Task slammed open the door, his head spinning, his mouth dry. He cried out for anyone but his voice was swallowed up by silence within seconds. He slowly walked into the entrance common room which was dark. No candles, no drinks at the tables, no armor hung up on the bannisters.

He hesitated, standing in the quiet echoes of his breathing and didn’t bother calling out for anyone again. He had felt it in his heart and now it was without a doubt that his soldiers had abandoned him. Whether they fled to Shieldhome to report what had happened or whether they abandoned the cause altogether was unknowable.

All he knew was that he was alone now.

The fuzziness arrived once more, making him wobble and bump into a wall, leaning into it with all of himself. He stayed there, giving it his weight before he gathered the strength to climb the stairs and head for his quarters. He swallowed mucus and thick saliva, desperate to take in deep gulps of air. Weakness overtook him from hunger and thirst and a part of him wondered if this might be the day he dies.

Perhaps it would be for the best. He hadn’t felt this hopeless since… a day that seemed to be on the tip of his memory, but it was sunken in a fog that shrouded the figures and swallowed up the emotions. But the hopelessness was memorable.

Along with memory came… the Cursed girl. Her name. Svana.

Each stair did not echo his step. Rather it echoed her name. It came to him without his want and it pained him every time. He allowed it to course through him rather than resist… he would allow this to be his punishment. Not the punishment that Burden or the High Priest decided to deliver him in the form of repentance. This was a punishment all his own. A punishment that went against the Gods and the Kingdom -- because this was born of emotions of shame and regret for his actions against what the Devotion deemed to be demonic.

Svana. And along with her, the nameless Cursed woman, her face, her expressions. Along with them both, a shrouded figure from the fogged memory that was unknown yet familiar to him.

And then a fairly clear memory from a life long gone, something that seemed like a memory but like he was reliving someone else’s life… he remembered the Speaker who came to him at the fortress weeks ago, the Speaker he knew as Cade.

Task reached the top of the stairs in a cold sweat, confused by all of these questions and rememberings.

He approached the door to his quarters and pressed his head against the door, attempting to push all of the thoughts out. He wasn’t brave enough to kill himself. He wasn’t courageous enough to confront the emotions and pain. He was a slave not only to his kings but also the chaos of… everything.

He slowly clenched the latch to the door and whispered to himself.

“I know who Cade is. I don’t want to admit it… but…”

He opened the door and his eyes instantly fell on the closet in the corner. What Cade told him weeks ago. About the Hawk that he gifted him. Task had no memory of what he spoke of but perhaps the man was correct. He dared not explore the depths behind those doors but he knew it was a way out. A potential one at the very least.

He dropped before the edge of his bed and clung to the sheets. It was all flowing… surging… There was a girl when he was only a boy, a girl standing on a hill. He found her beautiful. Inspiring. And he betrayed her love and beauty.

Task recalled his conversation with that Speaker Cade. He called him a name that sounded so familiar, yet it triggered pain and shame and denial within his mind. But ever since, the Speaker’s words lingered in his mind.

Tobias.

Task trembled. Something shifted in his mind. That word. That name. Something that had been pushed deep down… far away…

He threw himself up and slammed his fists into the table near his bed and felt his entire body shake. There was that woman… something was coming alive in his mind. He was tortured by vague memories of people dissecting and affecting his brain. The sound of rain surged outside, something he hadn’t noticed before, but it was becoming a roar of weather. Lightning struck and it lit up the room through the windows looking out onto the storming darkness. Loud thunder blasted him far away into another world. A place where he fought against powerful enemies. Defending someone.

A woman.

A woman he loved.

And a…

A…

“A baby,” he whispered aloud.

In that moment what felt like personal lightning and thunder surged within him as words and commands tore through his system. They told him NO and they demanded that he OBEY. He is TASK and he will COMPLY.

He shivered. Vibrated. Shook. Flinched and vaulted. He had heard tell of this kind of movement before. People who uncontrollably shake and writhe, unable to stop themselves. Was this happening to him? He held onto the table and was losing the memory

but

he had to hold… on…

Suddenly, a butterfly was before his very eyes. Bright and blue. It fluttered its wings and Task stared at it with tears. How did that get in here?

When it touched him more thoughts came back to him.

That’s right, he was remembering... A woman. A baby. Task cried and curled up on the floor whispering to himself, telling himself to remember.

That girl again, that child with blonde hair. Haunting him. Cursing him. The one he attacked named Svana.

No… these thoughts were wrong. These memories weren’t real. He had no connection to the girl. He was remembering all wrong.

But they persisted. The need to place the name surged like wildfire.

More butterflies appeared. They swirled him. Landed on him. There were about a dozen. Task was crying and looking about at the attack of what must have been demons. Demons…!

“What do I do...” He drooled. “What is happening to me…. Gods… Oh, Gods, please answer me. What is happening to me?! Protect me from this nightmare!!”

“Remember.” A voice rang through his mind. Feminine. A name immediately placed itself to it as it spoke. It was the voice he heard earlier in the woods… a voice he’s heard years ago. Thea.

“Y-you,” he looked up, looking about. “I know you. Who are you… D-demon! Demon! Evil!!” He whipped his head around, holding up his arms to defend himself.

The butterflies swarmed and intensified in blue light, filling the room, filling his body. His feelings of coming evil and malevolence slowly faded as he felt the gentle touch, the soothing light.

“Remember. You must. Remember.” It was like she was far away. A whisper. Like something was blocking her voice from getting in completely. But still he heard it. A memory from the past. Something that saved him once. And was now saving him again.

Task gritted his teeth and slammed his palms into the floor. He would. Remember. He would no longer be haunted. He would no longer be condemned and held hostage by these thoughts. He clenched his eye shut and clawed at the stone.

A woman. A smile. He knew her when he was young. They kissed. They cried. They loved.

“I know you,” he wheezed. “Come back to me. Come back to me!”

He felt a blood vessel pop in his eye when a name arrived to him and his eyes widened. His gut churned. A name the Speaker, Cade, had said to him.

KIP.

He vomited. Something was crawling around in his brain. Something foreign and somehow he knew it would kill him. It was as if forces were fighting for control. It would kill him. He waited for it, clawing out memories in his final moments before he was lost forever.

But it didn’t arrive.

Suddenly, there was so much awareness, so much freedom. Whatever was stripped away from him had returned. He watched the butterflies and reached out toward their beauty.

“I’m…”

He was suddenly sent back years and years ago... to a pregnant Kip. The love of his life. She was pregnant with their daughter. He knew it was their daughter. A girl he never got to see grow up. A baby he never got to care for. Instead, she grew up fatherless, and then was attacked by him when they finally met... only he had no idea it was her. Until now.

"I'm a father..."

Svana. She was his daughter.

He was a father.

And he was terrible.

But the realization freed him, if only for a moment. The sickness was passing as the butterflies appeared and surged.

“Thea,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Who are you?”

She only giggled.

“Did you just help me?”

“Yes. But only because you helped yourself.”

“Why?”

There was silence for a while. But then she replied.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“My name is Tobias,” Tobias said after some tears.

“Yes.”

“I’m... I'm undeserving of this. I don’t deserve any of this. I’m disgusting. Horrible.”

Thea was silent. Then…

“Yes. Though, do you wish to remain that way?”

Tobias held his breath. Then released it, closing his eyes, accepting his emotions, his exhaustion, his depression. He slowly turned to the closet and thought of Cade. His gift.

“I do not.”

Within the closet was a metallic cube. He took it, recognizing its similarity to Hawk orbs. This was certainly a dormant Hawk though it was in a new form. He held it tight, taking his destiny into his own hands and then threw it to the ground.

Everything burst into light and steam. The creature emerged -- the most gorgeous Hawk Tobias had ever seen. Enormous and unlike any other Tobias had seen before. He was filled with a deep sadness that buried the bliss of his memory. He placed his hand on the warm material of the alchemical creation, the gift from Cade that he had no recollection of. A reminder of Kip. The hope for his daughter, Svana.

All of it undeserved by someone like him.

“I will accept this once,” Tobias whispered, hugging the large creature. “And then… well, I don’t know.” He climbed up and blinked away heavy tears which continued to arrive and fall down his cheek.

“Take me far… far away,” Tobias commanded.

The wings of the Hawk demolished the walls around him with its size and destructive strength. Tobias held on tightly and clenched his eye shut, accepting whatever came next. He felt shifts in movement and his body was jerked around. So much noise and wind and vibrations of ruin.

He braved to open his eye and saw that they were flying, suddenly, away from the fortress. Away from the Kingdom. Blue light emanated off the creature and it screeched into the night… which was no longer full of darkness. In the far distance, in the hazy mountains, there was a light rising up, dim and faint. But it grew as the Hawk pressed forward, soaring South.

He did not know where Kip was. He did not know where Svana was. He squeezed a fist around the reins and his entire body was tight. He would… he would find a way to fix this. He would not die doing nothing as much as he wished he could.

No, he was Tobias Dyri. A Knight. A husband. A father. A violent, awful man who had hurt everyone and lost everything. And he would use what he had to make things right once again.