Light droplets of water kissed his face in the afternoon sun despite the clear skies. Sun showers were nice and all, but a little melancholy never hurt anyone. He could use some rain clouds right about now, a little thundering in the distance for ambiance, a flash of lightning crackilng far off on the horizon. It had been a mostly quiet day, the party strangely subdued despite the previous night’s events. After he had come back to life and forced the surrender of the small company of Goldskins that had attacked Riverton, Pevarin and Selara had handled the rest while Egan led him to a safe place to sleep. It had been another dreamless night, thankfully, though despite the exhaustion he felt the events of the day kept his mind awake until dawn streaked the sky. He had murdered two people. They had tried to kill him, did kill him, in fact, but that look in their eyes...he wasn’t forgetting that anytime soon. The other parts were easier to manage. He knew that most of Riverton’s population had been wiped out by the attack, but he hadn’t actually seen anyone die, nor seen any bodies on his way out of town on account of the whole flying-with-the-power-of-an-actual-god thing.

In the morning, Riverton’s fires had been put out and the few survivors they had found were sent off towards the local lord’s manor. The bodies were buried by Kriese and the others, the old veteran silent the entire time. Duty was a hell of a thing, he supposed. They had left shortly after, Selara declaring that it was best to keep on the move. Lucinder was a name they kept saying often, and talking about the Emperor, though the second name was never spoken to Pevarin in direct conversation. He was slowly starting to piece things together, but it was frustrating how out of the loop he was. From what he could tell, Lucinder was someone high up in the Empire’s ranks, likely a general or High Seat or something to that effect, and anxious to kill him, Zach, to please the Emperor. The way they spoke about the Emperor was as if he was less a man and more a being, which did unnerve him somewhat, even more so because it was becoming increasingly apparent that Pevarin had personal ties to the Emperor, though he struggled to discern in what specific way.

His best guess was that Pevarin had lost someone dear to the Emperor, or perhaps he was a former claimant to the throne. It was hard to say, because, well, nobody told him fucking anything.

“Ok, that’s it,” he said, tapping Egan on the shoulder. The boy didn’t look back, the horse still trotting down the open road ahead. “Stop, guys. Stop!” he said, nearly yelling, scooching to get off the horse

Selara turned her horse about, arching a brow curiously. “What is it, Outlander?” She still called him that, despite everything that happened. Egan called him Zach, Pevarin called him Etelendi, and she, Outlander. Names and titles. He supposed he was going to have to get used to that.

“I just—Egan can you please stop the fucking horse, man,” he said, Egan slowly trotting the horse past Selara, who giggled as Zach struggled to turn himself in the harness they had given to him. “Ok, Egan, bro, like, can you just turn us back the other—yeah, alright, cool,” he said as Egan turned them about, the boy bursting into laughter halfway through.

“Speak, speak, O Great Hero,” said Selara, laughter bubbling under every word, “But careful now, lest you find yourself perilously dismounted.” Egan slid off the horse clutching his belly and laughing, Zach following him swiftly to the ground. He shed the harness, panting heavily, trying to remain calm. He despised it when people didn’t listen to him or take him seriously. Especially when they owed it to him to listen.

“You guys done? Ok,” he said, gathering his thoughts as they hoo’d and ha’d a little while longer. Pevarin wasn’t laughing at all. He’d been an unreadable stone the whole time. That was another thing that bothered him. Pevarin clearly had some sort of issue with him, but he didn’t confront him, he just silently brooded. Well, he was done waiting for people to explain what the hell was going on. “Explain everything to me. Right now. I’ve figured some stuff out—like how you’re all rebels against the United Empire. That’s what the Final Breath is, right? A coalition of the dissident forces of Peratha?”

“You’re a rebel too, now,” said Egan, smiling crookedly, “and not done bad, all things considered. We’ll get you proper fitted for one of these,” he said, pulling his sleeve up to reveal a white band around his triceps, “once we meet up with the rest of the lads.”

“Right, yeah, so I get you guys want my help to defeat this Lucinder guy and kill the Emperor and save the world. I get it, I really do,” he continued, the rest of the party looking at him oddly, “but I need to know this prophecy. I need to know how I’m supposed to do all of that. I need to know who Lucinder is, who this Emperor is. I especially need to know who you are,” he said, pointing to the elf. “Because you’ve got a problem with me, and I don't get why.”

Selara moved as if to respond for her teacher, but the elf held up a hand, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. “You are right. You deserve an explanation,” he opened his eyes again, the gold irises hard and unyielding. “So you shall have one.”

****

The clouds drifted by without a care, all manner of shapes and sizes. They had set up camp earlier than usual so that he could finally get some lore on this world, far off the road in a burrow that he still had no idea how Pevarin knew was there. “Elf magic” was Egan’s only explanation, nodding sagely after his response. Selara was curled up in the corner, oddly subdued and wrapping her arms around her knees, her eyes unmoving from the elf’s face. The man himself looked as impassive as ever, though just a sliver of exhaustion was beginning to show, among other things he wasn’t familiar enough with the man to recognize.

“You ask who I am. I am called Pevarin, but that is not my name. My true name has not been spoken in hundreds of years. In Elven, Pevarin means ‘Exiled One’.”

“Why were you exiled?” asked Zach.

“I wasn’t. Not formally. I chose to come to Peratha instead of remaining with my people when we realized our time in this land was coming to an end.”

This was sounding more than a little derivative of Lord of the Rings, but he doubted the elf would appreciate that comment, “So why leave your people? Were you in love with a human?” he said, quickly glancing at Selara. Was she his illegitimate Human-Elf offspring? It would explain her beauty.

“No. Not out of love. Magical power among humans peaked a few hundred years ago, and with that great miracle, a lasting peace was achieved. During that time, however, fools believing themselves gods began to tamper with the very source of the arcane, something no one had ever dared attempt before. Their folly invited ancient, foreign evil the likes of which Peratha had never seen, When I say that we left because our time was coming to an end, that was not quite correct. We realized that Peratha itself was doomed, and our best course of action was to abandon it to the coming darkness.”

“So you stayed to fight that evil? Noble. And the fact that we’re all here means you had to have succeeded,” said Zach. Typical save the world stuff, nothing crazy. “But you were the only one? No other elves believed that it was in their best interest to fight instead of run?”

“My people do not always see things in their totality, despite our long lives. Few followed me...” said Pevarin forlornly, trailing off as he stared out at the sky. Zach heard the unspoken words that gave the man pause.

And even fewer survived.

“So I don’t follow. You come here with little support, you fight this great evil—then what? How did we get here to you being on the run and rebels to the United Empire? Did you get tired of being the court’s hero and leave? What’s the connection?”

“That is where you were supposed to come in, Outlander,” Selara said quietly, still staring at Pevarin.

“I--what? I was supposed to be here hundreds of years ago? You’re not making sense.” he said, frowning.

“You were. I thought you had arrived,” Pevarin said, fists clenched so tightly his nails bit into his skin, “But I was deceived. All of us were. We couldn’t fight the darkness alone, and prophecy spoke of a great hero to come and unite us all against it.”

It was starting to fall into place now for him, the bits and pieces he had picked up as he went along. “You trained this hero,” he said slowly, connecting the dots in his mind, “you raised him to power,” he continued, and every word was like a blow striking the elf as he spoke, “you supported him, and with your help he did unite the people of Peratha. He did win, but when he won, he didn’t relinquish his hold over the empire he had created. He just declared himself Emperor of it.”

“He’s a monster, Outlander,” Selara said darkly. “When the states he had taken control of demanded their freedom back, he had their leaders murdered, whole families burned down to the stem just so he could rule over the ashes. He consolidated the various armies of Peratha into his Goldskins and taxed the people so harshly that they struggle to get by while his cronies profited. All the money the people earn just goes back into subjugating them. It’s impossible to fight against him.”

Final Breath was right. This had to be their last shot. He didn’t know how big the rebellion was, but if only three people were guarding one town, how big was the scale of it all? How many countries were there? How many towns? How many cities? If he assumed that Selara and Pevarin were some of the strongest they had, then the picture was looking very bleak indeed.

“So I’m it, huh? What about the prophecy? You were wrong before. What makes you think it’s me this time?” he asked.

“We don’t know. Everything is the same as before,” said Pevarin, his eyes turning hard, and Zach took a step back. Pevarin didn’t take his eyes off of him, moving towards him, “But know this, Etelendi. I failed the world once. I will not fail it again.” And again, the message unspoken was heard.

I’ll kill you myself before I let that happen.