Ozialon was nothing but ruins. Dark, dusted, crumbling ruins.

Xix Acheron brushed a hand over a small stone pillar, at the memory of what once rested on it. This place had once thrived greatly; one of the most powerful worlds in the system. Now, thanks to the ongoing war between Lyriumia and Terpola, the place had become uninhabitable.

Xix was one of those captured by Terpola’s forces on the day they decided this world was too powerful. She had not forgotten that day, the day where her life and the lives of everyone she knew changed forever. She could only pray her people had not forgotten her sacrifice. Her promise. She knew those who escaped were still very much alive somewhere in the multiverse.

Xix eyed the Terpolite guards who watched her closely.

She would play along with Tara’s plan for now. At the very least, until she got a chance to run. Oh, she would run and run and run. She would not stop running until she found a place that had never heard of the Forgotten War. Surely, such a place existed out there.

She had lost so much in that battle.

Her family – those who took her in after her parents abandoned her – was brutally slaughtered as they fought to defend her. She was the last surviving heir to her people. Oh, what power she had back then! Before the cuffs and the chains that made her as weak as regular mortals, though she was nothing like them in terms of power. She still had that kernel of her power building up as it had been for the last two thousand years.

Yes, she had been counting the whole time she was trapped in the darkness.

Tara thought it would break her. She did not realise that the darkness spoke to her. Soothed her in ways only a chosen few of her people had known. It was the gift of the ancestors. So many of her people were trapped in the mines and orisons of Terpola. Some had broken under the strain. It was almost impossible not to do so.

Xix begged her people to hold on when they passed each other in the dimly lit hallways. She would remind them of how the darkness was their friend, not their warden. Darkness was all that would remain when the War was over, and they had no reason to fear it. She sent a silent prayer to the Goddess of the Stars – her people’s patron – every day. She hoped the Goddess was watching over them all in her own way and would help them in their escape.

Yes, they would escape.

Maybe not today, but it would come.

She would break the chains that kept her power at bay. When she did, all the light in existence would not be able to stop what she would unleash. Even those who controlled the darkness would not be able to control her any longer.

She would join her cohorts far away from this War. They would live in peace, not the way her biological parents wanted before they sent her away. Oh, how she resented those people.

She was their secret; the one member of the family line no one could know about. It would cause all sorts of chaos that could cause tidal waves throughout the multiverse. Even her half-sister did not know of her existence, though there was no doubt the both of them could sense each other’s power.

Xix was a child of the night; daughter of the Dark King; Heir of Darkness.

It was just a matter of time now.