Galen was danger incarnate. A man who would hate me for all time, and regardless of how far I ran, he’d find us. He wanted his daughter back. He wanted a family of his own. Instead of fighting against a misguided religion, we fought against a single father. I feared him far more.

Questions plagued me. What toll would his mind pay for his abilities, or how could I kill him. Worst of all, what would he do with Joan if he found her? There was a distance between Joan and I since overturning Nelastra. Deluge explained his reformation in front of her, but she shook up far worse than I ever imagined.

Regardless of how she looked at me, I still loved her. I wanted, no, needed her safe. Staying in Nelastra would cage us in with Galen, so without any real warning, I walked into the stunning room Aether built. Pillars lined the now expansive room, regal and thick. Every surface stayed polished to perfection, like the prized possesion of a collector.

Amid the marble and subtle glow of gems, Joan and Sophia talked about what had happened. Sophia and Joan laid in a hammock of wolf furs, the same wolves that Razor killed. Swinging like lazy lovers, they engrossed in their conversation.Without meaning too, I hid myself from them, listening close as they discussed the details.

Joan said, “I hate much he’s changed. It doesn’t feel like he’s here anymore. It;s like he’s obsessed with this mission.”

Sophia replied, “Of course he is. I mean, if you think about it, he’s lost quite a few people to Gaia.”

“Yeah, but I mean...The thing is, it feels like he’s getting further and further away, like he really is what people say he is.”

“Joan. You know that’s not true.”

“Is it thought? You’ve seen what he’s like at nights. When he turned back at the blacksmith, I almost screamed, cried, and threw up all at once. It isn’t right. It doesn’t feel like him. I haven’t heard him play any music for months.”

She sat up and turned towards Sophia as she said, “It’s insane. He doesn’t have the same nice, poetic way of saying things. He’s so much more blunt, like I’m talking with a brick.”

Sophia’s face turned grim and angry as she said, “Do you realize how petty you sound right now?”

Joan frowned before she said, “Oh, so now I’m petty?”

Sophia leaned up and said, “Do you realize just what he’s had to do? Do you realize just how hard it’s been for him? Do you even care?”

“Of course I care, I just want him to take a break. Have you seen how long it’s taken for him to get four of the remnants? Only a year. He is so tired, all the time I see how empty he is.”

Joan’s eyes water as she continues, “It’s...It’s terrifying. That thing inside him...It’s eating away at him, making him move when he needs to sleep. It’s carving out Jack.”

Sophia blinked before glancing down. A few tears streamed down the edges of Joan’s face as Sophia said, “I think he’s just wanting to end this as quickly as possible. I think he knows that the longer this takes, the less of him that will be left.”

Sophia turns to Joan and continues, “It’s not easy for him. All the people he’s killed, they haunt him. He’s not as stony and hard as you think he is.”

Hearing Joan hurt me, but I listened closer as they continued. Seeing secrets lures you in. I fell into the trap head first, hearing things better left unheard.

Joan said, “I’m sorry, I just...I haven’t heard from grandpa in weeks. He stopped meeting up with me a while back. I think Jack...killed him.”

Sophia bit her lip as she said, “No, there’s no way. He would never do that...at least, I don’t think he would.”

My hands shook with a silent outrage. They understood nothing. They wondered why I wouldn’t tell them the things I’d done. They wondered why I kept part of myself in the dark. It was obvious. They’d never seen me fight. They’d never known my horror. Joan saw me reform then grew distant. I could only imagine what she would do if she saw me battle.

We hide the ugly, mean, and malicious sides of ourselves from others. Joan wanted me to share everything with her, but she just didn’t understand how much I hid. She didn’t know how much I protected her from, not just horrors in caves or monsters in the dark, but myself as well. I was one of those horrors in many ways as well.

Of course I wouldn’t expose my incessant hunger for anything that moves. Of course I wouldn't show her my regeneration. Of course I wouldn’t show how I could swallow someone whole. I am disgusting. I am a revolting malformation of nature, a miscreant. She was so perfect, and I...I’m nothing more than The Darkened One.

So she fell in love with one side of me, not me in my entirety. Knowing that hurt like wildfire on an open wound. I paced out of Aether’s haven, spiraling in misery. In my eyes, the love of my life saw me as a what I was. An abomination, just like her father, just like Petra.

So I wandered into Nelastra for a bit, stuck in a misty haze. As I passed the entrance, many mentioned my name. Saint Jericho by many, The Darkened One by many more. Deluge stayed silent, letting me wallow for a while. Even with his lack of humanity, Deluge appreciated just how deep Joan and Sophia’s words cut me.

Many rings circled Nelastra, old roads for golems that now stood empty. On a flight of stairs at one’s edge, I sat sulking like a child. I had worked till I tore the callouses from my hands and broken my back, yet none of my friends appreciated it. I’d lost the little slice of home I carved out here purely for my principles.

There I wallowed for a while. I leaned on my knees, hunched over as a set of footsteps sounded beside me. Each step landed heel first, thumping like the feet of a giant. A pair of black, rusted boots thumped beside me. I lifted my head, and there was Krakowah staring at me.

She changed since our last meeting. Instead of Bastion’s armor, she wore a set of leather with her chains wrapped around her waist and shoulders. Plates of gray iron wrapped around her forearms, runes carved into them. Like writing with lava, they glowed. Scars tore through both her hands till reaching the center of her palms.

From within her palms, a dimly lit light pulsed, as if a fire burned beneath the white scars. She stared at me, dumbfounded with surprise and shock. The gray ring around her pupils had turned to red. She’d shaved the sides of her hair, making a the top of her hair run down to a long, ragged ponytail behind her.It was as if the Krakowah of before had tore off her shackles.

She was no longer a puppet. Krakowah was unleashed.

Booming and commanding, she said, “It is odd seeing you here.”

“I thought you left back to Geshia.”

“No. I listened to what you said last time we fought.”

I frowned as I turned up to her. I said, “It was a hard day. Mind reminding me?”

She blinked before saying, “You said that I should shake my people’s madness off their shoulders. I thought of it, for a long, long time. I agree. It is strange. You have a way of telling people what they need to hear, when they need to hear it.”

I sighed before saying, “And her I thought you’d attack me on sight, not tell me I told you something deep and meaningful.”

“You would defeat me. Why fight a battle just to die? I would rather live and love and laugh.”

A reluctant grin traced my lips as I said, “I’ve seen worse ways to live.”

“And I’ve lived those ways, almost all my life.”

I raised an eyebrow as she walked in front of me and said, “It’s the strangest thing. That surgery you and your doctor created, I had it done. I couldn’t believe it. Here I was, trapped in a cage with bars I could not see. Now I can walk where I please.”

She clasped her hands into fists of steel. She said, “I never knew it. The whole time I was a puppet on invisible strings. You, you are no Darkened One. You saved me. You tore off the shackles I fought so hard to keep on...Thank you.”

I nodded while a subtle and slight smile crept up my lips. I said, “It was nothing. Anytime.”

She nodded before she said, “Nothing or not, I learned more from you than I have from the church in thirty years. You are a teacher of hard truths, Jericho.”

I stood up as I said, “Call me Jack.”

Krakowah frowned as she said, “Jack?”

“It’s my real name.”

She nodded her head as she said, “Ahhh, Jericho was just a falsehood then?”

“Indeed it was. I put on that mask so that I could infiltrate Nelastra and take the remnants without having to find them.”

She nodded as she said, “You are a trickster and a teacher too.” She tapped her chest twice, thumping each blow before she said, “Do you wish to hear a story of mine?”

“I suppose. I always have time for a story.”

“Let me know if this is a good one.”

Krakowah stomped a foot, creating a pillar of earth under her that she sat upon. I sat on the stairs again before she started her story.

“There once was a girl who grew up in a far away land. She would find herself lost in her dreams, fighting dragons and demons and evil of all kinds. Her family inscribed her as a part of the Helios Temple, worshippers of sun and fire.

There she learned styles of earth and fury and metal. She showed a great talent for each, becoming a prodigy of her people. Overtime, she found herself fighting the very evils she wished so strongly tdestroy when she was young.

Decades passed, fighting all the while before she glanced back and saw what her family had become. Fat from the treasure she had found and earned, they used her gold for their own comfort, telling her sweet lies the whole while so that she would continue her fighting.

Of course she wasn’t so stupid, so in fit of rage, she left them for better places. She told them that she left for a pilgrimage in Gaia’s name, but in truth, she left out of spite. She hated them. She wanted the old family she knew before wealth had tainted them.

It would never be so. She crossed the Khadid Dessert and Borea Mountains, reaching a far away city known as Nelastra. She was treated as an outsider by many, but at the center of the city was a light that she found herself drawn too.

Religion offered her a way of living where you didn’t need wealth or huge houses or anything besides blind faith. She followed this light, shutting off her soul and let something else take its place. She lived for many years like this, controlled by the light until a wave of darkness came and ripped her from her daze.

She found what it was that caused her to leave her home. It wasn’t the way her family had acted. It was a question of why and what. Why did she fight? What did she fight for? Her family had always answered for her. She ran from them only to find someone else giving her answers.

She couldn’t evenfor herself. She needed others to do that for her. To put words in her mouth and speak in place of her.

She thought, long, hard, and for the first time, on her own. She found reasons worth fighting for. She found her own purpose with reasons all her own. She would free her people from the lies of her forefathers.

She discovered that to do so, she would need that very same darkness that had freed her. She needed it to help take her people from their cages.”

Krakowah reached out a hand and said, “Help me, Darkened One. Help me free my people.”

Grabbing her hand, I said, “With pleasure.”