THE stars were falling.

 Those were the last things Zakair could see as the air assailed around his body on his descent down into the rushing river.

 The red and yellow floods of light dragged on to splash themselves on the void of his closed eyes behind his eyeglass. His shaggy, obsidian hair raved as the wind caught him plummeting headfirst.

 To a distant spectator, he appeared like a sailing cocoon from the dark enfold of his long coat.

 The ringing screams of people unified in anguish. Children wailing for their parents. Women screeching in outrageous hysteria.

 Constables ushering the plaza's desperate visitors to safety passages to no avail as the streaks of brilliant burning masses plowed into the treasures of the garden, if not live casualties.

 Their fiery touch on the canopies sent the trees ablaze. Scorched the hedge bushes and intricate shrubberies to pitifully wilt. Incinerated the flowers of their beauty. Carved burnt craters on the granite flagstones and grass carpets, and demolished the great marble fountain at its heart.

 Leaving what once was a paradise of rich floral gems coming together in an exhibit of splendid colors and grandeur to nothing more than ash and smoke in the catastrophe's wake.

 To them, the howling screams of distress were like trumpets heralding the approach of Armageddon. The sky foreboding to the end of days.

 To Zakair, however, it touched upon memories of the good old days. An ambiance that brought the sentiment of nostalgia to overwhelm him, then toss him back to the beginning.

 Where he wished he had known when it all went wrong.

 Zakair could say it was a day like any other. The horns from dragon cadavers mounted atop the spires blared and the flock of phoenixes ablaze sailed that signaled another of the empire's pursuit for conquest.

 The rattling cages suspended on towering pillars rocked by the daimons, goblins, lycanthropes, faeries, and other creatures unfortunate to have lost any sense of conscience, consumed by the Madness Plague.

 And the routine march of the Cardinal Crusaders dividing into the residential routes unseen without a Nyrhaean child in their grasp upon regrouping in the main square. Their mothers bawling and clawing at them to haul their babies back in their embrace, if not permitted to bid their last goodbyes as seen below his balcony.

 The only difference was that he hadn't expected them to come for his chamber doors.

 He could still hear his mother's restrained, desperate plea as he watched her pummel her fists into a Crusader while another carried his fragile body in their arms. Away from the warmth her mother's presence used to shroud him in. Now forgotten.

 He wished he'd also forget the life that came after...

 Here in the pristine cities of the human domain, Zakair almost couldn't find his current lifestyle any different back in Nyrhaea. The only perk was that choices weren't hard to come by when one was residing in Vherna Prestige Academy compared to the mountain-carved fortresses of the Red World.

 While human children in academies were learning how to write, Nyrhaean offspring were raised to kill with a needle first and foremost. Silently but in the most painful of techniques.

 Division amongst the lands and races was a surfacing infection until it became an incontaminable disease. Brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers--mutuality shared whether or not by blood--spat at their own kin. Called them names as if they were rabid dogs on leashes while the empire held the reigns.

 In which they were.

 Zakair was not exempted from it all.

 In further contrast, Nyrhaea was a crimson aether during the day and crystal blue at night. Making use of the Luna--which the human world referred to as the Moon--that concealed their movements under her cloak of the night where the Sol--the Sun--would expose.

 The first and last of his moments in the fortress were yet fresh to his mind.

 For the orientation, the Crusaders had prepared a puppet theater showcasing the foregone wars between Nyrhaeans and humans. The oppression brought on their kind by the enemies' mahika which the Eidolon had gifted only for them to drown in power and pride.

 The persecution persisted even to this very era. Though repressed not in the way that inflicted physical offense, but in the attempts made to erase the history of their overall existence. Ushering generations to forget the lives lived on the other side.

 A fate worse than hunting them in the race for the dominant creation.

 It was said that the bloods of their brethren shed by the tyrants' hands painted the Nyrhaean seas inky red. Its shade reflected on their ether to mercilessly remind them of these harrowing ages the blue-sky dwellers inflicted on their world.

 But one that also served to color their promise for vengeance.

 The theater's inane approach did compellingly to weave their impressionable minds to the empire's liking.

 From the very beginning, their endeavor for survival had always been about securing a place in the army. Which, ironically, hinged on the matter of how much of their blood they will draw and bones they will break.

 How a Crusader's worth and loyalty is determined by their will to lay their lives for the empire's "dream for all Nyrhaeans and humans alike."

 Inside the rock walls, every Nyrhaean of every kind, regardless of inborn status or age, were conditioned to equal treatment.

 In fostering education to children, they were taught to write with their blood for ink. Read the stone scripts to evade three consecutive lashes. Forced to sleep in rock piles to find solace in the absence of comfort. Pushed to carry buckets of water, clean the stable creatures, and regularly pass over obstacle courses that involve falling in lava pits and evading the predatory plants and ravenous vultures.

 Among others.

 The daggers handed to them had been specialized to adjust to their clammy hands. Rigorously trained in the arts, forms, and variety of combat and warfare, though it didn't suffice to say that Zakair had lost his first duel to the bigger orc kid.

 Every now and then, target practices switched from wooden and straw figures, to the other children, until the time came they would have to knock a Crusader off their feet to guarantee they would be proceeding to the next training arcs. Losing any fight would merit ten lashes.

 There, they were raised to become merciless killers. But not uncivilized barbarians.

 To them, a sprout can only be determined by the fruit they will yield. Thus, by the time their skills honed from unraveled natural aptness riped, they were secured a predestined role in the army.

 Those whose accuracy struck true were sorted to archery. Children who developed affinity with the blades were whetted to be as sharp as Nyrhaean steels. And those whose gifts were more convenient outside the battlefield were granted their way into the military's center of strategy operations.

 Trainees who hopelessly resigned were either sent to the palace as lowly servants or were remitted their old lives back.

 The moment they stepped outside the fortress gates, they would not only meet banishment and the mark of cowards and traitors in the empire's cause, but also in the eyes of their long-missed family. Regardless of the predicament, there was no denying that they had blood on their hands.

 Supposed that they were welcomed back, they could only pray to the Eidolon that the empire will not be coming for them and their brethren.

 In its fervent bloodlust and ambition, the Cardinal Empire valued order above all. As to uphold the Eidolon's will indoctrinated upon the Nyrhaeans--or so they say in their little puppet shows--to restore the divine law upon which prejudice and injustice will be ridden from the Sphere once they "humble" the human race.

 But that duty could only be appointed to the utmost and outstanding of the best.

 After a decade of hardening their every fiber and whetting their minds upon coming of age--whether or not the sets of mastery they made of were suited enough to qualify them to the Paladins--candidates were thrown into the Ring of Bones.

 A decree somewhat similar to a festive bloodbath shall then be imposed upon by which there were no restrictions or instructions on how you would slaughter.

 For the battlefield unleashes even the sanest creature's deepest monsters. And only then will they be able to gain the upper hand over their mahika-wielding contenders.

 With the last one fifth standing welcomed into the ranks.

 Call it by skill, a miracle, or whatnot, outlasting the mass carnage was a feat Zakair came to regret.

 As the worst was yet to come.