Sir Carrius of the Hollow Vow dreamed of flames.

Though he never slept, his eyes when they closed forged images of melting steel and fae flames. And then he’d snap, turning his heel as he brought his sword against the fallen statues which inhabited his courtyard of echoes. 

Through the endless hours of the day, he saw the ghosts of what once was. 

Yet even if his hands could grasp the hilt of his sword, tend to the orange trees and offer a rest to the songbirds which viewed their reflection upon his armour, he found he could neither touch, nor repair any vestiges of what once was. 

The stone remained crumbled and broken, just as they were the day he’d vowed to remain defiant even as all burned around him.

The last refuge, its gates bending to flames deeper than any conjured within the abyss. 

For as powerful as demonfire was, it paled to what could be wielded by the Court of Summer. 

All around him, only a testimony to desperation now remained. The final act of the Emerald Sage, who’d used all his years of life remaining to shift the refuge beyond the Fae Realm. That alone had caused half the destruction. 

The other half was by the fae which shifted along with the stone and all its defenders.

That was many centuries ago now.

Sir Carrius long surrendered any attempt to keep count of the individual years. Days turned to night and night turned day, but always his grief remained his only anchor to time. 

He counted down the seconds in his dreams. The familiar memories of regret. The fae were whimsical and delightful, but they were also fury unending in their vengeance–and the Summer Court wildest amongst them. Few knew the events of betrayal which led to the Queen of Summer driving her own sword of searing wrath into the heart of the Elven King. 

Even fewer would tell it. They were dead. Or like Sir Carrius, they were silent. 

He had vowed to defend what once was. And so he would never reveal how it came to be that the Elven King sought to destroy the Queens in a single act of folly. 

If he could not defend the stone, he would defend the memory.

Sir Carrius walked amidst his orange trees, relishing in the sensation of bark against his palms. As he turned his eyes upwards, he saw–and caught–a single orange as it fell amidst the dancing branches. He smiled, biting into the fruit, rind and all, savouring all the bitterness of the pulp and the wax of the skin. Few sensations moved him. But those given by what he grew many years ago never failed to do so. 

From a spilled orange carried by a bluebird, he had made a garden almost enough to drown out the sight of his ruined refuge. 

He just wished they’d brought him a sweeter orange.

Fwup, fwup, fwup.

Sir Carrius turned, knowing at once that this was not the sound of the bluebirds come to visit.

It was the wings of a raven, black as midnight. Or so it would seem.

Because as the raven landed upon the grass, Sir Carrius had his sword in hand long before the bird had assumed the form of an elven druid with a cloak as dark as his feathers. 

Sir Carrius was not moved.

Few invaded the sanctum he’d sworn to defend. But those who did were more than opportunists from the younger races. 

They were elves too. 

Fallen from their great heights. The descendants of those who had already forgotten their homes. 

And when they came, it wasn’t as historians or seekers of knowledge. They were acrobats and spellslingers. Thieves who had caught wind of what corridors were left unseen, and so sought those treasures which did not exist except in rumours and the wind. There were no signs pointing to this refuge amidst a refuge. Only doors best left unopened.

“Take to the sky, druid,” warned Sir Carrius. “Here on this grass, you will find no perch.”

He received a cold smile in response.

And then–

A sight to reinvigorate the despair in his heart.

“I shall do just that,” replied the druid, the king … the Elven King, as he lifted the Crown of Sages past his brow. “I believe the royal entrance to the spire tower can be found here. Am I understanding correctly that the Grand Solar can only be accessed through it?”

Sir Carrius’s mouth widened, his ghostly lips somehow becoming dry.

Then, compelled by all his years of duty, he dropped to his knee.

“That is so, Your Majesty,” he answered with a nod as weak as he could manage.

“And does the Grand Solar continue to possess the refuge’s fountain of life in working order?”

“I am unable to answer that, as I have not left this courtyard in many years.”

“Come now. You can be more helpful than that.”

“... I do believe it remains undisturbed, Your Majesty.”

“Good. Continue to ensure it remains that way. There will be guests in the future. When the time comes, I shall inform you of their names. Until then, you may continue to fulfil your duty, Sir Carrius of the Hollow Vow.”

He swept away, towards passages last used when those he’d sworn to defend stepped upon them.

As he left, the Emerald Knight’s fists trembled, his teeth clenched as he willed his hand to act. And yet even without his vow, nothing could move his hand to strike the one who wore the Crown of Sages.

Even an imposter. 

He’d been there, seen it, the very day it was buried with the ashen corpse of his king. And there it should have stayed, a relic without use. For how could it be named the Crown of Sages, when the one who’d worn it had so successfully brought about the ruin of a kingdom? Of a home?

Eucian of the Stars.

Soon, he came to know the name. And he came to know hatred. 

Those invited came in their ones and twos at first. Small leaders of small bands, little more than refugees. Then they came as more, and yet their status only ever fell. Elves, yes. But they were brigands, bandits and looters. 

And those who were not? 

They were those who had come to defy the Elven King, with courage in their hearts and dignity in their steps. And they were not his guests.

Sir Carrius of the Hollow Vow … had fulfilled his duty. 

A cursed existence. 

Where before his sword would only sweep aside those with greed in their eyes and magic in their hands, now he cut down those without a name. A mindless hound at the gate. One he wished to be torn down, broken and forgotten. Just as much as he was. 

Never more so, when he came across a sight more painful than all the past years combined. 

A girl.

A human girl. 

Far, far younger than any other to have stepped upon his grass. And she was joined by the most curious sight. One who appeared human, but was not. The golden key upon her back was proof of that. Some marvel of magic or alchemy, proof of the years that’d swept by.

It gave him little joy to think he’d need to dispense of both.

For a moment, he watched as he tended to his blade, doing what duty compelled him to.

“... Sir Carrius of the Hollow Vow. I’ve heard much about your order, in books now only issued by the black hands of history tutors. I regret to say that the Emerald Knights no longer exist.”

The sound of his whetstone was as despairing to his ears as the lack of fear in the girl’s voice.

How he wished he could voice all the regret had to offer. The Emerald Knights were a parody, as was the king who presided over the last of them. And his duty to him would be to see this girl slain.

A human girl who had no purpose here. A human princess even less so. Yet it mattered not. 

She had not been named. She was no guest of the Elven King and his dark schemes.

And so–

Sir Carrius of the Hollow Vow offered his pleasantries, struggling with every part of him who willed his  blade to be drawn. And though he urged the girl to depart, he knew it would only be to strike at her back. 

Her fate had been sealed the moment she had stepped beneath the branches of the orange trees.

“I am Sir Carrius of the Hollow Vow. The Last Knight of the Emerald Order. And though I have witnessed the splendid tale of sword princesses in the past, I regret to say that no story can overcome the bleak ending of my oath.”

And that was that.

The blackest chapter was written in blood upon his scarred soul. 

To fell a young girl was beneath even the lowest of the low. And now he was worse. A worm beneath the ground, unfit to witness the horizon.

Sir Carrius swept out his sword. And he knew as the blade reached out that this girl would meet her end before she had even begun to reach for that sword by her side. She was utterly unprepared, her stance and posture one of casual disregard. 

A naïve, foolish child. And one he would offer a painless death. 

Pwiing!

And then–

For the first time in years … decades … centuries.

Sir Carrius felt an emotion he’d altogether forgotten.

Shock. Confusion. Fear.

Coalescing together in the same blink, he’d felt as the sweep of his blade, faster than the diving of a silver falcon, had been turned away by the flash of enchanted steel.

He had fought more battles than veterans in their elder years while he was young. 

He had fought blademasters born with a sword in their hands before they could use a spoon. 

He had fought with princes and rogues, nobility and brutes. And he had even fought with sword maidens with flowers and knives in their hair. 

And though he was not the greatest knight, he was the last knight. Throughout these endless days of solitude, it seemed to him that he’d now fought as many foes as the moon had fought the sun. 

But this girl–

She … and her bladework …

It was completely, utterly unknown to him.

The sheer speed at which she drew her blade was faster than anything he’d ever witnessed! 

As though time belonged to her, the world ceased motion. And when it resumed, it was accompanied by the sight of his sword turned high into the air.

Sir Carrius did not allow himself to hesitate. 

Even as his forgotten emotions returned, his arms moved without care to his mind’s disbelief as he followed through on his parried strike. And now it was shorn of the consideration he’d given in his first attack.

His sword burning in his grip, he cut down with enough force to cleave a boulder.

“[Flamefall Descent]!” 

Pwiing!

However his eyes were widening, it was not enough.

Because the strike which pushed his sword aside was no heaving effort.

It was the … almost callous way his own swordmaster had flicked aside his attacks as a young boy, in a scene now lost to time.

“[Solar Arc]!”

Pwiing!

With a martial technique he neither recognised nor understood, the girl simply … batted away his answering crescent, a reflexive strike so swift that any attacker would find themselves forced to defend themselves against the blow.

And in that moment, he understood.

This young girl … was no mere human.

She was the cold hand of the abyss. The scythe forged in flames blacker than night.

Doom.

She was doom itself.

Feeling a cold sweat upon his spiritual brow, he instinctively leapt away. And as his sword remained pointed towards her, he willed every morsel of his being into keeping his hand from shaking.

Sir Carrius had heard the tales. 

Of those who cared not for battle or war. But only the song of the sword. 

They were legends and fairy tales. Men and women who abandoned all cares for the world. They found no comfort in gold or silver, nor in pillows and fine food. They cared only to master the missing part of them when they were born. The sword in their grip.

This girl … she was one of those fairy tales. And so young!

Sir Carrius could not envisage how much of her life she had given to mastering her weapon. Not through training, but through brutal, arduous survival. She was tested in the fields of strife, her life a memory of battlefields and broken iron as she fought against foes more monstrous than anything he had ever seen. To wield her blade so surely while offering no suggestion she could actually wield a sword spoke of one who’d bloodied herself not against other swords, but the swift pouncing of wolves from the shadows.

And what he knew–

“Twilight Harbinger Form, 1st Stance ... [Horizon’s Judgement]!”

Was that every instinct told him he could not hold back.

Bringing to bear a technique he’d only needed to use against the champions of the fae, he stepped forwards, the heart of his sword coming to life from its long slumber. 

Hearing the flames singing as his blade soared, he threw caution to the wind and closed the distance with the waiting doom, sweeping his sword down with a strike able to burn even the denizens of the Summer Court.

And then–

She was gone.

There was no fleet footwork. No dancing acrobatics. 

Only a movement barely discernible even to his honed senses. And as his blade cleaved the air in two, he could do nothing as the sword princess answered his sweeping strike with her own. 

“Celestial Starlight Form, 1st Stance … [A Blossoming Ballet, A Thousand Falling Stars].”

Suddenly–

All turned to darkness.

The courtyard. The fountain. The orange trees.

Even the dusk itself was swept aside, the last throes of the sun snuffed as easily the burning silver of his blade. No light peaked between the leaves above him. No flash of flame ushered out from his blade.

Instead, as he peered up at the courtyard’s window into the sky, what he saw–

Was a painting of stars unending.

Constellations twinkled upon a black canvas, their silhouettes bright amidst flowing ribbons of radiant auroras. Sparkling like an endless ocean of gemstones, they flickered in a chorus of beauty. In that moment, all the years of struggle dissolved, his eyes bestowed with a reward surpassing all the solitude endured and more.

He never noticed his sword dropping from his grip.

Only that when he peered down, it was to the sight of his own armour disintegrating before him.

And at last–he was released from his bonds.

As his saviour strode past, the man who was now Sir Carrius of the Orange Fountain sat, his ears barely hearing as laughter ringed nearby. It could have been his own. Or that of the bluebirds saying their farewells.

All he knew was that he was free.

Whether that was to fade into memory or wander as some unbound spirit anew, he did not know.

But he would wait peacefully to find out.

Sir Carrius closed his eyes and chuckled. 

A strange thing to be bested by a princess, but if he had a choice, he would choose so again.

“... Excuse me, but may I have a moment of your time?”

Suddenly … Sir Carrius’s eyes blinked open once again.

He’d not quite dissolved yet. His armour was still shedding. And though it wasn’t painful, it was certainly not comfortable. The undershirt he’d worn for several hundreds of years was one of his worst. If possible, he didn’t wish it to be shown.

Certainly not to another human. 

Not as young as the princess. Perhaps only a handful of years older. Yet the politeness of her smile, the straightness of her back and the neat arrangement of her impeccably kept uniform offered the impression of someone older and far more mature.

“Yes?” said Sir Carrius, puzzled over why this evening he’d meet so many strange humans. “My apologies, but I’m rather in the process of … well, I’m not entirely certain, but I’m afraid I don’t have many moments of my time to offer.”

“I understand. I sincerely apologise for the intrusion in this difficult moment.”

“It is quite fine. How may I be of assistance?”

“My name is Mirabelle. I’m a receptionist for the Adventurer’s Guild. I’m currently assessing the adventurer you just fought as a candidate for promotion in our ranking system. If at all possible, I was wondering if you could answer a few brief questions regarding your thoughts on her strength and technical abilities?”

Sir Carrius blinked.

“Oh. I suppose so. What would you like to know?”

The sensible looking human woman nodded enthusiastically.

Then, she conjured a scroll of parchment in her hands.