“What?” Iris exclaimed, not believing what Arylos was saying. “You just returned to work and Garris already wants you to run off to handle something for him?”

Arylos sighed as he gathered his books from his library. “I told you, it won’t be long. Just some training exercises.”

“But why can’t I come with?” she asked with a pout.

“Because you’re not a Khymr,” Arylos replied. “The order is the living embodiment of the word ‘secrecy’. To be honest, even being aware of their existence would be enough for other Masters to be concerned about you; me being a higher rank notwithstanding. In fact, my species and position would make you all the more concerning.”

Iris’s pout deepened, the feeling of being excluded making her more disappointed than anything. “So it’s some big top secret training exercise, but do they really need you?”

“I’m the strongest so I’m a good challenge for the apprentices,” Arylos answered, closing a bag containing all of his books and hoisting it over his shoulder. “I promise I won’t be long. No longer than a week.”

Iris crossed her arms. “At least tell me where you will be.”

“I can’t tell you that,” Arylos answered while shaking his head.

“That much of a secret, is it?” Iris asked.

Arylos nodded his head as he made his way into the dining room to collect his sword. “I stocked up so you should have enough food to last until I get back. Worst case scenario, I left you some spare money in my desk if you need it.”

“I have my own money you know,” Iris responded sarcastically while crossing her arms. “I am an adult, you know; you don’t have to treat me like a child.”

“I know, but just in case,” Arylos responded as he turned to look at Iris one more time before turning to head off. “You can also help yourself to my other books if it helps pass the time.”

“Arylos,” Iris called out, stopping the Titan in his tracks. “You’re going to be careful, right?”

Arylos slowly turned, trying to form a response but unable to say for certain. “I’ll be back within a week,” he responded.

“That’s not what I asked,” Iris pushed forward, not accepting his half-truth.

Arylos swallowed the lump in his throat, trying to work up his voice. He didn’t know what to say, what to tell her. He wanted to tell her the truth but he couldn’t. “I will and I’ll come back, I promise,” he assured, knowing that he might as well have lied.

Iris watched as he turned away and went out the door, closing it softly behind it. With him gone, a deafening silence took over the house. Iris shouldn’t have felt this way, but she still felt the pain. The one person she had left is gone. Even with the promise of brevity, the loneliness still took a hold of her.

All she could do was sit on the sofa and think as the silence set in. She wondered if this was how Norra felt. When her husband left to confront Vorund about their daughter’s death. How Norra wanted to beg and scream, begging her husband to stay, knowing what would happen. Iris found herself wanting to scream, to run out the door and grab Arylos and drag him back.

It’s just a training exercise, that’s all, she told herself, trying to calm her heart. The worst that can happen is that he gets hit by some rookie the wrong way. He can handle that.

Iris took a deep breath and got up to take Arylos’s offer, heading over to his collection of books for something to read to take her mind off of things. However, each book she looked at was worn and the writing on them was strange and foreign to her. She did find a few that looked interesting, but the language was always beyond her.

She then remembered that Arylos struggles to read Kaiyumian.

Then why would he have offered?! She screamed internally. Of course, if he can’t read our language, why would he keep our books around?

Iris gave up for a moment before looking over to his desk and finding a few books that did have Kaiyumian writing on them along with a bunch of others with foreign symbols. She looked through the books, realising they were all fairy tales or short stories, some of which Iris read as a child. She realised Arylos was using them to learn how to read. Eventually, she found one that she didn’t recognise right away and picked it up.

“‘Saviour Without Sin’,” Iris read the title of the book aloud. She knew this one. It was an old story about two Kaiyumian brothers. She read it a few times years ago, but it was always a short story, a poem really, dating back to the Dragon Wars. It was only ever a page or two long.

But this was a full volume.

Iris felt excitement come to her. This could be the full version of the story that she could never get her hands on. She took the book and grabbed a bottle of her favourite sparkling juice on her way back to the sofa, flopping onto the cushions and laying on her stomach. This would be the perfect way to take her mind off of things.

She opened the aged book and leaned it against a pillow and her excitement grew as she saw familiar and easy to read Kaiyumian characters. Although, something confused her. She saw notes in the margins, outlining and annotating different sections of the story in strange markings consisting of lines, slashes, and circles. It looked oddly similar to the script she found in that Titanic tome Arylos took from her the other day.

Was Arylos taking notes? Iris wondered, unable to read the strange runes. She wondered that if Arylos was using this to study, maybe his notes were about the different characters and their meanings. Or was he analysing the story?

She shook Arylos out of her head and read through the familiar writing, retelling a story but with detail she had never seen before and with a prose that painted the images in her head like a delicate painting.

Arylos made his way to the palace steps and the guards opened the doors for him into the foyer where Sentarus awaited him. “So, how did it go?” Sentarus asked.

Arylos looked down, as if ashamed. “I had to lie to her, she thinks I’m helping Garris with some apprentice training.”

“You had to do what you had to,” Sentarus said calmly. “You have to remember that your goal is to keep her out of the way; to keep her safe.”

In the deep frozen north were two brothers. The elder brother, a strong and powerful warrior. The younger brother, a feeble and sickly scholar.

“I had a room prepared down here for you,” Sentarus offered with a gesture. Arylos nodded and followed the Kaiyumian king down a hallway along the north side of the palace, thinking about the possibilities, silently praying he was wrong.

The elder brother fought to protect his family and village, a valiant and brave fighter who selflessly gave his body to protect others. A shining beacon of hope, a hero who fought for love and life. The younger brother was too weak to hold a sword, yet he dreamed of being a true hero just like his brother.

Sentarus led Arylos into a small alcove and a door behind a painting, revealing a small room with a simple bed lit only by candlelight.

“It’s a bit cramped, but this was meant to be a safe room,” Sentarus explained.

Arylos shook his head. “I like the cramp; it feels cosy to me, especially with the house we have being so large.”

The younger brother, in his determination, found the strength he longed for. The ability to protect and defend, yet it came at an unthinkable price; consuming his soul until he was no longer human. The husk of the younger brother wandered the land as a lost monster of the north, killing and consuming those in his way until he no longer defended, but hunted.

Arylos entered the room and set his bag and his sword on the desk on one side of the room as Sentarus stood in the doorway.

“Bellona will have guards patrolling this wing throughout the day,” Sentarus explained. “I would suggest you don’t go anywhere without telling one of us first.”

“I’ll be fine, Sentarus,” Arylos replied. “I’m quite used to being locked up.”

Sentarus clicked his tongue. “You know I’m not trying to imprison you; I’m trying to keep you safe.”

“No,” Arylos responded. “Keep your priorities straight. You’re keeping me away from your people so they don’t get caught up in the fight.”

Sentarus thought for a moment, rolling his tongue in his cheek. “I can’t say you’re wrong,” he replied after consideration. Arylos smirked and sat on the bed in response.

The elder brother, with a hole in his heart, was forced to hunt down his younger brother, to put an end to him. Seeking out which is lost, he ran past the edges of the world in search of his brother, hoping to make him see the light again, praying that there was enough humanity left in him.

“I’ll find him,” Sentarus promised Arylos. “I’ll find him so that you can go back to her, I swear it.”

Arylos laughed under his breath. “I’m the one he’s looking for. If you wanted to find him, you should just throw me out in the street.”

“You know I can’t let that happen,” Sentarus responded.

“Then I hope your men are strong enough,” Arylos responded. “Now hurry up and lock me in here.”

And when he found his tormented brother, the elder brother cried for the gods to help him. Yet the gods were cold that day as he was forced to fight the monster his younger brother had become. Their fight tore the earth, razed forests, and sundered the sky. And in the end, no one won.

Sentarus sighed and made his way out, closing the door behind him. Arylos’s eyes shone a bright red and the locks on the outside of the room bolted into the stone frame, sealing him in.

The elder brother cradled the broken corpse of the younger in his arms, trying to piece together the parts of the man that could have been left. The elder prayed to the gods for forgiveness. Forgiveness for his blindness, for him cutting down his own innocent flesh and blood when. Yet the gods cursed this act of fratricide, and the elder brother was doomed to walk the world for an eternity, hunting down the same evil that festered in his heart as a sword of judgement.

Arylos laid back in the bed and with a gesture of his hand, the candles in the room went out, plunging him in a deep black. In that darkness, he found some semblance of peace.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, trying to choke back emotions he could no longer control. “It was not my fault. I didn’t want this. I didn’t want to do it.”

He knew full well the creature that was hunting him. He knew just what the creature wanted. However, he could never give the creature what he wanted. Arylos thought for a while about his sins, how he became trapped here, how he could never be at peace.

Arylos reached into his shirt and pulled out a cloth pouch tied around his neck and ran his fingers across the stitched letters on it. The Dreamcatcher charm he bought at the festival. He clutched it close, taking in any comfort that it could provide him. He felt hot tears stream down his face, unable to contain himself anymore.

What sickened him was that he couldn’t tell Iris why. If he told her, she would only fear him again and begin to hate him. She accepted the truth that he was the one who put an end to his own people, but he lacked the words to explain this; a truth she would struggle to accept.

The last of the Titans wept, unable to control himself anymore. He longed for freedom, for peace. And yet, each sin of his past would haunt him, unable to let him go until the end of time. Even with Iris, he knew it was only a matter of time before he lost her too. He could only hold onto his charm and remember her and the pain it gave him to see her cry. He knew what she would say and there was no way he could change it.

He is a monster.