CHAPTER 7

Present time

The front door opened and a tall slender woman stepped outside. Lady Dal, Teria’ns mother, stood in front of the door looking incredulously at Nio.

"You, you are alive. We all thought ... But how can this be? Nio? Oh ancestors, I don't understand ": the woman muttered.

"Hello aunt Dienna": Nio said coldly.

"Would you tell Teria'n to come out and play with me?": Nio almost spat out his cousin's name.

Dienna replied: “Nio, please, we know what they did to you, but please, he is your cousin. Please come inside and everything will be fine! We will solve everything. We will nurture you back to health."

Nio bared his teeth in a crooked smile and said: “Everything is going to be okay? Okay?! They sent me to hell! But I brought hell back with me. And today Teria'n will feel that hell. If he comes out, I promise no one else will be hurt. Otherwise I will destroy you all. Your choice. His choice.”

Lady Dal looked over his shoulder, her eyes filling with fear. The garden behind Nio was dying. Everything was dying. Even the water from the pond and waterfall was disappearing.

A veil of dark mist rose from the ground and crawled toward him. Lady Dal’s legs gave way and she collapsed to the ground. With one hand to her mouth, she stared in his direction, terrified. The front door opened again and Nio's smile widened. The young lord Dal finally made his appearance.

Teria’n was considered one of the most beautiful elves in Velas. He was almost ethereal. His skin was so silvery pale and clear that even as a child he made women blush. His body, tall and proportionate, had almost no imperfections. But the crown jewel of his appearance were his eyes. Large and lazy, the colour of crystal-clear waters. Oh, yes, his cousin was a perfect elven specimen and he used that weapon from birth.

Teria’n, calm and unworried, smiled lazily. He walked past his mother who was still lying on the ground without even looking at her.

He went downstairs and confronted Nio: “So, cousin, you survived. Somehow. Too bad. But still, now you look exactly as you deserve. A beggar in dirty smelling clothes. Disgusting. Do you really believe that these tricks you learned in some gutter will be enough to kill me? I am now the second most powerful sorcerer in Velas. Want to guess who holds first place? Yes cousin, the love of your life. Remember how you drooled over her? And you thought you were worth of someone like that? That she could ever love a mongrel like you? And then she betrayed you. Appropriate. Power should be earned cousin and she earned it. By walking on your corpse. So, you think you can beat me in a duel. I am the master of the sun. And what are you, a conjurer of shadows?”

As he listened to Teria'ns words, Nio began to calm down. It should have been the other way around, but all the posing and all the poison coming out of his cousin's mouth seemed so small and insignificant. All four of them would die, and no matter what they said, it couldn’t be worse than what they done to him.

Nio grinned and said: “Master of the sun? Really? Then make it move again, cousin. Come on, fix the sun and make it move again."

Teria’n gave him a look full of disgust and replied: “Funny. And pathetic. No one can do that. How about we stop talking and end this now?”

Nio's smile widened. He clenched his fists and inhaled. Raw magic flooded his body and his spark reached for the sun. But it was too far. As he tried again, he became aware of a whole new dimension of the elements, something he had never noticed before. All the elemental magic merging into one colossal network. He soared through it, higher and higher, until he hit an invisible magical barrier. The entire continent was engulfed by it, trapped in a magical bubble that maintained the illusion of a frozen sun. But in reality, the sun was still traveling on its beaten track and everywhere except in Raal there were days and nights and nature was in perfect balance. The power to create something so powerful and yet so delicate and complex was monstrous.

Nio was one of the few people that knew who did it, but as he probed the spell with his mind he still couldn't understand how. No matter how powerful someone was, no one could create a magical force so intricate and enormous that would last this long. The stronger the spell, the shorter her life. For the first time since the well, Nio felt the amount of power the demons had. And for the first time, he really realized how unlikely his survival was. And yet he survived. If the demons had the means, the will, and the intelligence to create something like this, they were truly gods.

But gods or not, Nio knew he could dispel the bubble. Destroying something was much simpler than creating it. His spark crashed against the barrier and magic followed. The magical bubble was gone. The dark red velvety sun crossed the northern mountains and the long-lost moon twins shone dimly in the sky again.

Nio looked at his cousin and saw the fear in his eyes. But he tried to fight anyway. Teria’n focused his magic and hot sparks formed at the tip of his fingers. He threw the spell at his cousin. For a moment, when the sparks hit Nio's chest, the battle seemed over. Teria’ns face jolted in triumph and anticipation of victory. But nothing happened. The spell simply disappeared inside Nio's body and seemed no more harmful than if Teria’n threw flower petals at him.

Nio retaliated and Teria’n fell to the ground. Wounds opened all over his body, a river of blood soaking his clothes and dripping on the ground beneath him. Teria’ns beautiful blue eyes were now just two small islands in a red ocean, staring at his cousin and not understanding what just happened. Nio's aunt screamed and crawled up to her only child. She pressed her hands to his wounds, but there were so many that she could do nothing but watch her son slowly die in agony. As Nio walked away, he was accompanied by the wailing of a grieving mother.

Tired but content, Nio stepped out of the main gate. This time he had control. This time the darkness was feeding on someone else, someone who deserved it. He walked for a while, then stopped. Part of him was filled with a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, but there was another part of him, a part that could not forget his aunt’s eyes filled with pain and anguish. He sat down on a nearby rock and tried to sort out his feelings. It wasn't that some battle of light and darkness was raging inside him, it was more like his mother's distant whisper, sad and disappointed.

Aunt Dienna did not deserve it, she was one of the few people in that manor who treated him kindly. But how could he not punish Teria’n for what he did? He sat in the dark for seven years dreaming of settling the score. If fate had wanted otherwise, after leaving the hospital in Malfer, he would never have come across former academy students who knew exactly where to find Larin and Teria’n. No, he had to kill them all. And once it’s over, maybe the darkness in him will be appeased and leave him alone. Teria’n, Larin, Koto, Thea.

Night had long since fallen when he reached the old windmill. He could see the orange-red flame of fire inside. He called his companions and Shieena hurried to meet him.

She looked extremely excited, and before Nio could say anything, Shieena began to babble: “Was that you? Did you fix the sun? It had to be you, who else could do it? Jon doesn't believe me, but I know it was you. You didn't break half the continent in the process, did you?"

Nio laughed as the little goblin jumped up and down with excitement. Oh, how he adored her in that moment. Her complete trust in him made him more. More than he actually was.

"Let's go inside, I'll tell you everything when I sit down": he said.

They entered the old crumbling mill and Nio sat by the fire. He was exhausted. He used every last bit of strength he had to break the spell around the sun and finish off Teria'n. Jon looked at him anxiously.

Nio sighed and said: “Yes, I fixed the sun. I didn’t plan it, but it happened. And I killed Teria’n. Only him."

Jon shook his head and said in a low voice: "I don't believe you."

Shieena jumped up from her chair, but Nio motioned for her to sit down again.

He turned to Jon and replied: “Well you don’t have to. But that's what happened. However, I realize that I owe both of you an explanation. Especially to Shieena. If I’m going to drag you all over Raal, you need to understand why. But before I do that, this is the immediate plan. Tomorrow we go west. Half a day from here is my old house. I guess it was abandoned since both my parents died some time ago and I wasn’t there for a long time. But regardless, we will find shelter and plan further steps from there. Depending on what we find, we might even stay for a while so we can all catch some breath and rest. And I will do my best to explain to you my reasons for all this. But it’s a long story and it’s going to take me a while. How does that all sound?”

Shieena nodded and Jon just said: “We could all use a bed and some proper food.”

Nio began his story.