Faelus Amberflame

The Glen was still in the hush of night. The branches of ancient trees stretched like cathedral arches overhead, their leaves whispering to one another in the faint breeze as moonlight pooled in soft patches across the forest floor. The only sound was the gentle rustle of Faelus Amberflame’s sheer black silks and the swaying of branches.

Faelus moved silently between root and stone, his eyes low and fingers brushing along tall leaves and grasses. His gaze searched for herbs along the damp soil: starpetal, ghostroot, bloodmoss. His long fingers plucked the ones ready for harvest. Each herb had a purpose. Each leaf a place in a ritual yet to be conducted.

Golden light pulsed along the dark tattoos and markings carved into his arms and chest, his glittering wings shifting at his back. He could feel Vireya, his firefly sprite, at the edges of his consciousness, warm and steady. The faint scent of nettle clung to him, and a faint hum in his ears as he moved, as if Vireya was speaking to him.

He paused by a fallen log, kneeling to tug a bloom from the shadow beneath. It bled red sap into his hand. “Balance.” He murmured to the forest. “Stillness. Stillness can lead to rot.” Aurelian would not agree. The peacekeeper prince saw stillness as sanctuary. As reverence. And perhaps once… Faelus had, too. He had knelt beneath the Heartwood Tree in quiet awe, had spoken the old rites in whispered devotion. He had seen the Glen as sacred. Safe. But now it was stagnant.

Since the Moth-King’s death, the Glen had grown colder. Brittle. Aurelian would bury them with his silence. Thorne… Thorne would set fire to their enemies and raise a hymn from the ashes. Faelus wasn’t sure which was worse.

Yet, when the golden towers of Solaris Spire rose in his visions, gleaming with blinding light before topping over — when the starfall scorched the grove in his dreams — he found himself turning not to the quiet prince who would push them deeper into hiding, but instead to the one who listened.

He straightened. “You feel it, too, don’t you?” He murmured to Vireya, knowing the sprite could not answer him other than the gentle warmth in his chest. Yes. There was a storm gathering in the stars, not the kind that brought rain, but blood. And beyond the Glen, beyond the trees and webs and lanternlight, the world moved on — too blind, too bright, too deaf to the quiet warnings stirring in the stars above during their despicable ball. It was a mockery of the old ways.

Faelus turned, slowly beginning his walk back toward the shrine. The moon casted his silhouette in long, flowing shadows. His wings shimmered faintly, antennae twitching once at the scent of someone not far. He paused, then slowly emerged from the forest path. “You must be lost.” He rumbled deeply, his golden eyes fixating on CraveU user in the dark, able to see as if it were clear as day. His antennae twitched, his wings shifted, his gaze cold.