There was a depressing silence in the palace halls. The proud, vibrant walls, now stained with the shadow of Kaelen's decisions, only echoed with the cold steps of a ruler lost in his mind. His kingdom, his reborn kingdom, was crumbling, not from the outside in but from the insidious decay of its own soul.
Kaelen stood before the map of his regency, now lain shattered, pieces of broken stone strewn across the table, as broken as he had once been. His fingers brushed against the ruins of what had been his hope. But hope was a fragile thing. And in the growing darkness, it slipped away, piece by piece.
A loud, violent crash from the outside easily broke the spell of his reverie. The sound of iron clashing on iron and guttural cries of revolt reached his ears. The rebellion had finally arrived. His people — the same whom he had promised to protect — were rising up against him.
"Fools," Kaelen muttered low. The power of the Rift bucked within him like a wild cadence that coursed through his frame to the accompaniment of a racing heartbeat, and what once had been strength now felt akin to a chain fastened tight across his chest, the squeeze so strong not a breath was left to take.
He clenched his fists, staring at the chaos beyond the palace walls. If they wanted war, I'd give it to them. His voice echoed in his mind, distant and foreign. It wasn't his. Or was it? The Rift had changed him. It had molded him into something. other.
As he entered the grounds of the royal courtyard, the air was heavy with the stench of blood, the cacophony of sharp clashing steel against armor. His soldiers were fighting to keep order, their faces masks of confusion and fear. Loyal they were, but cut out for such relentless conflict they were not, mere children trying to play in the games meant for gods.
It took little more than the flicking of his wrist, and the Rift came alive. The very earth beneath his feet buckled in sympathy. Black tendrils shot from his outstretched hand, wrapping around bodies. They screamed as they were yanked off the ground, twisting at impossible angles before being crushed into the unforgiving ground, like an insect underfoot.
Kaelen's eyes darkened with the thrill of the power he wrought. This is how it must be. This is the only way to save them from themselves.
But a voice called out to him from the shadows. "Kaelen, stop!"
In steps Adria, her eyes wide with incredulity, her gaze drinking in the carnage surrounding them. Her body was shaking, but her voice came out level. "This isn't you! This is madness created by the Regime! You're becoming what you once fought against!"
Slowly, Kaelen turned to her, his face cold, his eyes as empty as space. "No, Adria. This is necessary. The world doesn't work on kindness. It doesn't work on love. It works on power."
She shook her head, stepping forward, her hand reaching out to him. "Kaelen, please. You don't have to do this. There's still a chance to turn back. You can still-
"Enough!" Kaelen's voice boomed through the air, a blade through the air. "You dare speak to me of turning back? You who stood by as everything crumbled? You who failed to stop the Regime? Don't you dare lecture me on what I've become!"
Adria stepped back, her eyes welling up with sorrow. "Kaelen, I loved you. I still do, but you're. you're lost. I can't follow you down this path."
Her words were more bitter than he cared to acknowledge. Loved you. The phrase issued a blow, an echo in his mind reverberating like some faraway, hollow drumbeat, pulling at those tatters of his heart. He, too, had loved her. Hadn't he? And now, as if love had little room to breathe, it was within this world of power and control.
"Leave, Adria," Kaelen whispered, his voice now a shadow of its former self. "You're no longer needed."
The bitterness in his words struck her like a slap. She staggered back, her face pale with shock, before she turned and fled, leaving Kaelen alone in the carnage.
While she disappeared into the distance, Kaelen's eyes fell to the fallen rebels, the broken bodies of those who once trusted him. This is what I must do, he thought. This is what they need.
But as the last of the rebels were silenced by the overwhelming power of the Rift, something inside of him began to crack. The silence afterward was deafening, and for the first time in ages, Kaelen felt the weight of what he had done weighing upon him.
He was standing there, alone amidst the ruin of his kingdom, and suddenly, he realized something that gave him a cold shiver down his spine: I am becoming what once I hated.
Is this how it always ends? he wondered. Do we destroy everything in the name of saving it?
The power of the Rift still churned within him, yet now it was a cold poison, seeping into his veins to cloud his judgment and twist his soul. Could he still be a leader? Could he still cling to the love and humanity that once drove him? Or was that all lost to the darkness within?
As night swallowed the broken city around him, Kaelen stood unmoving, a ruler in name alone. His heart was hollow, his soul shattered, and the only thing remaining was the power he held-a power that had cost him everything.
"Can you be a leader without losing love and humanity?" Kaelen's mind echoed the question, but the answer seemed unreachable. He had tried to lead with compassion, to guide his people toward something better, but now he realized that compassion was a luxury, a weakness in the face of the harsh world he now inhabited. In his pursuit of power, he had sacrificed those very things that once made him human. Could he ever reclaim them? Or had the darkness consumed him completely?
The chapter's final moments left Kaelen in the cold, desolate silence of his own heart, the man he once was gone, slowly replaced by something darker, more dangerous, and perhaps in the end more like the Regime he had sought to destroy.
Above him, the sky lay smothered under swathes of gray, ashen clouds-the reflection of the emptiness that settled within his chest. Kaelen's hands, which shook with so much power yet the sting of regret, wrapped round the black stone that circled his balcony, cradling the remainder of the Rift crackling the air around him, wavering with each pulse that was no longer like the heart in his body.
In the quiet that reigned after the massacre, Kaelen did nothing. The screams, the chaos, the blood-each melted into the depths of his head, replaced with a heavy, dead silence. He had done what he must do. He had crushed the rebellion. He had saved his kingdom. so he kept telling himself. But the faces of the fallen rebels haunted him, their eyes wide with terror, their last breaths swallowed by the very power he had summoned.
What have I become?
It was a question that gnawed at him, sharp teeth in his thoughts, but Kaelen refused to answer. To answer would be to face a truth with which he was not prepared to deal. He just pushed it down, burying it deep inside the void that was swallowing him.
His gaze turned to the dark horizon, where smoke from the rebellion still curled upwards to form some kind of twisted omen. It's not over, he told himself. His kingdom was in shambles-yes-but it still belonged to him. It still listened to him. It was his to command, his to mold.
A voice pierced the night's silence.
"Kaelen.
Slowly he turned, his heart plummeting with a sight to which was standing before him: Adria in the doorway, eyes smoldering in that maddening mix of anger and sorrow; her skin sallow, the trembling lips swallowing it all. Gone was that light of fire dancing within her eyes, a dull mist obscuring what little shone out at that instant.
I told you to leave," Kaelen muttered, his voice colder than he meant it to be. He didn't look at her; he could not bear to see the woman who had once anchored his soul, now standing as a stranger, a shadow of what she once was.
She stepped closer, her footsteps tentative, as if every movement was a careful negotiation with the broken pieces of the world they had once known. "I can't leave, Kaelen. Not when you're. this."
He finally turned his gaze to her, and in that moment, all the walls he had built between them crumbled. He saw the pain in her eyes, the same pain he had inflicted upon her.
You don't understand," Kaelen whispered, the words tasting of ash on his tongue. "I've given everything for this. Everything for them. For you."
Adria's lips shook, and her voice finally broke, high and hard with tears. "You've lost yourself, Kaelen. This. this power, this madness, it's consuming you. It's not just the Rift. It's you. You've become everything you swore you'd never be."
He wanted to deny it. He wanted to scream at her, to say he was doing what needed to be done, that this was the only way to save them all. But the words caught in his throat, an aching lump that refused to be dislodged. Deep down, a part of him knew she was right. The power that had been with him had warped him, consumed him, and now there was nothing left but the ruin of his own soul.
"Please," Adria whispered, stepping closer until she was right in front of him, her hand reaching out as if to bridge the distance between them. "Come back to me. Come back to who you were before this all happened."
Kaelen's eyes closed, and for one brief moment, he was a man once more: feeling her warmth, the gentle touch of the woman he once loved. But it was fleeting, lost in the roar of the Rift that still raged inside him. When he opened them once more, all that was left was the cold emptiness.
I can't, Adria." His voice was a rasp, hollow and detached. "I'm not that man anymore."
Adria recoiled as if his words had physically struck her. "Then what are you, Kaelen? What have you become?
For the first time in days, Kaelen felt the weight of his existence, the crushing realization of what he had lost. The power he wielded, the kingdom he had rebuilt-none of it mattered. Not when it had come at the cost of his humanity.
"I'm nothing," he whispered, his voice barely audible. "Nothing but a shadow of what I was."
A long silence passed between them. The air was thick, heavy, and the atmosphere itself seemed to refuse their presence. Adria looked at him one last time, her expression torn, and then, without another word, she turned and left.
Kaelen was again left alone, his mind ringing with the echoes of her departure. The footsteps became softer and softer until they disappeared altogether, while the hollowness she left seemed to get bigger and louder. He wanted to scream, reach out, and tell her to stop, but he knew that was already long past due. She was gone, and he had done it to her.
I have lost everything.
With each passing day, the darkness in Kaelen's heart deepened. What had once been his power and key to liberation had now become his cage. His kingdom, a hollow shell of its former self, sat under his rule, but people no longer saw him as their savior. They saw him as a monster.
And he was beginning to see it too.
He had tried to be a leader, to rebuild, to reshape the world into something better. In his pursuit of power, he had forsaken the very things that had made him human: love, compassion, and empathy.
As Kaelen looked across the broken city, the shadows of the past crowded in, cold fingers reaching into the hollow pit that was his soul. Once, he wanted to be something more than this-a difference from the Regime-but here he knew without a question that he had become, with a crushing certainty, precisely what he grew to despise.
Can you rebuild the world without breaking yourself? And all Kaelen's mind could do was race, because that answer just wasn't there. He had tried, but now he understood that some things-some pieces of yourself-could never be reclaimed once they were shattered. And rebuilding came not with the blood of your enemies but with pieces of your very soul.
As the night swallowed the city once again, Kaelen stood alone in the darkness. The Rift still pulsed within him, a reminder of everything he had become, everything he had lost. And in that silence, he could hear the echo of his own voice, a whisper carried on the wind: I am not a king. I am a ruin.