The sky had turned a bruised shade of violet.
The battlefield was silent, not in peace, but in dread. That unnatural pause before all things break. Smoke curled upward in quiet spirals. Black ash fell like snow. Rayan stood at the heart of the ruin he had summoned, chest heaving, his body trembling beneath the weight of power not meant for mortals. Orien stood beside him, still as stone, his gaze fixed on the figure that stepped from the fire.
Zayran.
Changed.
His body, now shadow-forged, seemed almost translucent at the edges, like smoke trapped in the shape of a man. His eyes, no longer merely dark . Shimmered with a kind of knowing grief. The air bent around him, not with heat or cold, but something older. Something tragic.
The silence broke when he raised his arms.
Black lightning danced between his fingers.
The sky answered.
A storm gathered, slow and groaning, above the scarred field. Lightning twisted through the clouds like veins in a dying heart. Wind rose, carrying voices that didn't belong to the living. whispers of memories, of names once spoken in love, now carried in sorrow.
Rayan stepped forward.
"I won't let you hurt anyone else," he said, his voice cracked but steady.
Zayran tilted his head. "You think this is about hurting?" His voice was softer now, distant, as though speaking through time itself. "No. This is about remembering."
The storm screamed.
Darkness fell again, heavy and full. From it, creatures surged forth malformed shadows, born of Zayran's will. They shrieked like lost souls as they lunged at the three mages.
Orien moved like water over ice, conjuring frozen walls that shattered with each strike, buying time. Rayan countered with flame, sculpted and deliberate, sweeping across the battlefield in waves of molten gold. Every blow was met. Every spell answered.
But still Zayran stood.
Unmoving. Watching.
And then... Malrick rose.
Bruised, broken, bloodied, but alive.
He staggered forward, eyes blazing with that same ancient light that had once held the serpent at bay.
"You're not the only one who remembers pain, Zayran," he said, voice a ragged whisper. "But we don't all drown in it."
Zayran blinked. For a moment, just a flicker, his face softened. The rage cracked. Beneath the wrath… something human stirred.
And then came the light.
Faint, at first. A pale thread of silver across the horizon. The sun, long hidden behind the storm, had begun its slow ascent. Dawn, unexpected and unstoppable, broke the edge of the world.
Zayran turned his head toward it... slowly, like a man turning toward his own death.
"No," he breathed. Not in fear. In recognition.
The black lightning in his hands faltered. His body shuddered. The edges of his form, once stable, began to unravel. Threads of shadow lifted from his skin, like steam from a dying flame.
Rayan, still braced for a final assault, took a step forward, but stopped.
Zayran wasn't fighting anymore.
His hands fell to his sides. He looked not at them, but beyond them, toward something none of them could see. Something only he knew.
The first full beam of sunlight broke across the ruined ground.
It touched Zayran's shoulder.
He gasped.
A blister bloomed instantly, red and raw. Then another. His body recoiled, twitching, spasming. Smoke rose from his skin. His jaw clenched as he fell to one knee, clutching his chest. His voice cracked, dry as bone:
"It's the same…"
Orien stepped forward, breath caught. "The same…?"
Zayran looked up, and there were tears in his eyes real, human tears, streaking down a face that was barely holding shape.
"It's what took her," he said. "The sun. The light. The burning."
Zayran nodded.
"It found me… after she died. The same sickness. The same curse. I stayed in the dark, thinking I could contain it." His gaze dropped, haunted. "But the darkness fed it. Twisted it. Until I became this."
He stood barely swaying.
"I don't want to fight anymore," he whispered. "Not if it means forgetting her."
The light grew stronger now. Dawn had broken in full. Zayran's skin blistered and peeled as the fire of morning ate away at what he had become.
Without another word, he turned slowly, like a man walking into his own ending, and began to limp away.
Rayan and Orien didn't follow.
Malrick lowered his head in silent respect.
They watched as Zayran walked beyond the battlefield. Through broken trees. Past the dying shadows. Until he reached the dead willow.
And there, beneath its gnarled limbs, was her grave.
Samantha.
The earth was still soft. The grass never grew right there. And the stone that marked her resting place was simple. Untouched.
Zayran fell to his knees before it.
His breath came ragged. His hands burned, torn reached for the name carved in stone. He leaned forward, pressing his forehead to the earth.
"I'm here, Sam," he whispered. "This is where I belong."
His voice cracked again.
"I thought I could protect your memory with rage. With fear. But all I did was become the thing you warned me about."
He let out a breath, shallow and fading.
"I'm sorry I failed you."
His body began to smolder now, wisps of smoke curling from his back, his hair, his fingers. But he didn't cry out.
Instead, he smiled small, soft. The kind of smile she had once given him by the lake.
"I belong to you," he whispered, his final breath warm against the soil. "Always."
Then silence.
The wind stirred the willow branches. The sun rose higher.
And Zayran, the shadow knight, the keeper of grief and vengeance, was no more.
All that remained beneath the willow was ash and the memory of love that could not be saved.