Wielding the Light & Darkness

I didn't wait for the Reaver to reach her.

It reared back with a shriek like ice shattering in a scream, claws stretching wide—and I threw myself forward, magic flaring down my spine and into my limbs like lightning hunting for a strike.

I slammed into it with my shoulder first, not graceful, not clean—just desperate. The force sent it staggering back a few paces, just enough for Elara to stumble free from its reach. Frost cracked beneath her boots as she dove aside, landing hard on one knee.

"Move!" I shouted.

She didn't argue.

I spun, blade raised, just in time to catch the Reaver's next strike.

Its claws were like frozen spears, jagged and barbed. They crashed against my summoned sword with a sound like a church bell being torn in half. The impact sent sparks flying, steam rising where heat met ice.

My knees buckled under the force, but I held the line.

I could feel it. The pressure. The cold. It wasn't just physical. A storm wrapped in bones and hunger, feeding on fear. And it wanted her. It wanted me.

Not today!

I pushed back with a roar, twisting my sword and raking it across the Reaver's chest. Light met frost—flames licking along the blade's edge—and the creature howled. Chunks of ice shattered from its body as it staggered.

"Elara, are you hurt?" I called, never taking my eyes off the enemy.

She coughed, voice raw. "I am fine, Aric..."

"Good. Save your arrows. I've got this one."

"Your sword's on fire."

"I'm aware."

The Reaver screamed and lunged again—faster this time. Desperation made it reckless.

I didn't move.

Not until the last second.

Then I stepped sideways, fluid as breath, and whispered the words that burned against my tongue.

"Lux flamma, ignis vero—shield me!"

A barrier of light burst between us, searing gold edged with flickering shadows. The Reaver struck it head-on, and for a second, the world flashed white. The thing reeled back, ice cracking across its limbs as if it had run headfirst into the sun.

It hissed, enraged. Steam coiled from its jagged mouth. And it came again.

I didn't back down.

I didn't even blink.

"Incendia ferrum, strike true!"

My sword ignited fully, a blaze of fire and shadow, too bright for the darkness around us. I met the Reaver's claw mid-air, parried the blow, twisted past its bulk, and cut deep.

A roar tore from its throat as blackened frost split apart across its chest.

It swung wildly—I ducked.

The wind from its claws raked across my shoulder but didn't break skin. My focus was iron. My pulse steady. Not just reacting.

Commanding.

"Tenebris, hold him—bind the wicked!"

Dark tendrils, like shadow given purpose, erupted from the stone at my feet. They coiled around the Reaver's legs, tightening, dragging. The creature shrieked and thrashed, claws lashing at the air.

Too slow.

I ran forward, eyes locked on its pulsing core, where its ribs split like frozen branches around a glowing shard of cursed ice.

"Let judgment fall. Per ignem, per lucem—fall!"

I shouted as I drove the blade in.

The sword met resistance—and then broke through with a shudder that rattled my bones. Light exploded from the wound, searing through the creature's body like a sun ripping free of a winter storm.

It didn't scream.

It just... stopped!

Frozen mid-thrash, its limbs turned to brittle ice, veins glowing once, then dimming.

With one final breath, the Reaver shattered.

Shards of it were scattered across the stone, vanishing like melting snow.

I stood in the silence that followed, panting, my sword still aglow in my hand.

No voice from the Serpent.

No applause from the shadows.

Just Elara—staring. Her broken bow hung uselessly in her hand. Her hair was dusted with frost and her cheeks streaked with dried blood, but her eyes were wide. Not with fear. With something else.

"Aric..." she whispered.

But I didn't answer.

Not yet.

I just stood there, surrounded by ice and ash, flame and fading echoes.

Then she stepped forward, slowly. Her boots crunched softly over the frozen remains of the Reaver. Her broken bow lowered to her side, fingers trembling slightly—not from fear, but from something unspoken.

She stopped just a few paces from me, her breath visible in the cold air between us. The flickering light of my still-glowing sword danced across her ice-blue eyes.

"You..." she said quietly, "You controlled it."

I exhaled slowly, the last of the adrenaline bleeding from my limbs. I let the sword dissolve in my hand—its form shattering into light and ash—and nodded once.

"Not fully," I said. "But I'm... starting to understand it."

Elara furrowed her brow. "But how? Before, it used to take over. You'd burn through like a star about to collapse. But now..."

She stepped closer, gaze searching my face.

"What changed, Aric?"

I hesitated. Then I looked past her, to the place where the Reaver had fallen, and whispered, "I stopped trying to silence it."

She tilted her head.

I turned back to her and explained, "I used to think the key was blocking one side. Either the light or the dark. Like if I could just shut one off, the other would flow clean. But that's not how it works. That's not how I work."

I crouched and drew a rough circle in the frost-covered stone, dividing it down the center.

"I realized the magic inside me... It's like two rivers. One bright, one shadowed. If I try to dam one of them, the pressure builds. It cracks. And then it floods out of me."

Elara knelt beside me, watching.

"So I tried something else," I continued. "I emptied my mind. Slowed my breathing. And then, I tried to guide both currents. One toward my right side. One toward the left. Not stopping them. Just... letting them flow in parallel."

"Like mana channels?" Elara whispered.

I nodded. "Exactly. Every mage has mana lines in their body—channels where energy flows. Most of us use one kind of power, so it's simple. But I'm wired differently. My mana splits in two directions—light and darkness. If they collide at the wrong points, the feedback burns me from the inside."

Elara's eyes widened, the realization dawning across her face like frost spreading across glass. "So you separated them. Redirected them like current through different veins."

"Like trying to guide two storms to pass each other without touching." I looked down at my hand. It still tingled faintly with residual power—like it hadn't quite settled yet.

Elara stepped back thoughtfully, gripping her broken bow and brushing her fingers over the limbs with a newfound seriousness. "That's actually... not so different from how I handle my own magic," she said slowly.

"Really?"

She nodded. "My magic has always been wild. Ice doesn't like to be held still—it grows, it spreads, it breaks things. When I was younger, I used to lose control during practice. I'd freeze everything around me—accidentally. The air. My skin. Even the training dummies would shatter before I could notch an arrow."

Then she turned, faced a patch of nearby stone wall, and lifted her hand.

"Watch."

A sharp breath. A soft hum of magic.

She didn't conjure an arrow. She just released her power—without focus. A sudden burst of frost exploded from her palm in all directions, jagged and violent. The wall cracked. The air chilled so rapidly that my breath came out in a fog. Bits of frozen moss snapped and fell away from the rock.

"See?" she said with a small shrug. "If I don't guide it—channel it through my bow—it lashes out like it has a mind of its own."

I whistled softly, half impressed, half concerned. "So that bow of yours—it's more than just a weapon."

"It's the only reason I don't turn half the kingdom into a glacier every time I'm angry." She gave a crooked smile, but there was a trace of seriousness beneath it. "It shapes the flow of my mana. The curve, the string tension, the way I anchor the draw—it all helps me concentrate the ice into a single arrow, a single shot. One direction, one purpose."

I stared at her for a moment, feeling a sudden sense of perspective crack open inside me like ice underfoot.

"There's so much I still have to learn," I murmured. Not bitterly—just in awe. "From all of you."

Elara looked at me and tilted her head. "You're doing just fine, Aric. But yeah... maybe don't try firing a blizzard out of your hands anytime soon."

I laughed, the tension finally breaking. Then, I realized something.

"You're right. I have to limit how much I release at a time," I added. "Because my body isn't used to the intensity. It's like trying to hold sunlight in one palm and night in the other. One wrong move and—boom."

I made a small explosion gesture with my hands.

She gave a short laugh, half in relief, half in awe.

"That's... incredible," she said softly. "And insane."

"Yeah," I muttered. "I'm a walking magical disaster."

We both stood in the silence that followed, letting the cold settle between us. The torches on the walls flickered, casting long shadows over the cracked stone.

But my mind was already moving again.

The Serpent's visions still haunted me—images of my friends, each of them in peril. A blazing battlefield. Broken weapons. Hands reaching for help through the dark.

"Elara," I said, voice tight, "the others... they're in danger."

Her expression hardened. "I know."

"We need to move," I said. "We need to find Valtor—he was—"

"No," Elara interrupted gently. "Herold first, please."

I blinked.

"He and I fell into this place together," she continued, stepping toward one of the tunnels.

Her gaze fixed on the frost-covered corridor that split them apart.

Her voice was low, but steady. "When we were attacked... we didn't plan to split up." She hesitated, jaw tightening. "We were just trying to draw the Ice Reaver away. Herold went right. I went left. We didn't say anything, but... we knew what it meant."

I turned toward her. "That he trusted you to make it out?"

She nodded faintly. "And I trusted him to stay alive. That's how we've always been. But now..." She inhaled sharply. "Now I don't know where he ended up. If he's even—"

"He's alive," I said without hesitation. "He's too stubborn to go down quietly."

That earned the ghost of a smile from her.

"He'll try to play it off. Like always," she murmured, her voice barely audible over the howling wind. "Make a joke. Say we took too long. But he won't say what really happened to him."

I looked forward, the frost crackling under our boots with each step. The mountain groaned softly, as if it were a living entity, breathing and waiting for our next move.

The air was thick with anticipation, and I hesitated for a moment, torn between the urgency of our mission and the haunting images that flashed in my mind.

Valtor, bleeding in a chamber that boiled with molten lava, his face contorted in agony. The memory was vivid, searing itself into my consciousness.

But there was more.

The Serpent's vision had shown me Herold's tired eyes, his crooked smirk twisted beneath the strain. His face was a mask of pain as he hung midair, ivy coiled tightly around his body like a noose. His illusions flickered weakly in the air around him, like dying moths drawn to a flame they could no longer reach.

"Alright," I finally said, my voice steady despite the turmoil within. "Herold first."

I paused, then met her eyes. They were filled with determination, mirroring the resolve I felt deep in my bones. We had to save them.

Both of them. But Herold needed us now, and I couldn't ignore the urgency of his plight.

The mountain seemed to hold its breath as we made our decision, the frost beneath our feet a testament to the cold, hard reality we faced.

"But after that," I added, my voice hard and resolute, "we find the others. Valtor and Seraph. We were sent here to investigate a threat to the kingdom. And it's already started picking us off."

Her shoulders lifted slightly, as if the weight she'd been carrying had shifted just enough for her to breathe again. She nodded, her eyes now sharp and determined. The resolve in her gaze mirrored my own.

"Then let's move," she said, her voice firm.

Together, we ran through the shattered corridor, into the deep, pulsing dark. The walls seemed to close in around us, the air thick with the scent of ancient stone and lingering dread. Every step echoed with the urgency of our mission, the need to save our friends, driving us forward.

Toward the end of this cursed mountain.

"Hold on, Herold," I whispered into the dark, my words a promise. "We're coming."