The world stilled.
The Hollow Dagger's blade hung in the air, a strand of scarlet light caught between heartbeats. The sound of the Frostbound crowd's chant fractured, their voices turning to brittle echoes, fading into stillness. Even the snow halted mid-fall, each flake a frozen moment of dying motion.
And then — everything vanished.
Darkness unfurled, vast and soundless. A weightless void stretched infinitely, soft as breath, ancient as despair. Beneath her feet shimmered the reflection of a sky that was not her own, and above her — the faint pulse of distant, dying stars.
She blinked, disoriented. Her blade was gone. The air trembled.
And out of the horizon of nothingness, a figure emerged.
He was tall, his form carved from the quiet dignity of ruin. Long black hair cascaded like ink, and from his back trailed wings—broken, shredded, half-forgotten. His eyes carried centuries within them: rage that had burned out, sorrow that had learned patience.
Kaelus.
The First Blade. The Guardian of Balance.
A being born not of love, but of necessity — and yet, here he stood, gazing at the daughter he had never truly held.
"Illyria."
The name left his lips like a prayer half-broken by silence.
The Hollow Dagger did not speak. Her lips parted, but no sound emerged.
Even here, the chains of command clung to her tongue like iron vines.
But Kaelus's gaze softened. "You remember the sound, don't you?" he asked quietly. "Even if you do not remember me."
He took a step closer, the void rippling with each footfall — like still water disturbed by memory. "I do not deserve to stand before you, my daughter," he said. "But if I do not speak now, I will never forgive myself."
---
"I was not born," he began, his voice deep and distant, "I was forged."
"The Primordial Chaos God crafted me as the axis of existence — the blade that keeps heaven and void in balance. I was not meant to think. I was not meant to feel. Only to act, to destroy, to preserve."
He looked down at his hands — at the cracks that glowed faintly across his skin, like fissures in divine stone. "When I took life, the world stayed whole. When I refused, it burned. There was no choice. Only law."
His voice wavered, turning into a breath of mourning. "Then one day, I met her — your mother, Serenia. The Queen of Spirits."
He smiled faintly, painfully. "She was everything I was not. Life where I was silence. Emotion where I was order."
His eyes shimmered, reflecting ghosts of light. "She came to me in defiance of the gods. And even though I warned her that nothing good would come from loving a weapon, she said… 'Then I'll teach you how to be something more.'"
He looked at Illyria then — his daughter, hollow and still. "And she did. For the briefest heartbeat in eternity, I almost believed I could feel."
He turned away, his gaze falling into the endless dark. "But the Primordial One saw it as corruption. They bound me beneath the roots of creation, chained by the laws I had upheld. I was not there when your world fell. I did not see Serenia's final breath. I only felt it — the silence where her song used to be."
The void trembled as his words continued, slow and cracking.
"You came to me once," he whispered. "You were already grown — five centuries old. I remember you, standing in the darkness outside my prison, looking at me without fear."
His voice broke into a quiet laugh, more sorrow than mirth.
"You said nothing. You simply reached out — your little hand through the barrier, the same way your mother once did. I couldn't touch you, but you smiled."
The memory flickered — faint, almost imperceptible, but Illyria's pupils dilated, her chest rising too quickly for stillness.
Kaelus's expression darkened. "And then, you vanished. When I next saw you, it was through the eyes of the divine chains. You were no longer the Spirit Princess — you were their weapon."
He clenched his fists. The void trembled like a heart beating against its own cage.
"I saw them tear your spirit core out — to make you obedient. I saw them lace your veins with blood that was not yours. I saw the King who destroyed your mother's realm cradle you like a trophy and teach you to call him 'Father.'"
His voice cracked, dropping to a whisper.
"And I saw you smile at him the way you once smiled at me."
The silence that followed was unbearable. Even the void seemed to hold its breath.
Kaelus fell to his knees, his wings shaking, feathers dissolving into ash.
"I wanted to hate you, Illyria," he said. "I wanted to scream at the heavens, to demand why you didn't remember. But when I saw how they broke you, how they made you kill without will, I realized — it wasn't your fault. It was mine."
He looked up, tears carving lines of light down his face.
"I failed you. I failed your mother. I failed every part of the man she believed I could be."
He laughed again, the sound hollow and trembling. "I was made to preserve balance. And yet all I've done is destroy it."
He stood — weakly, slowly — his figure shaking like a dying star. "But you… even hollow as they made you, you live. I've seen you hesitate before striking. I've seen your eyes tremble. That is not programming. That is you."
The void pulsed with light — faint, rhythmic — like the beating of a heart beneath an ocean.
He stepped close enough for their shadows to touch. The edges of his being flickered, as if his existence was burning out.
> "Your mother believed that love was stronger than creation itself," he said softly. "I never understood it until I saw you fight your orders. Even if you don't remember me, Illyria, know this: you were born from defiance. You are the one mistake the gods could never erase."
Illyria's lips parted. Her throat trembled. For the first time, a sound — small, broken, fragile — escaped.
"…father?"
It wasn't recognition.
It was instinct.
A sound born from the remnants of love buried in her soul.
Kaelus froze. His eyes widened.
And then — slowly — his expression melted into a smile so gentle it could have broken the world.
"Yes," he whispered. "Even now, that's enough."
He reached forward, brushing her cheek with a trembling hand.
"I have no reason to live anymore. The one I loved waits for me in the Netherworld, and the child I dreamed of holding stands before me, unable to remember. But that's all right. You are still here. That is enough."
The void began to shudder, as if rejecting the impossible — emotion within divine law. Cracks of light ran through the ground, the stars dimmed, and Kaelus's wings began to disintegrate into dust.
Illyria stood motionless. But her eyes — once empty mirrors — now reflected light. Her hand twitched, wanting to hold him, to stop him, though her body would not obey.
Kaelus's final words trembled through the dying silence:
"Your path will be cruel. The gods will turn their faces away. But remember this, Illyria — even if you were forged to destroy, you still have the power to choose."