The fog hangs over the morning, making me feel unseen while somehow completely seen in a way I would prefer not to be. I sit on a low ridge overlooking our last stretch before we reach the Forest of the Forgotten. I stare into the mist with one thought:
If I am to die for a world I do not even understand, why am I the one meant to save it?
I ask myself this a lot lately, begging whatever gods or Fates exist to make this journey make sense.
They do not respond.
Of course, they do not.
Why would they?
They are not my gods.
I wish for nothing more than to leave Celentra.
Run back to my little corner of the world and finally have some peace.
But something pulls at my heart.
A feeling that tells me I have to stay.
I have to be here.
Maybe it is Kathera.
Maybe it is just wanting to feel like I did more than destroy.
I feel him before I hear him — a small tug on something invisible, like a string being gently pulled.
It feels both wrong and comfortable. Wrong to have someone who talks to me, who listens, who understands me in a way no one else has.
Oliver sits next to me.
“You are brooding,” he says. “On a Castor-level kind of brooding.”
I can hear the smile in his voice before I even look at him. His smile — gods, his smile breaks me wide open when all I want is to build a wall.
I chuckle slightly. “I am allowed to brood.”
His hair falls into those gray eyes, and I still do not fully understand.
Eyes that are meant for me to look into.
Eyes that see me too clearly.
“I did not say you are not allowed,” he replies. “I just mean Castor would be proud.”
He pokes my shoulder, and I feel that small shock. Hard to get used to — like lightning from a simple touch, like wishing for rain that never comes.
“I live to make people proud,” I say sarcastically.
“We are almost to the Forest of the Forgotten. Are you okay? Are you ready?”
His voice hovers between concern and fear. He sees me breaking even when I try to hide it.
“Yeah. Perfectly fine. Let us get this shard, its essence, and move on.”
I try to end the conversation there.
“You cannot lie to me the way you lie to the others,” he says simply, surveying me.
Those damn eyes that threaten to swallow me whole.
“Look, if you are going to read my mind anyway, why even ask?”
My voice is sharper than I mean it to be.
“Because I want to hear you say it. It is just me here. I know that you are scared. Just talk to me.”
“No.”
The word comes out hard.
“If I recognize those thoughts and put them into words, that makes them real. If I am going to save this world, I need to be strong. And to do that, I cannot feel what I am feeling.”
“What if feeling is what can save this world?”
His question echoes inside me, cracking me open.
“Then I cannot save it. Because I cannot let myself feel it to the extent it would require.”
I look toward the looming forest — a deep, dark giant stretching on for miles. It will take days to cross.
It glows a faint shade of green, a glow only I can see.
A glow I wish I could not see.
Whatever lies within its wilds will give us the essence we seek… and the fate that might await me.
“If that is the sacrifice to make this world move again, I would rather die.”
“You would rather die than put your true feelings into words?”
“It would feel like dying anyway.”
The sentence hangs between us, long and uncomfortable — like a storm deciding whether to fall.
“I was taught not to feel, Oliver,” I say sharply. “I was taught that emotion is something to fear or weaponize, not to sit with. I have told you this.”
“Blood is often deeper than people think,” he says calmly. “Blood is the life force it takes to keep going. You are always going. I think when you truly accept who you are — what you are meant to do — you will understand that your shard is not death but life.”
“You only say that because of who you worship. It is because of the blood on my hands,” I snap.
“No,” he says gently. “I say it because I have seen what it takes for life to keep pulsing. I have seen you keep moving even when you question every step.”
“How philosophical. I did not know you were a philosopher,” I joke weakly.
“I am not. I am just someone who believes life is stronger than anything. I believe you are life cloaked in death’s darkness.”
His tone is so sincere, I almost shatter.
“What if I am just death incarnate? What if I destroy everything I touch?”
I do not want the answer — not really.
“I think death is misunderstood,” Oliver says, voice ringing like prophecy. “Death is the other side of the coin to life. Without death, there would be no rebirth. Without death, time would not feel real. Death is what makes us appreciate life. If you are death incarnate, then death is beautiful, remarkably strong, and I love death as much as I love life.”
“You are just saying that because we are Soulfated,” I try to deflect.
“I say it because my heart yearns for you in a way I cannot fully explain. I say it because if the price to get the blood shard’s essence is your life, I will follow you into the afterlife gladly.”
His voice is steady, certain, unwavering. No one has ever wanted me that much.
“I would not want that,” I whisper, my voice shaking.
“Then do not make me do it.”
His words cut through my armor like steel.
With that, he leaves me sitting on the ridge, my heart pounding in my ears, my thoughts spiraling.
I cannot let him do that.
Maybe I accepted the fate of death before I truly considered what that meant.