The beckoning of sleep grew stronger with each passing second, as Terrianis peered at the city reflected upon the unfluctuating surface of the pond. Slowly the grays and goldens of the day dimmed, an oppressive Shadow descended, lengthened over the city, and the stars languished into the growing nothingness of the blackening firmament. The Elhyrissiar chuckled, three voices echoed as they watched myriad shades lit the streets as the crowds of bewitched folk clashed against the legions. It seemed even the primordial intelligences chose their side, as elementals of the stone and flames furthered the cause of chaos, whilst the remnants of the Beautiful crawled forth the shadows, believing the hour of chaos heralded the return of their fallen mistress.

  And their chuckle continued, reinforced by their fears and hopes. On the onset of night, he could not imagine defeat. Legionaries of Talos and the First moved in perfect unison, proved their greater mettle over the bewitched folk, all the cultists and sapient elements together, after overcoming a momentary astonishment. Imperturbable by the spell of theirs, and their erudite sorcerers and wizards, they pushed back the flooding crowds in formations round and square wedged by alabaster structures set aflame.

  Spears skewered the foolish plebeian dragged to their demise by the leash of Night and its Shadow. Their shrieks told of the fleeting yoke, a last realization before the black veil draped over their glassy eyes, whilst the rest leapt on fearless into the wall and roof of shields. A few slipped under, only to be sliced open at the feet of the pushing legionaries, one or two succeeded in lessening the numbers of his prided warriors in gold and of metal. Though in time they realized their folly, their mad tactic, and shifted their hastily made plans. They used the impaled cadavers of their comrades to break down the shafts, then crawl and gnash at the panoplied legionaries like vicious undead.

  In tandem with the darkness, their power grew and his fear of defeat manifested, strengthened as Terrianis felt a chilling draught breeze through his voluminous robe of red and purple, laced golden at the edges, into ornamental shapes of slithering dragons, brimming suns of faded old realms.

  Their strength increased, they tore metal like paper whilst taken over by their rage and anger, the two somewhat a balancing force when it came to the legionaries who could merely count on themselves. “Once more, Twilight heralds the times of troubles.” Terrianis murmured, recalling how hordes of undead crawled forth the sewers of old Raetinios, starting the War of the Siblings. He believed and vowed silently this shall be the last war waged in existence.

  “What is that?” The question involuntarily left Terrianis’s lip. Peering at the streets littered with corpses, he noticed a faint glow in each of them, each a different shade. Glowing marks of amber and peach, ruby and cherry, citrine and the bright, zesty yellow of lemons, azure and the soft shade of periwinkle, deep violet and light delicate lavender varying across the corpses amongst many other shades belonging, favored by the Deossos and the other intelligences above mortals. A queer wind they generated, reaching up as if warning of something portentous, sinister yet the meaning lost along the way to Terrianis.

  Nonetheless, Terrianis arose from his throne with certain haste, realizing how foolish a choice he made believing in his pride, that he was the main course, whilst in truth he knew, believed himself to be the dessert. The crowning piece to a feast which ingredients he had a notion of, yet knew not in what way and manner they shall fill the belly of Night and its surreptitious Shadow. Upon closure of his eyes, he groaned and wheezed as a thousand needles thrusted into his mind, their cold tips knotting tightly his thoughts, producing an ache he experienced never before. Collapsed onto his knees, he looked with surprise as Aurelithae appeared on the right of his.

  “Father, do you feel well?” She asked, yet he noticed no care in her cadence. Nor how she entered the closed throne room alone. They felt no lingering materia still sheathed in her own mana, and the one leashed by her will.

  She wore layers of the finest raiment and accessories. Rings of opulent silver, brightened by the hues of dew and snow, embedded with gemstones of night and dawn on each of her slender, petite fingers. Tailored surcoat, breeches and boots enveloped her slender, honed form, their black leathery forms contrasted her unblemished skin white as snow. Both made from the processed, shed hide of a pure dragon of Dusk, imbued with myriad spells of protection, augmenting her strength and senses, expanding her great arkhaine limits. Betwixt its own collar, two arcs of silk wedged about her neck, as red, as supple as her hair, and stood indomitable just like her, expecting an answer. All fit for a warrior princess, on the cusp of ascension.

  Her steps silent, whilst her garments sung strange lullabies as she approached, and as Terrianis met her morose gaze, questioned once more whether she was his. “We are well, my dear daughter.” He answered weakly, forcing his body to stand whilst he contended with the agonizing headache. “Our inheritor.” The last he whispered.

  “Tell me father, tell me the truth and nothing else.” Once Aurelithae stopped in his shadow, her cold palms soothed his pain. Though no longer Terrianis loomed over her, she grew to be as tall as Albrion. As tall as Augermil almost.

  Came a distant whisper, of a lugubrious cadence. “What sin has mother committed, earning her the execution’s blade?” A question came as cold shower on a hot summer’s day, a question insincere, part of a play his feelings blinded him to.

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  “Who speak of such lies? She perished by the blade of an assassin.” Terrianis lied as before. Lied chiefly to himself.

  “Answer me!” Her yell felt ethereal, a deep, majestic voice mingling in with her mellowing, bitterly cadence.

  “I wished not to rid the world of her, rid you and your siblings from the warmth of a truly loving mother, one whose strength and wisdom could have grown to be equal of mine.” He answered, his heart picking up on its pace. “I wished not to do it, meant not for the spell to kill her. But we had to. Our dream prevailed over my love. And her dark ambition, her worship of the primordial Night gave us no choice, but to rid the world of her existence, her taint.” Staring into her eyes, feeling her cold palms, Terrianis felt doleful nostalgy well up and poison his mind as he shifted into the past, where Oyotarimel approached her, still haggard from the conflict within her womb, and the birth of their daughter, the next Elhyrissiar he wished at the time would have come from another of his mates. Alas, chaos and fate chuckled together at him.

  Right where they now stood, Oyotarimel embraced him, her arms and touch as cold as Aurelithae’s, her whispers Terrianis could no longer recall. Only the sharp pain in his sides, the marring teeth of Night eating into his skin and flesh, silencing the other two after centuries of controlling cacophony. Still, on the precipice of death, a simple flick he intended to freeze her body, forced her soul out from her vessel, and into a small pearl she held in her box brought from the distant homelands of hers. Its discovery by Angura, two decades later brought relief, lightened his mood bittered by the experience of betrayal.

  Presently, a familiar pain manifested in his back, Terrianis bellowed and pushed Aurelithae away whose dagger remained in his back. Black, inky tendrils whirred around the straight blade, beset with the runes of night, digging into not just his torn flesh and the segmented, robust spine of dragons, scraped by its sharp tip whilst his blood shimmering in all shades, tarnished his own lavish garments fit for the leisure hours of a king, an emperor, the Elhyrissiar. This time, Terrianis made no hasty move, decision instead waited until he pulled the dagger, the tendrils which dug firmly into his soul and flesh with a cry, erecting only a few wards before himself, sensing incoming doom in black, spherical vortexes.

  “We see now. Shadow binds you, fear not my beloved daughter, I shall save you myself.” His breathing turned rapid, as he could tear out the dagger, but not the darkness whirring around it. “Fear not, once you shall be us, Eternity shall be your remuneration for the necessary sin that shall taint our hands.”

  “Was that what you thought when rid mother of her life? With all this power and the wisdom of centuries, you are still blinded by your false instincts.” Aurelithae growled, there was no love in her eyes anymore. Yet Terrianis shrouded his own gaze with sweet lies, believing the seed of darkness glowing dimly in her bust was what tainted her words, her beliefs. “I shall rid the world of you, and bring relief to your tortured soul. Father.” Another lie issued from her lips, drowned by the rage of prima materia tearing at the frescoed walls and the ceiling.

  “Wait for me, my little orchid.” He whispered, but Terrianis felt them encroaching. Bitter words hurled between his father and grandfather, whilst Aurelithae flew against the wall, crashed near the edge of the long, narrow platform.

  Three distinct voices bellowed from his lips, whilst down on his knees, Terrianis clutched his head. Each of his strands moved over, gained hues of brown and white, his ears retracted into his temples, the flesh shifted and contorted into gibbous growths. Unseen hands sculpted features upon both, sharp noses, tapering jawlines, lush, well-kempt beards and a moustache on the left. Meanwhile, ripples formed upon his sumptuous robe, the flesh and bone expanded beneath until they torn the lustrous fabric into shreds, beneath his waist, his tapering hip both legs retracted within his transforming body.

  Aurelithae drawn her gifted blade, charged towards him just as she recognized the faces fully manifested upon the head of Terrianis. On the left Primuinis austere visage of a sculpted hero stared at her with contempt, whilst on the right Anessarion’s dignified countenance glared into her soul. All six eyes lit up together, and just as she reached into a preferable distance of decapitation, the space of the room wildly expanded and she lost her balance, tumbled onto her stomach.

  From Terrianis’s splaying shoulder, two more arms grown forth on each side, the draconic talons glowed ethereally, streaks of manifold hues and shades meandered up into the air. Similarly, to his head now occupied by two more visages, his torso expanded in breadth and height, the bones and muscles grew more pronounced, whilst the scale growths across the bodies collapsed into his flesh, forming deep chasms emanating a polychromatic mélange matching their searing eyes.

  Above each head, branching horns akin to the noble antlers of stags, of pureblooded Dawn Dragons penetrated through their skin, forming into a crown worthy to sit upon the head of a higher being. A shattered ouroboros bathed the horns in multicolored light, starting from one side of their shoulder, ending in the other. Made from the same otherworldly matter as the one keeping their abominable form hovering in the air, an eddying mass of appendages constituted from all primordial materia.

  They stretched their long, noble neck high, their long mane flown straight in the center, not a single tress flown before the two faces on the sides. “You could have had Eternity, but you chose the Night over the light of our own!” Anessarion’s deep, gravelly voice echoed across the space.

  “We shall make another.” Primuinis’s followed as they pointed at her. The air grew heavy, Aurelithae panted, her sight hazy from the sudden expenditure of the throne room’s space, and felt glad for her choice made as she gazed upon the abhorrent true form of the Elhyrissiar. She rose back onto her feet, clutched the finely crafted handle of Teneaorel and she drew a deep breath in preparation.

  “There won’t be another. A New Dawn stirs over the world, and the morning shall bring an age without an Elhyrissiar. You all shall be strokes upon the decaying annals of a dead empire.”Aurelithae spoke words, laced in the truth of her heart as she stepped forward, Teneaorel by her side.