia.

  “Is there something I could change into?” Lucia asked, pulling the quiver over her shoulder.

  “Oh,” Leo said, almost as if he’d forgotten. He dropped the sack and pulled from it a parcel. “I hope it’s of your taste. The clothes are a bit heavier than I think you are used to, but traveling north and into the mountains, it’s due to get colder.”

  “Great. I suppose I’ll have to wait until I have some proper cover to get into these.”

  “I wouldn’t be opposed to you changing now.” Leo shrugged his shoulders. “It would save us some time, and after all, there’s nobody around.”

  Lucia smiled before pushing the parcel into his chest. “No one except for you. So, I’ll wait.”

  Leo laughed, making his way in front of her. “As you wish, High Maiden.”