As Lucian and Halcyon continued their walk through the ruins, she felt unease. Lucian had let something slip... The Crown Relic, her heart kept racing.
He knew. Importantly he'd come here for it… Why?
She bit her tongue… deciding not to press him. She didn't want another argument… Not with someone she… adored. Besides, she'd told him she was leaving. Yet here she was. He would think she's lying.
Before she could find a resolution… They both suddenly covered their eyes… a beam of moonlight broke through the ruined ceiling.
Halcyon stepped forward quickly. "Out at last... but something feels wrong. How could a graveyard this size even exist? How many dead does it take to build something like this?"
Lucian scanned their surroundings… Cold, silver mist, wrapped around their feet. Even the trees twisted into a circle, bare, claw-like roots wrapped around crumbling gravestones.
At the center stood a shattered path leading into an old black mausoleum? The stone walls overgrown grey ivy… names etched deep into the surface.
Halcyon should want me to leave now… or she won't… but I can't I need to find out why Lazarus needs this Relic that he sent members over here. He was never interested in useless Relic… He only needed Relics unless it something very promising.
In the mist of his thoughts. Halcyon kept walking, her eyes kept glancing over her shoulder at him. Her pace slowed… and then finally stopped.
As the first thing she saw.
A towering Sentinel stepped forward from the mausoleum, on it's shoulder a pillar of ancient stone that glowed faintly black and green. It moved unnaturally slow…
Both their hands remained low… They felt no threatening aura. No psionic pressure.
They watched in silence as it approached.
Its body was made of swirling, agonized spirits, its face a twisting sculpture of grief? The Sentinel didn't speak, not aloud. Instead, it head rasied toward them.
Before they could react, the Sentinel body brighten, then the world around them violently twisted.
The ground cracked.
Darkness was all their saw.
As a voice, melodic yet heavy, echoed inside their minds. As everything went dark.
None may pass… without the weight of regret revealed.
Halcyon's Vision
In a area, covered by hundreds of thatched and stone homes by countryside. In the center of a golden cornfield a long figure staggered… Halcyon.
She clutched her chest tightly, a crimson mist swirling like fire around her heart. Every breath seared her lungs. Her skin burned… Sweat stung her eyes.
Before she collapsed. She reached a small stone house, then collapsed through the door… Passed the people inside, that were shocked for a bit before helping her.
Later…
A younger Halcyon sat on the edge of a white sterile bed. She held her face in her hands, her fingers trembling. Her eyes… wide filled of fear as she peered through the gaps? She could smell antiseptic, in the air.
"Thump!"
The healer had left. The heavy door slammed shut behind them… Her ears perked up.
"She's not sick," a voice murmured. "There's something inside her... and it's killing her."
"There's nothing we can do. But how is she still alive? This isn't natural."
She wasn't supposed to hear them. But she remembered every word. That day was seared into her memory.
That night, she felt a pulse beneath her skin… not blood. Something else… There was a voice? At the back of her mind a herself or… a presence.
You're not dying.
You're changing.
She looked at herself in a nearby mirror. What stared back was not her?
Her veins glowed faintly violet under pale skin. Her eyes once soft brown, now shimmered orange, purple hue.
Her head snapped away, horrified.
She had begged rhe healers… Tell her it's just a fever… Please.
But she knew. Deep down, she knew.
She wasn't ill… First losing control of her… She was becoming something else.
As the older Halcyon… her present self watched silently from the doorway of the memory, tears welled in younger self eyes.
She listened as her younger self curled into a ball and whispered.
"I just want to be normal again…"
…
Lucian Vision
A ancient stone city, its skyline broken. A small white castle, now cloaked in darkness, covered by a dark cloud.
Inside, Lucian stepped into the throne room, at the same time shadows kept creeping around him… until it stopped ahead where he saw a tall shadow silhouette, that slowly formed into a throne cloaked in flame and blood.
He couldn't see the person… but he knew who it is, as a bright crimson glowing pair of eyes appeared… they stood tall draped in ceremonial armor.
"Listen to me, Lazarus. Let the girl go… We have what we came for." Lucian spoke up.
At the same time, his eyes drifted across the room until his gaze settle onto a young girl? Her clothing was that of a princess, he noticed she was pinned beneath rubble, when she saw him her eyes widened of betrayal and her hand outstretched. "Lucian…"
She had begged him not to trust Lazarus, she didnt know was that he was sent here by Lazarus to infiltrate there kingdom bring it down from inside and he did but he became, close with her.
"Are you really feeling for her…I can't believe this after all what all did together, you're become soft… " Lazarus replied coldly… he turned around, a silothe arm was aimed toward the girl, all the shadows in the room wrapped around her. "Stop me and you know who I will take..."
Lucian's gaze traced over the girl… before turn away… then he walked toward the exit.
"Lucian!"
The girl screamed out… but Lucian ignored and he exited the castle.
"You made the right chose," Lazarus said, his gaze narrowed at the girl. "Oh, Selene. You will be the perfect experiment to try on him."
"Ha! Ha!"
As Lazarus finished speaking and Selene constantly screamed out for her life… his laughter echoed out through out the throne room, that the shadow around him moved of joy as the room collapsed ontop of them.
Outside Lucian glanced back his gaze barely showed any sadness?
She wasn't the one he loved… she didn't have the things he wanted.
…
Lucian Vision faded… the Sentinel many faces turned downward, weeping again.
It's voice echoed softly, in his mind.
"You carry your grief…sin…secrets… love that you willing to expression. You have not denied it. You may pass… but know this, what waits ahead will weigh more than what you leave behind."
"Crucmk!"
Lucian leaned and gaze around the Sentinel, he saw that it's body the gate of spirits parted… it's bodies unraveling like mist.
While his vision cleared… Halcyon didn't. She was probably never, because her sickness… even to prove herself.
Was the Crown Relic meant to save… or to test those foolish enough to seek it?
…
A massive black and red castle, that constantly pulsed even covered by the air of death thag no one dared approached.
At the back of the castles, Lucian walked his boots skidded on the loose gravel as he entered a hallway door. He heard a voice that made him halt?
"Wait… Lucian, sto…!"
Because Lucian had a stopped instantly, Halcyon was running she ran into him, she didn't knock him over… but instead she was, but before she could fall his arm snapped forward and gripped her waist catching her.
Her eyes was closed in pain also bracing for the impact… it's only when she didn't feel the pain of the fall her eyes opened, as Lucian pulled her back up.
They were face to face… her head dropped, she brushed her hair behind her ears.
"Thanks..."
Lucian didn't recuperate, instead he stared deeply into her eyes as he nodded. She felt like he didn't care what just happened... His tunn vision only saw she had on her gear.
He frowned. "You're really going through with this… alone?"
Halcyon had a stiff smiled. "Yeah. I need this, okay? It's been a while since I've done one solo."
"And this is the one you pick? The one crawling with fiends and psionic beasts? Seriously?"
Halcyon fixed her bag. "That's exactly why. It's not just about completing the mission…it's about proving to myself I still can."
Lucian stepped closer, fixing her hair. "You don't need to prove anything to anyone. Especially not like this. If something goes wrong out there…"
"I'll handle it. I've trained just as hard as you have. Maybe harder… also being a human I can get help from other."
"That's not what this is about and you know it. I trust your skills…I just don't trust this mission you're walking into."
"I appreciate that. I really do. But I need to do this. Alone. Just this once."
Lucian fist curled before opening. "You always have to carry the weight by yourself, huh?"
"Maybe. Or maybe I just need to feel like I can."
Lucian reached into his pocket and took out a small pebble. "At least take this. If things go sideways, you hit the beacon. No pride. No excuses."
Halcyon smiled faintly. "Deal. And hey…" she glanced up at him. "You worry too much."
"Only about you." Lucian chuckled softly
She shouldn't have listened… it's the reason not doing such caused the awakening of her sickness. Especially, where it had the psionic beast.
How long could she hide the sickness inside her before it consumed everything she fought for? If she failed here, would Lucian still look at her the same way? Would she even be herself anymore?