The air was silent, but the storm raged deep within Kaelen's mind. He stood before the fragments of his palace, staring out at the ruins, the hollowness of his eyes mirroring the devastation around him. The demons were gone, but in their place, there was something more dangerous, and that was what Kaelen could not run from.
His hand trembled; his fingers twisted spastically, as if the Rift itself was flowing through him, attempting to subdue his mind and spirit. His figure, kingly until this day, spoke much more now of some vessel for something far darker.
A voice rumbled within his skull: deep, old, its timbre commanding and seductive.
"Accept it, Kaelen. Give in to the power. Let go of weakness. You are no longer a mortal. You are a god."
Kaelen closed his eyes, hoping to block out the voice, but instead, the sound became louder until it was a roar of echoes inside his chest where once humanity was present.
"You are strong now, stronger than you've ever been. Why cling to the fragile shell of who you were? Let go. You need not be bound by the petty laws of your people. Their fear. their doubts. they are nothing. Only the power matters now. Only the Rift."
The ground beneath his feet began to shake, as if an answer from within the monument was rising to his voice. His heart pounded within his chest, a rhythmic drumbeat that matched the pulse of the Rift. He could feel the power growing, second by second, breath by breath, till it wholly consumed him.
"Don't listen to them," the voice implored, the whisper seeping into his bones. "They will never understand. You were meant for so much more."
Kaelen's eyes snapped open, blazing with a crimson light. His teeth clenched in an effort to hold the temptation at bay, but the Rift was in him now-in his very fiber, inescapable. Gnawing at him, urging him to give in, to forsake all for the power it promised.
And then, as if summoned by his very thoughts, a figure appeared before him. Adria. Her face was pale, her eyes filled with an emotion Kaelen could not place-fear? Concern? Sorrow? Perhaps all of them.
"Kaelen," she said, her voice soft, yet with a weight to it that seemed to settle in the air between them. "I've found a way to seal the Rift. I can stop this madness… but it will cost you your power. Your strength. You'll be human again."
Kaelen's face darkened, and his gaze turned to her, his voice low, almost a growl. "You want me to give up everything I've become? The strength to protect this world, the power to keep them safe?"
Adria's eyes hardened. "This power, Kaelen-it's consuming you. The more you embrace it, the less you will be yourself. You won't be the man you once were. The Rift will devour you wholly.
Kaelen laughed now, jeering, even. "You think I care about that? I gave up my humanity when I chose this path. The world does not need a man-weak and frail. They need a king. They need strength."
Adria stepped forward, her voice shaking. "But what kind of king are you becoming? You have lost yourself already. Is this what you want-to rule over a kingdom of fear and ruin?
Kaelen's face contorted in rage. "I do not care if they fear him. Let them shake in their boots. Let them hate me. The world needs power, not weaklings that whimper for mercy. You cannot stop me, Adria. I won't be weak when the world teeters near collapse."
Adria retreated a step, her head shaking. "You are wrong, Kaelen. Power is not an answer. It's a curse. You can still save yourself, but only if you let go."
Kaelen's eyes blazed with anger, the power of the Rift churning around him like a storm. With a step toward her, his voice was cold and deadly. "You think you can take this from me? You think I'll go back to being the man I was, weak and insignificant? No. I've seen what true power feels like, and I will not relinquish it."
Adria's face twisted with sorrow, and she turned to go. "Then I have nothing more to say to you. Farewell, Kaelen. If you cannot see what you've become, then anymore I can have nothing to do with helping you."
Kaelen reached out, but she was already gone, vanished into the treetops beyond his sight. And with her going went a cold spreading of emptiness within him, a gnawing hollow ache that none could fill.
Now, he stood alone amidst the ruins of his kingdom, even the earth beneath him trembling with the remnants of his choices. The Rift whispered to him, soothing and tempting, urging him to abandon everything. But Kaelen felt the emptiness grow, a void in his chest that he could not ignore.
"You have power," the voice inside him crooned. "You have everything you need. Why do you still feel this. emptiness?"
Kaelen sank to his knees, clutching his head, as if trying to hold onto what little of himself was left. But the Rift's power surged, wrapping around his mind, tightening like a vice.
"Why?" Kaelen whispered, his voice shaking. "Why does it feel like I'm losing everything. everything I've fought for?"
The power suddenly surged again, nearly overwhelming him, and for the first time, Kaelen could feel the full weight of his choices: he had won-he had destroyed the demons, saved his kingdom-yet all of it at the cost of his own soul.
And now, he was left standing all by himself, king over nothing save the darkness. The Rift had claimed him; the kingdom dreaded him; and Adria had betrayed him. The world was safe but Kaelen a mere shadow of the man that once was.
It was then that the actual price for such power had been made clear to Kaelen: it is not a present nor a gift-it is a curse, ravenous and engulfing everything which came near it.
"What have I become?" Kaelen whispered, his voice hollow and broken.
The Rift, in its cold, disinterested way, answered him.
"You are what you have chosen to be."
Kaelen, alone amidst the ruins of his kingdom, wept for a man he had lost, for the kingdom he destroyed, for the future he'd never have. The chasm swallowed him whole, leaving only the ability to stare into the abyss.
The fall was complete.
And with it, the true battle had only just begun.
Kaelen stood in the silence of his broken kingdom, the shadows stretching long into the ruined streets. The wind howled around him, but he didn't hear it-he couldn't hear anything but the deafening roar of the Rift in his mind. His eyes seemed glazed, hollow, as if the light of the world had gone out, leaving nothing but a void where hope used to be.
The earth shook beneath his feet once more, but this time it did not tremble with the Rift; it was beneath the weight of his despair.
"Is it to end like this?" he thought, his voice little more than a whisper in his storming thoughts. "A king consumed by his own strength. a ruler over nothing."
His hand fisted, the now-somewhat-familiar surge of energy coursing through his veins, a twisted mockery now of the strength he had wished for. Now, the Rift's power belonged to him alone, and not a blessing as it once appeared, but even more of a curse. His fingers were shaking while he stared down at them, clinging to something slipping further from him with each second that passed.
Suddenly, a form broke the stillness—a dark shape against the crumbling background of the city.
Kaelen's head snapped up; his crimson eyes locked onto the figure before him. It was a woman-no, a phantom-whose features were blurred like a dream, too perfect, too unnatural.
"Do you seek redemption, Kaelen?" the figure asked, her voice cold as the abyss itself, echoing with an authority that seemed from beyond the mortal realm.
Kaelen reeled back, his heart racing as he desperately sought to place the voice, the figure-anything that would give some semblance to this moment. There was nothing. Nothing but the overwhelming darkness weighing in upon him.
"I. I didn't ask for this," he said, the words hoarse and his voice broken. "I didn't want to be this. I wanted to protect them. to save them."
The figure's eyes pulsed with some kind of bizarre, otherworldly glow. "You wanted power, Kaelen. And power always exacts a price. You were warned. But now, the price is yours to pay."
Kaelen's breath hitched as he fell to his knees, the weight of her words sinking deep into his chest. His hands gripped the earth beneath him as if trying to anchor himself to something real, something solid. But the world seemed to slip through his fingers like sand.
"Is this what I've become?" he thought, his mind spiraling into madness. "A monster who cannot escape his own darkness?"
She stepped forward, chill in her voice. "You sought to control the Rift, Kaelen. But the Rift is not something to be controlled. It is something that devours. It consumes. And it will consume you until there is nothing left but the shadow of what you once were."
Kaelen's voice broke, and a laugh escaped his lips-a hollow, bitter sound. "And what do you want from me? Do you wish to mock me, to watch me fall into nothingness?"
The face of the figure didn't change one whit, but her eyes seemed to burn with an inner fire that cut through his very soul. "No, Kaelen. I offer you a choice. A way out of the abyss. But it requires a sacrifice. One final decision."
His heart racing, he looked up at her, his mind racing. "A sacrifice?" he whispered, his voice shaking. "What kind of sacrifice?"
The figure raised her hand, and in an instant, Kaelen felt a rush of memories flood his mind-the faces of those he had lost, the destruction he had wrought, the promises he had made and broken. He saw Adria, her eyes brimming with sorrow and resignation, as she turned away from him. He saw the kingdom he had sworn to protect, now nothing but ruins. And then, he saw the Rift-the swirling mass of darkness that overcame him, beyond his control, a force that had become a part of him.
"You can seal the Rift," it said, the voice low, almost husky, carrying the weight of what felt like the end. "But it will cost you your powers. Your strength. Everything you have gained, you will lose. You will be human again."
Kaelen's breath caught in his throat. Human again? To feel the vulnerability, the fragility of his body? To be powerless, to feel weak, to no longer have the strength to protect those he loved?
He could feel the Rift's voice in his mind, growing louder, more insistent. "Don't listen to her. You can't give up this power. It's who you are now."
But Kaelen's heart, if anything of it was left, ached with an abysmal, gnawing void. Before him lay a choice-the impossible riddle-to forsake everything in the hope of redemption, restoration of what had been destroyed, and maybe a tinge of peace in a world so foreign to him.
Or to continue farther down the path of darkness, embracing the Rift full on, and becoming a tyrant, a god-alone and unchallenged, yet forever consumed by that very power he pursued.
He closed his eyes, and the weight of the decision weighed upon him like a thousand chains.
"What kind of king am I?" he whispered to himself in barely heard tones. "A king who rules with fear, or one who chooses to let go?"
The power of the Rift coursed through him, but this time, it no longer felt like a blessing. It felt like a shackle, binding him to something he no longer wanted. The figure before him was still, waiting.
Finally, Kaelen opened his eyes. The fire within them was dying, the crimson light dimming.
"Seal it," he whispered, his voice hoarse and fragile. "Seal the Rift."
The figure nodded, a faint smile crossing her lips. "So be it."
In but a moment, the Rift's presence began to pull out, the blackness lifted off his mind to leave a chafing void in the place of power. Kaelen fell, gasping onto the earth as his body seemed suddenly fragile, vulnerable.
For the first time in what felt like an eternity, he was human again.
And as the last embers of the Rift faded from his soul, Kaelen felt something inside of him shift-a glimmer of hope, a slice of peace. He was no longer the monster he had become. But he was also no longer the man he had once been.
He was something in between, lost and shattered, but maybe, just maybe, he could find his way back.
But the world had changed. And the cost of his redemption had only just begun to reveal itself.