The sound of the door closing on his back made him jump and quickly turn around. His heart drumming against his chest, he looked back at the glowing woman with an accusatory frown.
"Why have you brought me here? I thought you said you wouldn't be able to appear anymore!" he demanded, inevitably scared, and her gentle smile slowly faded away, leaving in its place a sad, pained expression.
Silently stepping to one side, her white shimmering gown dragging across the dark floor, she looked down, behind her back.
His frown deepening, Snow tried to see what she was staring at with such anguished expression. But he couldn't see anything, except the dark shadows projected by her light. Taking a couple of steps closer, he kept peering at ground, and then the dark shadow at her feet moved, or at least he thought it moved.
Looking back at him, the golden-haired woman pointed at his hand, and Snow followed her gesture, unable to understand. What did she want?, he wondered, looking at his own hand, until the small crystals surrounding his wrist shimmered, reflecting her soft light.
"You mean this?" he asked, raising his hand to show her his bracelet, and she nodded, her golden eyes staring at him pleadingly. "You want me to take it off?"
She nodded again and Snow pondered on her silent request for a moment.
It wouldn't hurt him, of that he was sure. VinWei had only given it to him so he would be somewhat free from the oppressive pressure ZaiWin's presence constantly placed over him. And ZaiWin wasn't anywhere near there at the moment.
With a sigh, Snow unclasped his bracelet, taking it off.
A sharp, tingling pressure at the back of his head sent shivers running down his spine, and he felt as if his senses had become suddenly much sharper. Now there were other, much darker shadows moving around him, as if something living and incorporeal had been locked inside that room, slithering over the walls and across the stone floor beneath his feet. Even though ZaiWin wasn't there, he could still clearly feel his presence, only it felt much darker than he remembered, much heavier, forcing him to hold his breath.
Looking at the woman in front of him, his brain overflowing with questions, he saw her raise an elegant arm and press her delicate hand against the dark wall beside her, her golden eyes telling him without words to follow her example.
Snow looked at the wall and hesitated. He knew beforehand that he would not find that comforting humming if he touched it. The darkness that had remained in that place was unnatural, like a screeching sound breaking the world's melody. Steeling his heart with renewed resolution, he finally raised his arm and touched the cold wall.
The desperate, wretched screaming that immediately filled his ears made him turn back, and suddenly the shadow at her feet gained color and form.
A child was kneeling there, a long, blood-red sword piercing him from front to back; a sword Snow had seen before, just the night before. He was trying to pull it out, his small hands wrapped around the red blade, but the sword didn't even budge. Gasping for air, tears streaming down his small face, he tried again, screaming in pain, his voice echoing all around that dark place, until his strength faded away. Breathing heavily, the child just fell to one side, looking as if he were about to die, a pool of blood slowly forming beneath his small body, his face quickly growing deadly pale.
With a sad expression on her face, the golden-haired woman approached him, kneeling beside him, placing a protective hand over his head. She was still half-transparent and Snow knew she wasn't really touching him. But at least his pained breathing eased as the young boy closed his eyes.
Heart drumming against his chest, Snow found himself stepping closer to them.
Had the child died?
The woman looked up at him and then back at the young boy that now seemed to be enveloped by her golden light as well.
Snow looked at him too. He was still bleeding, his hands cut by the blade from when he'd tried to pull it out, but Snow couldn't feel the characteristic smell of blood, nor the nauseating effects he always had to endure whenever he saw blood being spilled like that. And how come such a young child was still alive with such a huge sword sticking out of him?
"What's happening …?" he whispered, but the woman didn't reply, didn't even looked up at him again. Instead she simply disappeared, leaving him surrounded by a thick, overwhelming darkness.
Fear rising inside him like a wave, Snow looked around, feeling lost. And then her golden light returned, on another place of the cavern, allowing him to sigh in relief.
The child was with her, as well. Somehow the sword had disappeared, but his clothes were still bloody, his hands still hurt, although he was now squeezing them with all his strength.
Lying on the hard floor, looking even smaller than he was, the boy kept mumbling unintelligible words, his pale lips moving on his own, his forehead covered by thick droplets of sweat. He looked really sick, probably running a high fever, and waves of darkness rose from his small body, covering him like a dark, smothering blanket, probably making it even harder to breathe.
Snow took a step back, his chest aching, and the golden-haired woman looked up at him with that heart-wrenching expression on her face.
Snow knew that darkness all too well. It made his skin crawl. It made him want to deny it, want to correct it, want to erase it. It was just … wrong. And it felt even more untamed and destructive than he remembered, from the first time he'd see it; a thick mass of darkness ready to swallow him whole. Of course it would hurt such a small child, leaving him on the brink of death. Was this because of the red sword that had stabbed him before? Somehow it didn't feel that way. More like the injury caused by the sword had triggered an unbalance, making him lose control over it.
His chest still aching, Snow took a closer look at the boy's face, his lips parted as he tried his best to keep breathing. He looked to be maybe seven, eight years of age, his hair so dark that it got lost in the shadows of the cave, a few rebellious strands sticking to his sweaty face.
Snow wished he could help him, cast one of his golden arrays, push that darkness away from him, heal his open wounds. But he didn't dare move. He was not real, he now knew without a doubt. Like the golden-haired woman that remained by his side, helplessly watching over him. None of them were real, and there was nothing he could do for lost shadows of the past.
When her golden light faded again, Snow wasn't afraid anymore. Instead he patiently waited for her to return, and to show him another scene. And then, there they were again.
The child's fever had broke, it seemed, though he didn't look any healthier. He was awake now, sitting crossed-legged on the hard floor, his eyes closed, his expression tensed. The darkness was still pouring out of him in uncontrollable waves, lashing against the stone walls on its own, attacking them with a violence that only such massive rock could withstand, pieces of it flying across the air. A miracle none of them hit him or injured him. He looked like a dying child, sitting in the middle of a thundering war zone.
The golden-haired woman kept staring at him with a sorrowful expression, as if she was already mourning his death, the pieces of rock shooting through her without hitting her, confirming what Snow had already guessed. She wasn't in that cavern now, and she hadn't been back then either, at least not in a corporeal sense. Which meant that he had been all alone, Snow concluded, feeling the child's pain echoing inside his chest.
Alone, and hurt, and suffering, locked in that dark cavern. And yet, even though he looked weak and in pain, his expression wasn't one of despair or defeat, and he was obviously earnestly focusing on calming the darkness around him. How anyone would be able to do so was something Snow could not comprehend. Because of its unnatural nature, it was something completely different from any power he had seen. Even his red markings, as destructive as they might be, followed a certain order, a certain purpose, that could, therefore, be controlled and directed. But what he was looking at right now was a completely different matter.
The woman's golden light faded and Snow waited for her return, his eyes immediately searching for him the moment he could see again.
He looked much better, Snow realized with a deep relief. He was still sitting on the floor, but now a deep silence surrounded him. The darkness was gone. No, not gone, Snow quickly corrected. It merely clung to him, hugging him, slithering over his small body almost like a gentle embrace. But it wasn't thrashing around anymore, trying to destroy everything on its path. He looked really tired. His hands had stopped bleeding and were now covered in dark-red scabs. How long had it been since he had been left in there? And how had he been able to heal his mortal stab wound on his own?
Stretching his harms in front of him, the boy opened his bright-blue eyes and clawed the dried scabs on his left hand, grimacing in pain until his wound was open and bleeding again. The darkness hugging him immediately reacted to that, becoming restless, sliding over his arm and wrapping itself around his hand as if it wanted to stop the bleeding. The blood dripping from his open wound turned black, and he focused his attention on that. Snow too, couldn't help stare in a mix of curiosity and disgust.
What was he trying to do?
His answer however didn't take long.
The drop of black blood that had just fallen from his open hand stopped midair, remaining there, floating like a dark marble, and then it floated upward instead of simply falling down as it was supposed to do.
Focusing hard on it, the child tried to hold it there while other drops of blood followed the same path, fusing with one another, forming an increasingly larger sphere. Once it had reached the size of a clenched fist, the boy lowered his arms and focused his gaze solely on it, bright-blue eyes as hard and cold as a pair of precious stones, the kind of gaze that should not belong on the face of such a young child.
Staring at the blood sphere, willing it to obey with all his might, the sphere finally began to wobble and stretch, and change shape. The darkness that impregnated it rose form it in dark waves, surrounding it the same way it surrounded his body. And suddenly Snow knew what he was doing. A sword!, he realized, his heart jumping inside his chest. A dark sword, like the ones he calmly commanded around, effortlessly waving them back and forth.
For a brief instant the blood sphere did look like a sword, but then it simply fell to the ground in a big splash of dark blood.
The golden-haired woman at his side shook her head in sad, silent condemnation. She didn't look as worried as before, and she obviously didn't agree with what he was doing. And then she was gone again.
When her light returned the boy was standing, for a change, though he leaned heavily against the wall, his small body slightly bent. He looked even weaker than before, but his expression was one of cold contentment. Beside him was floating a dark sword covered in a constantly wavering dark mist, and Snow couldn't help smile. Even though he was much younger, he could easily recognize the proud glint dancing in his blue eyes. He'd done it. He'd managed not only to create a sword but to command it at will, Snow concluded and, as if he'd heard his thoughts, the boy made his sword fly on a precise circle around the cave, then spin over itself, before it turned against him, rushing as if to stab him. Instead, it simply fused with his pale hand.
The boy's knees buckled and he fell on the ground gasping for air. Darkness rose from his back in thick waves, pouring over him, wrapping him, pressing down on him, until Snow couldn't see him anymore. This was the monster he had seen atop that wall, only he was much smaller and, unlike the monster he knew, the child in front of him was barely able to bear the weight of it all. And yet he had obviously survived it, he told himself, trying to escape the sadness clenching his chest.
The golden-haired woman was also looking and the boy, but her golden eyes looked somehow colder. She still looked sad, but now, more than that, she had an obviously disapproving expression on her face. Which Snow could understand, he thought, listening to his own heart. What he was now seeing was wrong in so many ways that he couldn't even tell where to start, if he were to try and fix things.
Before, when he'd stepped onto those ravaged fields back at that small border village, he had clearly felt what was wrong with them, why it was wrong, and what needed to be done to make things right again. He might not have been able to explain how he'd done it, or what steps he'd taken to make it so. That part had simply … flowed out of him, the same way the knowledge that it was wrong had flowed into his head.
Now the knowledge that it was wrong was also there, he could feel it so strongly that it was almost like a weight pressing on his chest, making it hard to breathe. But even if he could stretch out his hand and touch that child, he knew that he would never be able to fix it. Which was the saddest part of it all.
And so yes, seeing him accept that wrongness, seeing him mold his life energy according to it, seeing him force his mind to take control of it, it was almost an affront to the righteousness Snow had been born to recognize and maintain.
The golden-haired woman must also see it that way, he thought, looking at her, at the way she had distanced herself from him. But then, what was that child supposed to do?, he demanded in his thoughts, suddenly feeling angry at her. He was sure that whatever had led him to that hopeless situation hadn't been of his own choosing. How could it be? He was just a child! Just like Snow had been. Others had done this to him. Or maybe he had been born this way. Either way, it was hardly his fault. What did she, with her untouched, immaculate, golden glow about her, wanted him to do? Surrender and simply die, crushed by all that darkness, bleeding from that stab wound?
"You have no right to condemn him!" he declared, his voice echoing in the empty space, and her golden eyes turned to look at him.
Yes, she was beautiful, with her golden hair cascading down her back, over her pure white gown, her golden eyes gleaming like liquid gold, an aura of elegance and delicate power clinging to her. A perfect, genuine Tien'Elhar, the likes he would never be. But the way she just stood there like that, in the back, as if getting any closer to that darkness were beneath her, somehow irked him in a way he couldn't really explain.
"Was this supposed to be a warning? Are you telling me to shun him as well?"
She kept staring at him, her perfect, delicate face looking suddenly very cold and distant.
"You told me to see with my own eyes and listen with my own ears. To think with my own head and feel with my own heart. And that's exactly what I intend to do. Just because we're supposed to be the same, that does not mean I will think like you! You look upon this child with contempt because he chose a different path, because he chose to live and turned the poison running through his veins into his weapon. I wish I could have been there to help him achieve that," he declared in open defiance and she frowned, and then she was gone again.
Snow waited in the darkness for her return, but that never happened. Around him the darkness felt alive, living remnants of the dark energy that had wreaked havoc in that small space. However he wasn't afraid anymore. He knew that darkness, and he knew it was a mere echo from the past. And so he placed his hand against the rocky wall and turned around. The door was somewhere there, he knew. All he had to do was follow the wall and he was sure to find it.
Once outside the small cavern, however, his situation completely changed. He knew he was back at that wide cavern but, surrounded by utter darkness, he couldn't tell where to turn to, much less where the narrow passage was. He could wander around, searching for it, but the probabilities of him actually finding it were so low that he quickly decided against it, simply sitting down, his back against the cold wall.
The gentle, comforting humming that immediately surrounded him made him smile. The land around him, Nox's land, was softly speaking to him. The only problem was that he couldn't really understand it. Maybe if he did, it would show him the way out. Well, that didn't matter, he sighed, leaning his head back, allowing his eyes to close. ZaiWin would eventually find him, of that he was certain.
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Aww, I really want to smooch dear Snow's soft cheeks 🥰️🥰️🥰️