VEIL OF FATE

By: MUI WONDERS

I ran.

 

My lungs burned, my legs screamed from the pain that I feel but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. The shouts of the royal knights echoed behind me, their footsteps crashing through the underbrush. The scent of smoke clung to my skin, choking me with every breath. I was alone running to forest.. The only thing I could do now was survive.

I barely made it past the gates. By the time I shattered the invisible barrier, the fire had already won. I can still hear their screams. My mother. My father. My little brother. They gone because of me.

Especially him. Allie, my sweet brother who knows nothing about this world

He was right there, just beyond the flames, his small hands reaching for me. "Rhydian!" he had cried, his voice raw with fear. I reached back. I tried. I swear to the gods, I tried. But the fire was faster.

I watched my little brother die, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

I should be dead, too. Maybe I was supposed to be. Maybe it would have been easier than running like a coward through the forest, my sword heavy with the blood of men I barely remembered cutting down.

But I wasn’t dead. Not yet.

Branches whipped against my skin, leaving stinging cuts, mixing with the blood already dripping from my side. My vision blurred, my body screamed for rest, but I forced myself forward. If I fell now, they would find me.

Then—

The forest shifted. The air stilled, thick with something unseen. My legs gave out, and I collapsed onto the damp earth, struggling to breathe. This must be the end of me now. But, there is something coming closer to me unfortunately I couldn’t see it very well. My vision swam, the dark shapes of the trees bending unnaturally.

A golden glow flickered before me. At first, I thought it was the fire, come to claim me too. But then, out of the haze, she appeared.

A woman—no, something more. Pretty, that’s what I thought. I was probably hallucinating because of the smoke entering my lungs.

Her golden eyes locked onto mine, and though I knew I should be afraid, I wasn’t. Her lips moved, but her voice came to me as little more than a murmur, like a dream slipping through my fingers.

“…keep you alive…”

I forced a breath. “What…?”

“…Let me in…”

I didn’t understand. My head throbbed, my body failing me, my heartbeat slowing. The knights were coming. I could hear them, but they felt distant, unimportant.

“…Say yes…”

Her voice was everywhere and nowhere, wrapping around my fading consciousness. I didn’t know what she was. I didn’t know what she wanted.

But I didn’t want to die.

My lips barely moved. “...Yes.”

A whisper of warmth. A rush of something vast and unknowable.

I never knew that the day I said yes to something as beautiful as her,

it would change my world forever.