Chapter 2:

  The metallic taste of blood in his mouth, the earth shattering booms of spells cshing in the distance, the cold of the floor on his back, his master’s screams in his ear.

  His master.

  He couldn’t remember her name, but he should, shouldn’t he?

  She was saying something to him. Expining, apologizing, crying… Or was it ughing? He couldn’t remember.

  The image of her face was distorted, changing. Her features like a kaleidoscope, always beautiful, never the same. Long hair, short hair, blonde, bck, red… Eyes blue as the ocean, bck as the night, yellow as the sunshine.

  Yet something always remained.

  She looked at him apologetically, her eyes like bottomless wells of compassion.

  “Lioren,” she whispered in his ear. Or was it a scream?

  Not remembering her name felt like betrayal. Like breaking a promise he couldn’t remember making.

  In the distance, a roar. A reality-rending howl. Deep and yered. Like the grinding of mountains or the mourning of gods.

  As if taking offense with existence itself. With every living thing for daring to defy it by simply breathing.

  “Lioren, you have to…” Her lips pressed into a thin line, eyes closed in resignation.

  He could see in the distance. The battling of wings as bck as the void. Its scales more than just dark, as if they refused the light from the burning city under it.

  His home… or was it his master’s home? Maybe both? He couldn’t remember. Again, he felt the same sense of guilt for his ck of memory.

  His master’s hands cupped his head tenderly, stopping him from gazing at the abomination in the distance, looking at him in the eyes as her lips moved without a sound.

  An incantation. He felt the realization come to him instinctively. Like muscle memory.

  Her lips continued moving, impossibly fast, impossibly slow. Gaining complexity with every word.

  What is she doing? No incantation is that long. He wondered as she continued for several seconds.

  “Lioren,” her voice finally came back, sometimes smooth, sometimes rugged, but always the same undertone. Always hers. “Lioren, you have to listen to me…” She caressed his cheek as her expression softened.

  “You’ve done enough, Lioren. We’ve all done enough,” she looked back for a moment, at the monstrosity tearing everything in its path apart. At the burning world they once called home. At the spells harmlessly bouncing off the creature’s scales. She closed her eyes, unable to take any more of the carnage taking pce.

  She turned back to look at him once again.

  “I’m so sorry it had to be this way, Lioren.” Her apology tore at his heart. “I’m sorry for being this selfish. But I can’t let you die.”

  A tear ran down her cheek as she looked at him tenderly, but as he tried to wipe it with his hand, he felt nothing, no weight, no resistance, just absence. Weird. He thought, dazed. So he attempted with his other hand. Again, nothing.

  Detached curiosity made him try to move his legs, only to realize that a lot more of him was missing.

  He wanted to ask his master what was happening, but his mouth couldn't move either.

  Noticing his attempts, his master put a finger on his lips, shushing him tenderly. “Hey hey, it’s ok Lioren, you don't need to move,” she looked him in the eyes again, a sad smile adorning her shifting face. “I’m not really sure if this is gonna work.” She said as much to him as to herself.

  She carefully rested his head on the cold floor. Stepping in front of him, her apologetic expression repced by one of sheer determination.

  “This has never been attempted before, as far as I know.” She extended her hands, multicolored energy sparkling between her fingers, growing in intensity by every second. “So if it ends up not working, I only hope you find it in yourself to forgive me one day, my Lioren.” She looked down at him with adoring eyes.

  The energy reached a crescendo, overwhelming his senses with the sheer intensity of it. Whatever his master was doing was using an unheard amount of power and control.

  “But I love you too much to just let you be killed by that abomination,” she stopped looking at him. Her attention focused exclusively on controlling that impossibly powerful spell.

  Then he heard it.

  A bell. Deafeningly loud. Impossibly quiet.

  And a crack. A slice. A piercing in reality itself. Just above him.

  Mist started pouring on top of him, from nowhere, from everywhere. Changing in shape and color.

  It enveloped him, all of him, all that he was, and all that he wasn’t.

  So he breathed it in. And he became the mist, and the mist became him. His mana resisted the intrusion at first, but it was futile. He was so weak, the mist lulling him into acceptance. Submitting to it was the biggest act of rebellion.

  Rebellion against death, against the great beast coming their way, which were one and the same.

  “If you survive this,” his master panted, out of breath. The reality bending spell taking a toll on her.

  “I just want you to try and be happy, alright?” She looked down at him for a moment. And he could see her, not through the mist, because he was the mist. She looked tired, beautiful, powerful, vulnerable, defeated, victorious. Everything he had ever loved.

  “Lioren, my Lioren… please, survive.” Her hands were shaking, or was it the ground beneath them?

  The monster was getting closer.

  “And never forget, you were always my joy.” She smiled at him as only a mother could. “I… I used to curse the gods for barring me from motherhood,” she fell on one knee. Maintaining the spell was taking everything she had.

  “But once I found you, once I saw you grow, once I felt my chest bursting with pride at every step you took…”

  She sighed, dejected. “Then I realized they never did. I hope they can forgive me too…”

  The rumbling was getting stronger, the monster only instants away from them.

  “I love you Lioren. My Lioren. Always have, always will.”

  He felt something pulling him upwards. Towards the slice in reality.

  He wanted to scream, to beg her to stop, to let him stay with her in the end. But it was no use.

  He had no legs to run towards her, no arms to hug her, no voice to tell her that he loved her back.

  So he floated, and the wound in reality took him. The st thing he heard was the frustrated roar of a beast, booming and bellowing, but overpowered by her master, whispering his name.

  “Lioren”

  He woke up coughing, soaked, face-down in a filthy puddle between dumpsters.

  His hands were shaking. The world smelled like wet iron and burnt oil.

  “Where…?”

  The mist around him curled, responding faintly to his breath. Weak. Unstable.

  He sat up, the st fragments of the vision fading like a forgotten dream. But her voice lingered. Always would.

  “Lioren.”