"Solar?" The name slipped from Kirian's mouth like a soft lie, desperate and broken.
Solar tilted his head. At the look on Kirian's face, the way it tugged at his heart, the name struck his mind like a lash. Kirian. The word escaped his lips. Even Kirian heard it. Confusion lingered on Solar's face.
Kirian? Kirian? Kirian!
Each time the name rose in him he remembered, then forgot, as if someone had stolen the feeling in the same heartbeat he found it.
His power had given him infinite knowledge about his life, but it had come all at once.
He knew everything yet could comprehend nothing, except revenge.
He recognized the face but could not recall the warmth beneath it. Tears rolled down his cheeks.
Kirian's face hardened. In his thirteen years of hunting demons and dreknars, he had never seen any demon show genuine affection for humans. They lied or baited. No demon ever loved.
But this was his brother. A demon. Maybe, an unwise thought Kirian clung to, maybe he was different. Kirian held on to that hope.
Solar forced his mind, his fractured heart, to focus on Kirian's face.
Solar's fractured memories pulled him back twenty six years, back to the day Kirian was born.
***
Kurina's pregnancy was wrong from the start. After five months she withered toward bone.
Her belly swelled while her golden hair dulled. Solar was fourteen. His father, Kuvin, did everything he could to keep her comfortable.
"You'll get through this," Kuvin would say, pity clouding his eyes whenever he looked at his once beautiful wife.
Solar tried to be steady. He cared for his mother like a nurse, helped his father in the fields, he refused to be a burden. The doctors all said the pregnancy was the cause. So they waited, holding onto the hope that birth would mend what sickness had broken.
When the day came, the neighbors and villagers held their breath outside the door, waiting for the baby that had brought their mother such distress.
Kurina screamed until her voice broke. First a girl with golden hair, then a boy with black hair, then another boy with golden hair, then another with black, four babies crying at once while the house filled with noise and fear. Solar waited on the porch, heart pounding.
Then Kurina's cries rose higher than the children's. A fifth child. She pushed and screamed and then fell still. A small, grey haired infant, dry and silent emerged. The mid wife declared it dead.
Then, like a light siphoning itself to a single wick, a golden flash ran among the four living infants and flowed toward the still one. The lights dimmed. The four stopped crying.
Their hair went grey.
Their tiny bodies withered. The last baby gained color and warmth he opened his eyes, green as moss, and cried alone.
The villagers watched in horror and whisper. The mid wife screamed "it's the devil". and ran from the house.
Someone else resounded, "It's the devil!" Fear swelled into violence.
"We can't let it live," someone said.
"Yes, let's kill it before the little devil sucks the life From us too"
A farmer lifted his scythe. He swung it at the child. Kuvin, who clung to his wife, barely blinked. Solar squeezed through the crowd and snatched the baby away from the blade with both hands. He held him so tight his arms shook.
"Father! They're going to kill the child!" Solar shouted, but his father's head bowed as he wept for his wife. Solar's plea fell flat.
The man with the scythe demanded the child. Solar tightened his grip.
"I'll kill anyone who touches this baby. If you want him you'll have to kill me first, or I'll kill you myself!"
At fourteen, the day his brother was born, a boy became a man, the fury in his voice suggested these weren't just empty threats, he was ready to kill or give his life for the baby.
The crowd recoiled. One by one they left. Kuvin buried his wife the next morning and abandoned the children, dead and living.
Solar buried the four dead infants beside Kurina.
He had saved the child, but how to keep him alive? The townspeople turned away. There was nothing to feed him.
Carrying the baby all day drained him, Solar felt his own strength ebb. It almost seemed the child fed on him, on his very life force itself, like the dead infants had given their light to the last one. Panic pricked his throat, but he held on. If his life kept the child alive, he would give it.
Moni, the woman who had helped at the birth, returned and found Solar half dead with the small, pale child. "Can you stand, boy?" she asked. He nodded.
She brought them to her back room and a bowl of goat's milk. A girl about Solar's age fed the baby. Tears ran down Moni's face. "I'm sorry," she said, bowing before Solar. "If I hadn't screamed like that, maybe this wouldn't have turned out so badly for you and this little one."
Moni and Kurina were childhood friends, she could not possibly turn her kids away.
Solar could not form words, Moni did not have the courage to meet his eye. The girl broke the silence, "What's his name?"
"Umm… Baby?" Solar answered weakly.
"That won't do," the girl laughed. "He needs a name."
Solar thought of his mother. Kurina. and the name slipped out. Kirian. Moni nodded in approval. The girl,smiled at the infant.
"Hi, Kirian. I'm Lara. That's Mommy." She pointed to Moni and then looked to Solar. "What's your name?"
"Solar," he said softly.
After that Solar stayed with Moni for seven years. He worked as she needed, fed the child, and watched Kirian grow. Kirian and Lara bonded; the four became a family.
***
By the time Solar was twenty one and Kirian seven, the boy showed odd gifts, perhaps curses.
Once, Kirian awoke and there was another him, golden hair, delicate features. A feminine clone of himself. The sight terrified Moni and the other villager. Old rumors flared: Devil's spawn, mother killer, the devil. The children mocked and pushed him.
Solar and Lara returned from the fields to find Kirian crying under a tree. Lara leapt to his defense with a scythe. She chased the mob away. When the parents threatened the family, Solar decided: they could not stay. They would leave.
Back to the house of his childhood.
Six years later, Kirian was 13 and the villagers hatred towards him grew along with him.
But one day, a grey haired swordsman and a boy with half black, half white hair passed through the village. Kirian, fascinated, blocked their path.
"Take me with you," he demanded.
Solar knew there was nothing in this village for kirian, besides, this man and this strange boy both exuded the type of feeling he got from kirian,he didn't know what that meant but he was sure being with them would be better than being in this village.
He pleaded with the swords man as well.
"Are you his guardian?" the man asked Solar.
"Yes, sir," Solar stammered. He offered Kirian to them.
The swordsman looked at Kirian, nodded, and continued. The boy with him, shook Kirian's hand. Kirian could feel power seeping from the boy's hand, perhaps he, too, was more than he seemed.
Solar watched them leave with grief and relief. The villagers whispered their joy that the "plague" had left.
Years later Kirian returned, not the small, bullied child, but a man with four swords strapped to his back. He came to his old house where Moni had aged and where a baby's cry filled the room. Solar sat in the corner, weary and smiling. Moni hugged Kirian; Lara's child had been named after the lost woman. Kirian learned, in a single breath, that Lara had died in childbirth. He collapsed to his knees.
The day he left, he hadn't even said goodbye, and now he never could.
He came back every year thereafter. The villagers kept their distance, shame and fear shadowed their faces. Solar told Kirian and Ren, on one of their visits how the four siblings had died, how Kuvin their father left them.
Over time, the brothers' bond held them together, they became inseperable as before.
***
With a little bit of focus twenty six years of memories burrowed into Solar's head in a flash.
A warmth filled his chest, "since kirian was here maybe I should stop" his mind was in disarray, he had finally felt something other than revenge ever since he came back from the dead.
But then.
Lara's corpse, his burnt home, the burnt wheat fields all burned in Solar's memory in cruel display, and in his mind a small, ruthless voice stirred, clear as the sky.
(Is this all your family is worth?)
"No."
(What will bring you peace?)
"Their death, all of them."
(Good, one remains, their leader.)
Solar's breathing grew low and animalistic.
(On the mounted horse sits their leader. He alone is worth twice all their heads.)
"Yes. I'll kill him."
(Be STERN in your resolve, they must all die.)
The warmth of family flickered and died under the cold drumbeat of vengeance. He would kill the commander and anyone who stood in his way. Even his brother.
He turned to Kirian. "Get out of my way or I'll kill you."
Kirian understood. Solar was no longer simply human. He was a demon, a Demon Lord.
As a Kurai warrior, as his brother, as the last family Solar had left, "my fallen brother it is my duty to kill you."
Kirian's palm erupted into Solar's chest.
BOOM.
Solar flew into the air, propelled away from the village. Kirian launched into the air as fast as Solar had been launched, leg cocked back. He flew above him and kicked down.
BANG.
Solar crashed to the earth
Solar rose, blade still gripped in his hand. The ground ruptured where he hit.
Kirian landed a few feet away. Nox felt it. Soren felt it. Ren smiled in anticipation.
A battle that would be catastrophic in nature was about to begin.