The Herald growls as the swarm of Fiends outside the chapel start to moan in harmony. Pressing me against a wall, his hand on my throat, the old man opens his mouth wide and roars in my face.

"Grandpa!"

Then, at the sound of the frightened girl, the old man slowly looks to the ceiling. 

“Ameline. There you are, child!”

Suddenly, the Herald melts into a dark pool, and it creeps up the wall before fading through the ceiling. More gnashing growls come from the Fiends outside as the doors swung open, and they start pouring into the chapel. Spotting a fallen support beam, I use it as my path up to the roof. I have to tear away pieces of lumber in the ceiling to make enough room to crawl through, just in time to see Ameline being chased by the crazed Herald.

“Now now. Come to me, my sweet. Be one with the dark!”

Little does he know, this Shadowheart has met his match. With a fierce swipe of my dominant hand, my Auryn is released as a burning blue sword. I’ve held this sword many times. It has always been my closest companion. I step in front of Ameline just in time to block the old man. He lunges at me, but I’m quick to stab him in the gut. He coughs, and I feel his blood splatter on my shoulder. Ameline uttered a loud sob just as the old man dropped lifeless to her feet. 

"Grandpa!" she cries. "You… you killed him!"

But she scurries away when a shadow starts to grow under the corpse. Soon, dozens of smaller dark puddles started to leak out from the chapel, coming together and morphing into a larger mass of shadow. Long claws on each of its hands signify a beast far greater than an average Fiend. It has to crawl like a bear to support its weight. Small horn-like formations poke out from its head and arms. 

I can feel my heart beating faster as I frantically slash at the monster. Every cut makes the Fiend roar even louder as it charges around, trying to strike me with one of its large claws. Finally, I raise my left hand and prepared myself for a new maneuver. The Fiend stands on its hind legs, its claws ready to impale me. I close my eyes, hold my breath and swat at the air, feeling the cold dark pound against my knuckles.

PONDERO!

The Fiend roars pathetically, its guard broken long enough to pierce my sword deep within its face. The beast growls and thrashes about, then its skin begins to crack before it bursts. From inside the Fiend, a small orb of light dances about, freed from its dark prison. The orb quickly darts into my chest, winding me for a moment. But my Auryn feels stronger.

'A dying ember tinders a greater flame.' That’s an old mantra I heard from my own Herald.

Little Ameline gives off a few sniffles before she bows her head in mourning. Her hair is long enough to reach her back, with a tight braid across her crown. She’s wearing a light green dress, and her eyes are golden, almost like two suns.

“Did you get hurt?” I ask.

All she could do was shake her head.

“Good. Now, let’s get off this roof,” I tell her gently.

Ameline holds onto me tightly as I climb down the chapel wall. The moment we reach the ground, she slides off my back and gazes around at her empty village. Before long, Ameline sprints away, her soft weeping gradually becoming a heartbroken sob. 

I can’t just leave her like this. So I follow her into a small hovel and notice how everything is packed together with barely any room to walk. The dining table has only two small stools with a framed drawing of two figures resting on top of it- her and that Herald. A wooden rocking chair stands in the corner, with a pipe on top of another small table and a pile of sloppily organized books stacked near it.

I find Ameline in the next room, curled in bed and digging her face into the pillow. A much smaller bed is next to her.

“I’m sorry about your grandfather. I’m sure he was a great man.”

“Why did he turn into that thing?”

“Well, that’s what happens when people die. They turn into Fiends. That’s why it’s important to use the fire in the Well, so people can protect themselves.”

“But it was gone!” she yells. “It’s been gone for ages! Where did the fire go?”

“I don’t know. But that’s what I’m here for, to make everything better so people don’t get killed.”

“You’re not doing a good job.”

 “I know. And I’m sure there’s plenty of other places just like this that they’ve taken over, since I’ve been dead.”

“You were dead?” she murmurs. “How long were you dead?”

“I don’t know. Much too long,” I say, kneeling down to her. She retreats into her blanket. “Listen to me. I can’t leave you here by yourself, and I can’t stay here. So you’re going to have to come with me.” 

“But… if you’re gonna be fighting the Fiends, who will take care of me?”

“I will, of course. I’ll take care of you, and I’ll protect you. I promise.”

She doesn’t answer me. Her eyes just keep twitching before she turns her back to me, still lost in her silent mourn. So I leave her alone to mourn her loss. But whether it be the denial in her face or her failure to find a reason to stay, I pray for the morning to come quickly.

I’ll have to sleep in the rocking chair. It lets out a tiny squeak as soon as I sit down.

“THAT’S GRANDPA’S CHAIR! DON’T SIT IN IT!”

Well, then. The floor looks comfortable enough.

I could barely sleep. I could hear Ameline weeping into her pillow all night, just muttering the word ‘Grandpa’ like it was the only word she knew. When she woke me up, she had a weary look in her eyes. She was carrying a wicker basket, filled with all the food left in the pantry- three carrots, two bread rolls, and a stale sweetcake. She put on a dark yellow cloak with a matching hood sewn on the back, though the hood did not look large enough to cover her long hair. 

When we departed, Ameline never looked back at her home. She never said a word, just following me at my side and looking at her feet.

After a few hours of walking, we stopped on a lone hilltop to have some breakfast. Ameline tries biting into the cake, but it makes a loud crunch. She spends quite some time trying to spit the taste out of her mouth. 

“We should be getting close to another village. Then we’ll stock up on some better food,” I tell her. “Maybe some fresher cakes. Would you like that?”

She still remains silent, and instead she goes back to picking up her doll and swinging it around gently. So I abide my time by looking at the sky, counting the clouds that roll by and watching the gulls fly south. The sun looks beautiful this morning.

“How did you come back?” The sound of Ameline’s voice almost made him jump. “You said you died.”

“Oh, everyone in my family can come back after they die. See this? That means I’m a Netherbane,”  I say while pointing at my emblem. “There’s a story that a very long time ago, someone in my family received a blessing from the moon. We call her the Great Mother. She gave my ancestors the holy flame, that blue fire you saw me use. And when a Netherbane dies, they turn into stars and wait until they can come back. So when another dies, another comes back.”

“So… only you can come back to life. Nobody else,” Ameline says with a frown. “That’s not fair.” 

“What do you mean?”

“How come it’s just you? Why does my Grandpa have to stay dead but you can come back?”

But I can’t find the answer. She has actually made me question that fact myself. She must have noticed the expression on his face, because she loses her scowl.

“If it makes you feel better, now that I think about it, I think it’s unfair too. People like me can come back staying the way we were while everyone else has to turn into Fiends. But I can’t change that, and neither can you,” Triton says. “But there is some good in it, I believe. Have you ever seen a falling star at night? That’s one of my relatives, coming back to the planet. Some people used to say those who saw those falling stars would be granted a wish.”

“I saw a falling star last night,” Ameline says. “I made a wish on it.”

“Oh? Well, what’d you wish for?”

“Well… I wished that I could find my parents.”

“Your parents? What happened to them?”

For the first time, Ameline looks at me without sadness or anger. She instead had a face that was joyless but without worry. 

Over the next hour, she tries to tell me all she could about her young life. She cannot remember the last time she saw her parents, but she does remember their faces and their voices. But everything else remains a mystery, until one day when she found herself in her village’s orphanage. She has only painful memories of that orphanage and the wicked old woman named Miss Penngrove who treated her so horridly. But then, an old Herald came to adopt her, with no motivation at all. He took her home with him, and from that day forth, Ameline called the old man her Grandpa, and from him, she learned how to read and write. 

He was the only family she can remember. Now I understand her sadness even more. But I don’t know if I should tell her that one day she will find her parents. They could be alive still, but they might not be how she remembers them. Even then, a child her age should have no business being near Shadowhearts.

But I know there’s more to come. And I know she will be encountering them herself, eventually. So it puts a bad taste in my mouth.