The heart of darkness
457 Words
The battle roared around them like a living storm—clashing steel, piercing cries, and the acrid scent of smoke curling into the cold morning air. The Watchtower of Elinvar trembled beneath the weight of the assault, its ancient stones groaning in protest.
Yet in the heart of the chaos, time seemed to slow for Ariah.
She stood on the battlements, her lantern’s light a fragile beacon against the overwhelming tide of darkness. The flame within pulsed with fierce determination, illuminating her resolute face and casting long shadows behind her.
Suddenly, the fighting dimmed at the edges of her awareness—the frantic noise blurred, the shouts muffled. A heavy, unnatural silence settled, pressing down like a stone on her chest.
From the shattered gates of the tower, the Shadow King emerged.
His presence was a void—an absence of light that sucked warmth from the air. Black flames licked his form, writhing like serpents, and his eyes burned with cold fire—twin embers of hatred and ancient sorrow.
The jagged crown atop his head seemed grown from the shadows themselves, spiked and uneven, a twisted coronet forged from pain and darkness.
Around him, tendrils of shadow slithered and writhed, weaving in the air like living smoke. The enemy forces halted, bowing their heads in grim reverence as he strode forward.
Ariah’s breath caught.
The flame in her lantern flared suddenly, pushing back the shadows, creating a fragile circle of light that wavered but refused to die.
The Shadow King’s voice rang out, deep and echoing like a hollow cavern. “You cannot win, Flamebearer. This world was born from shadow, and to shadow it shall return.”
His words were both accusation and prophecy.
Ariah lifted the wooden cross the boy had given her—the one that had become her talisman—and held it tightly.
She could feel the weight of generations on her shoulders. The hopes of all who had fought before her. The prayers of the lost and the fallen.
Her voice came steady, defiant against the encroaching darkness.
“Light is stronger. Because it never gives up. It never stops reaching, never stops fighting.”
The Shadow King smiled then—an expression both cruel and sad.
“A stubborn flame against an endless night. How touching.”
Behind Ariah, the battle seemed to pause—warriors on both sides watching, waiting.
Even the wind held its breath.
In that moment, a silent war raged between two eternal forces.
Light and shadow. Hope and despair.
Ariah tightened her grip, feeling the flame surge within her lantern—alive, fierce, unyielding.
The fate of Emberveil was balanced on a knife’s edge.
And the heart of darkness had just been unveiled.
- Writer
