Seren shifted around on the pile of blankets, more to find a different way to sit and to wrap some of them over her legs than anything else. With the sun now having fully set, the warmth of the day was bleeding away.

“Okay, so I understand how the founding myth was important to you, especially as the former empress,” she said slowly and measuredly. “But that still doesn’t explain how it’s tied to you specifically, and your birth.”

“Patience,” I responded playfully. “I was building up to it.”

“Creating some suspense for me, huh?” she asked teasingly, before shivering slightly.

“More like I’m stalling. Just a little,” I answered with a wry smile, as I got up and offered a hand to her. “But first, let’s take this inside, shall we? Summer is over and we appear to be graced with a cold night.”

After a moment of hesitation, she took my hand and pulled herself up with it. “It’s unfair how you aren’t even affected.”

I chuckled softly as I started gathering some of the blankets. “What can I say, being a lich has its perks sometimes.”

I heard her chuckle as I glanced down at Fluminix, who was looking rather annoyed at being disturbed, and slid a hand over the top of her head in passing on my way inside. “Mind helping us out, little one?”

The infant dragon huffed, before gently collecting several blankets with her maw and dragging them inside behind me. Seren, in turn, followed her, with a bundle of blankets of her own in her arms.

We loosely deposited them where Fluminix’s nest was built, before Seren and I each headed to a different couch. With the young dragon looking torn between joining us and curling up in her nest.

“Come,” I said softly, as I patted the space on the couch beside me. “You deserve to hear this part as well. After all, it’s high time you learn more about the very dragon you were named after.”

As Fluminix trotted over to me and spread herself out beside me, with her head on my lap, Seren gave me a considering look before it twisted into one of recognition. “The Vesperan dragon. Of course. I mean, I knew they were from Vespera, I just didn’t realise they were Vesperan. Which sounds stupid saying out loud…”

I chuckled softly. “Not at all. Their origin is directly tied to my ancestors, in fact. It was roughly four centuries before I was born, during Empress Nera’s reign that their… ‘creation’ was commissioned. Unfortunately for her, it turned out to be harder than they initially thought it would be. It wasn’t until about one hundred and seventy-five years before I was born, during Emperor Villius’ reign, that the first Vesperan dragon was successfully hatched.

“So, they were relatively new by the time I was born, which makes their continued existence even more interesting,” I said softly as I scratched Fluminix’s chin. “A relic of the past, much like me.”

“You’re stalling again,” Seren said in a lightly accusatory tone.

“I am,” I answered honestly, as my eyes rested on the dragon’s head on my lap. Because if hearing her gods are actually monsters was hard to take in, this part might be even harder.

“I suppose I should start with a bit more background to the next part,” I started apprehensively. “Since the founding of Vespera, the elite cared only for one thing in their offspring: magical prowess.

“Not that they were disdainful of those that lacked the talent for magic, they just strongly believed that only the strongest mage amongst them was worthy of leading their house. None more so than the Imperial Family, the Tutana gens. For generations, they ruled the empire from the very hill we sit on at this moment.

“Well, not exactly the same hill, as the hill that used to house the Imperial Palace… kind of got blown up? Crumpled apart? I have a hard time describing how it just… lost the entire top of it.”

Seren raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “How could a hill blow up in a way that makes it look like it crumpled apart?”

I winced and averted my eyes. “We’ll get to that part later. For now, let’s stick to the event long before that happened.

“Anyway, the patrician families followed in Vespera’s footsteps, using necromancy to protect people from the dangers in the world. By turning the magical animals into their assets, they secured the Umbrean peninsula under their rule. Which was also around the time one of my ancestors, Emperor Alexius, proclaimed Vespera to be an empire under the rule of his descendants, making him the first Tutanii to bear the cognomen Glorianus, after his success in securing the peninsula.

“Since then the empire had expanded across the northern shore of Tazarica, all of Argithea – the continent to the north of the Mediarene Sea – and much of the western parts of Mitaria. However, contrary to modern belief, we didn’t enforce our language, culture and views on religion on the lands we ruled. All we brought was stability, security and prosperity.”

“Really?” Seren asked dubiously. “You’re telling me that you were some benevolent rulers that left people to live their lives in peace, whilst also maintaining an entire army of undead soldiers?”

I snorted a little laugh. “I would never call me or any of my predecessors either good or benevolent. A good or benevolent ruler is an oxymoron. They just don’t exist.

“We had a lot of things that people might envy now. A severe lack of systemic poverty. Partial democratic rule, mainly on the local level, and a meritocratic succession, albeit limited to magical prowess. No magical monsters or bandits that might threaten trade routes. Not a single person died on the battlefield – except during the times we lost ground, with it villages, towns and cities.

“That said, however, there were also parts that might, arguably, be called… harsh,” I said with sudden hesitancy. “For example, all deceased who died over the age of fifteen were automatically conscripted into the empire’s services. All crimes were punishable with death, no matter if it were petty or major crimes.

“Though, at the same time, magistrates were required by law to investigate the root causes of the accused crimes. If a rich person stole a loaf of bread, it was practically an automatic death sentence. If a poor person, especially a minor, stole a loaf of bread, the reasons for their poverty had to be investigated first. If a parent’s actions had led to poverty that required or forced a minor to steal a loaf of bread, the parents would most likely find themselves executed. If someone fell into poverty because of mistreatment by their employer, said employer might find their life ended prematurely. And so on.”

“And what happened to a magistrate, if, say, they didn’t investigate?” Seren asked critically, to which I shot her a look that said ‘shouldn’t it be obvious?’ “Right, execution.

“Still, though, I find it hard to believe that you never killed people just to turn them into undead.”

I shrugged. “Why would we? After all, the ethos of the empire was to preserve life at all costs.”

“Was that the reason for the rather… universal form of punishment?” she asked.

I winced slightly. “Ah. No, not really. That was to ‘encourage positive social behaviour’. If there were no real structural reasons for criminal behaviour and you were to only have a single chance at doing ‘good’, why wouldn’t people? And if not, well, at least they could be productive in death. That was more or less the reasoning.

“In hindsight, an admittedly very flawed reasoning.”

“So, you too saw it as the, um, right way to approach things?” she asked carefully.

“I did,” I admitted. “However, not quite as strictly as my father had. Pertronius, my husband, played a big part in that. He… was my heart.” I closed my eyes as I took a slow breath and clenched my fist. “He made everything I did easier, and made me more considerate in my decisions.”

I opened my eyes and relaxed my hand. “My father, on the other hand, he came down on dissidents like the followers of the Cult of the Light, formerly the Cult of Aurora, with an iron fist, showing zero tolerance towards them.

“And, yes, the Church of the Holy Light has its roots in the same myth that gave rise to Vespera,” I said, as I looked over at Seren with a slight smirk across my lips. “Ironic, isn’t it?”

She did not look convinced. Nor did she look amused.

“Anyway,” I started soberly. “I was born thirty-eight years before… well, before the fall of the empire. I just can’t find it in me to use the phrase people use for the years before the start of the current calendar.”

“You mean, Before the Light?” she asked with a smirk of her own.

I huffed in annoyance. “Yes, that one. It’s a stupid way to refer to time. As if there was no light prior to it? I certainly basked in the sun on many occasions. Whenever I wasn’t holed up in the palace library or at some party-turned-orgy. Though, some of them were actually held on rooftops, so that doesn’t really count as not having been in the sun.”

Seren groaned, so I thought it best to just move along to the important bits. “So, anyway, I was born at dusk of the autumn equinox of the year thirty-eight… BL. One of the most revered times of the year, as the festival of Vespera’s founding and her mythological founder were celebrated. It was seen as the time of the year that exemplified the need for our ethos: the night when all night were to become longer, and with it danger loomed ever larger.

“It was a holy night. As holy as New Year’s Eve is to you and everyone else, these days. Born with jet black hair, brown eyes and the slight tan that most people from around the Mediarene Sea are born with. Roughly around the same time, the egg laid specifically for when I would be born hatched to reveal a typically black scaled Vesperan dragon, when she opened her eyes, they revealed themselves to be electric blue, making her a Vesperan lightning dragon.

“Just like you,” I said softly whilst looking down at the dragon resting her head on my lap, and giving her some extra scratches. “She became known as Fluminix, your namesake.”

The infant dragon looked suddenly a lot more interested in this part of my story, turning her head so she could urge me to continue by poking her horns in my stomach.

“However, my birth wasn’t the only one that night. Come dawn, my brother was born, Fluvius, more commonly known as Flavio Lumino these days.”

“Wait, wait,” Seren interrupted with urgency, and with righteous confusion marring her face. “He wasn’t born during the autumn equinox. The scriptures tell us he was born at dawn during the spring equinox, as the prophesied bringer of light.”

“Sorry to tell you, but that’s a bold-faced lie,” I said with an unapologetic shrug. “A lie that was created later in his life, to better suit his new-found purpose. But that’s getting ahead of the story.

“Around the same time he was born, with his unusual golden blond hair, his own prepared egg hatched, revealing itself to be a rarity among rarities: an albino Vesperan dragon. Pure white scales and eyes the colour of a raging fire, an albino vesperan fire dragon.

“To say people were shocked, by both Flavius’ unusual hair colour and the dragon’s unusual appearance, was an understatement. It was an omen, they decided. Vespera and Aurora reborn.

“From my birth, people have seen me as the reincarnation of Vespera, and thought of me the one that would save the empire of an impending calamity. Whereas my brother was seen as Aurora’s reincarnation, and treated with silent distrust as the one who would most probably be the source of said calamity. Something no-one in my family bothered to deny, as they thought it would best serve their purpose of finally rooting out the rot planned by Aurora.

“Even in my earliest memories of the social events I attended, I was placed in a seat of honour, dressed in the finest clothes to make me look like the mythological founder. Whereas my brother was always slightly off to the sides.”

I sighed before growing a fond little smile. “We were close, you know, growing up. We would always play together. We had our lessons together. We would sneak off into the library together, reading side by side in a quiet nook. Despite how we were portrayed, we were joined at the hip.

“I loved him deeply, and he held the same affection towards me, of that I am certain. The troublemakers of the Imperial Family my mother would call us. In private, of course. In public, we only had our secret nonverbal communication, like hand signs and specific looks.”

Any fondness in my face slowly bled away and turned into a troubled look. “All of that started to change when we were six. Not immediately, but… that’s where our paths started to irreconcilably diverge. Our tutor, Claudius, was a real stickler for the rules and the ‘proper way of doing things’. So, he had his teachings progress according to long established development plans.

“However, I was a quick study, even back then, and endlessly curious. It didn’t take me long to learn how to read. So, when he still had us read training scrolls when I was ready for something more… substantial, I quickly grew bored. To stave off said boredom, I started our escapades into the library, with Flavius following along mostly so he could take part in what I was up to.

“I had little interest in the stories written in the various scrolls at the time – unlike my current desire to collect stories from all over the world and to write those down – but was instead drawn to the scrolls containing spells. Whereas my brother read scrolls containing heroic tales – mostly by looking at the sparse illustrations drawn in them – I pored over spell scrolls. And trying them out as soon as my unearned confidence thought I had them pinned down.

“I didn’t have much success, until I one day made yet another attempt to reanimate one of the dead mice that had sneaked onto the palace grounds. That time, I succeeded,” I said, still feeling somewhat proud of my earliest achievement, before falling silent at looking wistfully towards nothing in particular.

“How old were you back then?” Seren asked, drawing me back to the present.

“I was still six at the time,” I answered. “Normally, such spells were beyond what someone before their mid-teens could cast. However, it turned out I had an exceptional talent for magic, especially necromancy. Very much like Vespera supposedly had.”

“And how rare is such a talent?” she asked sceptically. “Really.”

“I’ve only met a handful of similar talent during my lifetime,” I answered truthfully.

She raised a dubious eyebrow, but let me continue regardless of her suspicions.

“My parents were quick to recognise my talent, granting me my first cognomen: Magana,” I resumed. “As well as officially naming me as my father’s heir with a grandiose ceremony. Ever since that day, I received extra lessons and special treatment. The time my brother and I spent learning together was over.

“However, I still sneaked into his room at the end of the day, or during one of my rare few days off, to try and teach him everything I was being taught. Unfortunately, Flavius didn’t have my talent for magic and his struggles with trying to learn what I was trying to teach him turned into frustration.

“Over the years he became more and more irritable with me, whereas I grew more and more arrogant. The distance between us grew. He drifted towards what my parents saw as a lower pursuit: sword fighting. Whereas I grew more and more capable as a mage, whilst simultaneously being moulded into the future Empress I needed to become.

“When we were fourteen, the alarm bells woke me one morning. Fearing an intruder, I was surprised, shocked, to learn it was the opposite: Flavius had disappeared from the palace, as well as his dragon. I urged my parents to do everything in their power to get him back, but they were either unwilling or simply unsuccessful.

“It drove me into seclusion, throwing myself fully at the scrolls and lessons, determined to one day do what my parents failed to do. A lofty goal of a teenage girl filled with anger and regret, but one that slowly faded away as I grew up and into the role destined for me.

“When I was thirty-two and pregnant with my second child, my parents decided it was time,” I said, before suddenly pausing again as I lost myself in the past again.

“Time for what?” Seren asked, reminding me what I was doing.

“Right,” I said, after clearing my throat. “They thought I was ready to take over, so they attempted the Lich Ascension Ritual.”

“Did they succeed?” she asked curiously.

I snorted a laugh, before immediately sighing. “No, they did not. Very, very few actually succeed. Especially in those days. The depth of our understanding of magic was much less than it is today, and even today most that try to become a lich either end up dead or as a revenant, stripped of their magic forever. For my parents, it was a death sentence.

“But, it had become tradition. To try to ascend. It was a prestige project that every Emperor or Empress, along with their consort, were to undertake. It had been so for several generations, at that point.

“Anyway, I succeeded my father, earning me the cognomen Gloriana. And with it, I inherited the mess he had left me. The Cult of the Light hadn’t been weakened under my father’s rule, instead it had strengthened. And I, admittedly naively, followed in his footsteps, wanting to honour his legacy.”

“Sooo, he just left you to clean up his mess?” Seren asked sardonically. “What a dick move.”

I snorted, before letting out a self-deprecating chuckle. “You aren’t wrong. He did leave me with a mess he grew, didn’t he?

“Anyway, I tried to govern fairly, in accordance with Vesperan law, tradition and ethos. To uphold the highest standards. I spent countless hours poring over scrolls or discussing with my husband, my closest advisor, for a solution to the rampant problems the empire was facing.

“Within the discontent, the Cult of the Light spread. And all too often, they even instigated it, spreading lies about our governance. Things like claiming we killed and ate people’s babies. Or that people were being made to disappear – which, by all accounts, they weren’t, unless they went underground upon joining the cult. To add to their lies, they even spread rumours that those that disappeared were held in breeding facilities, where we bred people to kill and reanimate as our undead slaves.

“None of that happened,” I stated vehemently, old anger resurfacing, which seemed to make both Seren and Fluminix uneasy. So, I took a few breaths and calmed myself down. “Anyway, about halfway into my six-year reign, a figure emerged to lead the Cult of Light. Blond hair with amber brown eyes and a skilled sword fighter.”

“Flavio,” Seren breathed with admiration, which irked me not just a little.

I inhaled sharply through my nose. “Anyway, Flavius’ resurfacing was not the happy news I had been hoping for, even though I had mostly forgotten about him. It was deeply troubling, as it made the omen of our birth all the more real.

“At first, he just held a rally, stirring the masses to resist and rise up against me. However, one day I was woken by news that sunk my heart. In that very night, uprisings took place all across the empire, and half of it had already fallen.

“So, I did what I had to, I called on Fluminix – the Elder – not you, little rascal,” I said, giving the Fluminix resting her head on my lap an endearing grin and some rough scratches. “I rode her out into the night to the nearest provinces and aided in their defence. At night, we would silently glide over the populated areas, and Fluminix – the Elder – would strike down with her lightning at any rebel targets, raining down death without forewarning.

“During the day, we would swoop down, so I could raise our fallen opponents to stem the tide of the battles waged. We did what we could for several weeks, but even with our aid, things were dire. The empire was pushed back.

“From the fallen provinces, armies were mustered and marched south, crossing the Mediarene Sea to link up with the growing armies in northern Tazarica. My forces, severely dwindled with the significant loss of necromancers during the initial uprising, were pushed farther and farther back, all the way back to the Vesperan heartland, Umbrea.

“With the Arxine Mountains all but impassable except for the pass south of Mirhadd, we made our stand there, closing the pass off with the remaining legions. Several sea dragons making an amphibious invasion all but impossible, forced Flavius to direct his forces into the mountainous funnel that is Fremet Pass.

“It was there my brother and I first fought each other directly, in the sky above the battlefield. At first, I tried to reason with him, urging him to stop this madness, questioning why he was doing this. However, he didn’t want to hear a word of it.

“Not that it was easy to hold a conversation in mid-air whilst flying a dragon in pursuit of the dragon the person you were trying to talk to. Whilst they kept raining down fire upon the forces down below, mind you.

“In the end, we duelled in the sky, our dragons unleashing their magic against one another, as the battle below us raged on. I tried to mind Fluminix’s – the Elder – line of fire, whereas Flavius didn’t seem to have the same consideration. His dragon’s fire seemed to hit his forces about as much as they hit mine.

“Also, for some reason, he never seemed to unleash hell upon the necromancers behind my undead lines…” I said, suddenly becoming thoughtful as I started pondering the ancient mystery anew. “Never figured out why that was…”

“I… find all of this hard to believe, if I’m being honest,” Seren confessed thoughtfully, pulling me out of my thoughts. “The uprising and the subsequent battles are described in the scriptures, but to claim Flavio rode a dragon into battle, and that he killed his own people? That just doesn’t make any sense. I mean, he started the dragon hunts. Why would he ride a dragon if he sought to free humanoids from their tyranny?”

I shot her a pitying look, which she returned with a half-hearted scowl. Not because I had magically convinced her and all was as it was before again, but because she was too conflicted to put any real heat in it. I could see it in her eyes, how they sought for a way out, a way to reconcile my account and who she knows I am with what she had been taught all her life.

So, I took mercy on her and simply continued the part of my tale. “In the end, both sides were forced to withdraw. A pyrrhic stalemate. Over half of Flavius’ army was dead, whereas I had lost most of my necromancers, and with it the ability to reanimate remains and keep them reanimated.

“Over the next three years, an uneasy status quo existed between Vespera and the newly independent states. Many were war-weary following the short but brutal war against the empire. Very few were interested in a renewal of said war, and the new states were quick to start to squabble with one another. Something I was planning to leverage to my advantage, in the hopes of one day being able to reclaim what was lost.

“At the same time, I was preparing for the even further off future. Even if I wasn’t able to re-establish Vesperan rule in all the corners of what I had once ruled, I wasn’t going to abandon them to the horror out there in the world. In other words, I started to prepare for my own attempt at the Lich Ascension Ritual, with the hopes to be able to retire into a role of guardianship instead of rulership.

“Unfortunately for all of my plans, living soldiers are easier to replenish than necromancers were to train, so Flavius was able to muster a new army despite the international will. Where before he led a multinational force, now it was an independent army, a crusader army.

“When news of this new army arrived, I prepared. I asked the dragons to once again protect the shores, and sent my legions to the pass once more. I felt secure in my defences. All they needed to do was send a message at the first sight of trouble, and I would fly out to aid them.

“After all, his army wasn’t anywhere near its earlier size.

“How very blinded I was…” I said, my eyes falling down to my lap and the hand I started to flex out of unease, before I looked up with a pained look. “You see, whilst I was busy defending the borders, I failed to see the enemy was already inside the walls of the city. The cult had been operating here for decades already, right under our noses.

“I mean, how else had Flavius succeeded in escaping the palace so easily and effectively?” I asked rhetorically. “Servants, generals, court officials, nobles, they had followers in all strata and we never saw it. Too blinded by our arrogance. Too blinded by our own sense of moral superiority.”

“What happened?” Seren asked softly, carefully, with a care and concern I hadn’t really expected of her, for someone who was still processing the gap between the believed truth and the presented truth.

“Fire,” I said, as my eyes fell to the floor and my gaze distant. “The city burned. That was what woke me.

“The tolling bells and the heat of the blaze forced me to rush out of my bed. When I got out in the courtyard overlooking the city, I saw a ring of fire surrounded the city, running along the outer wall. When I saw a bright light within the lit, smoky clouds, from which even more fire rained down on the besieged city, I got furious at the same time that it dawned on me what was happening.

“Flavius was attacking us right in the heart of the remains of the empire.

“I called for Fluminix to come to me, but she never showed up.

“I took control of the Imperial Guard, but their numbers fell short. Fewer of the elite skeleton legionnaires were present than there ought to have been.

“Just when panic began to set in, Flavius strutted nonchalantly into the courtyard, the head of the Imperial Guard’s commanding necromancer dangling by her hair in his hand. Flanking him were his most faithful companions, skilled warriors that I had read plenty about in my reports. Bandits, thieves and murderers.

“Not all of them, but enough to question my dear brother’s morals,” I said with a sardonic wince. “He threw the head at my feet as he laughed. He…” I took a sharp breath. “The fuckwit dared to laugh at the dead. To laugh in the face of everything we stood for. Everything he claimed to stand for.

“So, I attacked. I ordered the skeletons to charge as I unleashed any offensive spell I could think of. Fire was met with water. Air and stone clashed. Arrows were intercepted by wards. Light burned away skeletons, as swords and spears found flesh.

“I…” I exhaled slowly. “I don’t really remember the battle all that well, if I’m being honest. All I know is that, one moment I was slinging spells at my brother and his people, the next Flavius stood in front of me, his dagger plunged in my stomach. His breath hot on my skin and his eyes filled with righteous fury.”

“I definitely didn’t forget what he said to me that night,” I stated as I looked Seren directly into her eyes. “He leaned closer and whispered to me, ‘Not so strong now, eh? Guess our dear parents chose wrong.’”

I had seen her troubled before, especially over the course of this evening as I got deeper and deeper into this part of my past, but this seemed to trouble Seren more than anything. The scriptures of the Church of the Holy Light tell of Flavius’ cause as being a righteous one, one of divine purpose, to rid the world of an evil so great that it was crushing the future of humanoid kin.

I knew they did, for I have read their holy book. Every version of it that I could get my hands on.

“You mean…” she started, but she couldn’t finish it. She couldn't utter something that so very strongly contradicted what she believed in.

“Yes,” I said slowly, as I nodded. “He joined the Cult of the Light, became its leader, changed his birthday, caused and led the uprising against Vesperan rule, all of it, out of petty jealousy.”

Seren seemed to physically withdraw into herself.

“Unfortunately, that isn’t the end of this part of my story yet,” I said, as my face turned grimmer whilst I gently urged Fluminix to take her head off my lap. “After he left me that message, he stepped back and let me fall onto the stone floor of the courtyard. As he and his companions walked past me towards the palace proper, I crawled after them, screaming my demand to know what they were doing.

“I got no answer, and they disappeared into the building,” I continued, as I stood up. “I grew more desperate, fearful for my husband, my children, all of whom resided inside.

“So, I did what I had to,” I kept going as I reached for the strings of my dress. “I placed my fingers in the growing pool of my own blood, and used it to draw.”

I pulled at the string, but stopped my dress from sliding down. “As I finished a crude circle, the first screams rang out from inside the palace. A scream from a man I knew and loved deeply.

I turned to face her fully, tears pooling in the corners of my eyes. “I hastily drew symbols within the circle. Finishing as I heard the screams of my second child. The first one was lost in the fog as I drew.

“So, I grabbed the handle of the dagger in my stomach, and sliced it to widen the wound,” I let my dress slide off my shoulder. Distantly, I noticed how Seren blushed faintly, and filed that away for later. “But it wasn’t enough. My two-year-old son’s screams reached my ears before I could start the chant.”

Unlike the previous times she saw me naked, this time I hid nothing. Where normally a perfectly realistic illusion hid wounds that would never heal, they were now in full view. The initial stab wound was still visible to the side, as was the cut I made, a messy but clear line at the top. However, the skin below was torn. Ripped.

Strings tried to keep all of it together, but they could do nothing to stitch the wound closed, and my stomach pressed down against it, threatening to spill out of the gap if the strings were to fail. The exterior of my stomach was marred with haphazard cuts and scratches.

“The circle connected with the half-prepared ritual below the palace,” I continued, as Seren stared at my stomach in horror. “It shouldn’t have worked. It really shouldn't have. Too much was missing from the ritual site.

“And yet,” I said with pained, misty eyes. “I still tried. I had to. Maybe there was still a chance, you know? To save my family. I had to try. I had to.

“I forced my everything into the ritual. I carved, cut, clawed to get my heart out, desperation guiding my hands more than skill.

“I held on to my soul with tooth and claw once my heart was cut free. Several times, my soul almost slipped out of my grasp. But I had to, you know?” I explained desperately, slowly sinking to my knees as I forced myself to relive the worst time of my life, before I looked up at her with a similar manic hopefulness to what I felt at the time. “And I succeeded. I pushed through, and succeeded where I should not have.”

The hopefulness drained from my face as I suddenly came back to the present, slumping down to my knees. “But it was all for nothing. The start of the ritual hadn’t gone unnoticed. So, when I rose again, as a lich, Flavius and his friends had returned to the courtyard, my family’s blood coating their weapons and clothes.

“I would love to tell you I put up a good fight, gave them a run for their money, but sadly I did not,” I said with a sardonic, twisted and pained laugh. “The truth is that I took one step forward, filled with rage, and collapsed. Passing out on the spot.

“Pretty embarrassing, right?” I asked as I looked up at her, chuckling in self-deprecation and my abyssal eyes filled with tears and despair. “Not at all as heroic or epic as the stories make it out to be.”

“I...” Seren trailed off, before biting her lower lip with a torn expression.

Eventually, she slowly got up and drew closer with careful steps, before kneeling down and taking my cheeks in her hands. Tears were forming in her own eyes, despite herself. “Nothing about you, or what you’ve told me, has ever been embarrassing. Not to me.”