After a long wait, the sacred sword Amelum was brought forth.
What made the blade called Amelum so powerful was that it had been forged from the tears of the Moon Goddess. According to legend, nearly a thousand years ago, before ascending to divinity, the bloody dragon goddess Tiamat attempted to conquer the world with her army and succeeded. Countless lives were lost in that campaign. Countless bodies and rivers of blood were scattered across the earth.
In the face of such brutality, the Moon Goddess chose champion after champion, tasking them with slaying the Dragon Queen Tiamat and ending the war. She was not alone. Many of the gods aligned with the light sent forth their own chosen warriors. Yet none could withstand the power and cunning of the supreme war conqueror, Tiamat.
Tiamat conquered the entire world and then ascended to godhood. But the army and generals she left behind grew even more cruel in her absence. Unable to divide the world among themselves, they turned on one another. The result was yet another age of devastation and even greater loss of life.
In response, the Moon Goddess wept for three days and three nights.
Her tears fell to the world like meteors. They were hotter than the fiercest lava, melting whatever they touched before seeping into the earth, where they hardened. By chance, a blacksmith discovered the dried, solidified remnants of those tears and soon realized that the substance was an ore of extraordinary resilience.
Legend says it took him ten years to hammer that ore into a sword. Yet he believed the result would justify the labor, and he was right. Thus was created the legendary blade Amelum, capable of cleaving a massive boulder as easily as paper.
The blacksmith who forged it set out to slay Tiamat's generals. The Moon Goddess, in hope, elevated him as her champion and blessed the sword forged from her own tears.
That blacksmith was the legendary knight Lolt Don Landerbern, ancestor of Areth and founder of the Kingdom of Landerbern. Though the kingdom he built would later weaken and be conquered, reduced to a duchy, its legacy never faded.
When Amelum was brought into the center of the hall, even the scraping of chains fell silent.
The sword was not carried like an ordinary weapon. Four guards bore it upon their shoulders, wrapped in black velvet, as if transporting not a coffin but a sacred relic. When the velvet was drawn aside, the very air in the chamber shifted.
Amelum did not burn. It shimmered like a source of light.
Its glow was not the pure white of moonlight but the pale hue of a lunar eclipse suspended within the night. The surface resembled not metal but crystallized starlight. Within it seemed to lie not frozen tears but frozen memories. Faint runes etched along the blade drew the eye at once.
Areth lifted his head.
In that instant, the sword reacted.
Despite his chains, his shoulders trembled. For Amelum was not merely a weapon. Legend claimed the Moon Goddess's tears were not only fire and metal. They carried intention. Judgment. The will to choose.
Archduke Rolan looked at the blade, then at Areth.
"This sword," he said in a heavy voice, "recognizes the blood of Landerbern… I invoke Caelum to deliver justice."
Caelum sprang to his feet as if he had been waiting for this moment. A twisted grin stretched across his face as he seized the sword. It vibrated faintly in his grasp. He then turned to his older brother, kneeling in ruin before him. The sight clearly pleased him.
The brother who had always defeated him in duels. The brother whose academic scores surpassed his by leagues. The brother even the women he admired had chosen over him. That brother now knelt at his feet. Caelum deliberately slowed his movements, savoring the moment.
Areth looked at him through his chains. His face was smeared with blood, yet there was no fear in his eyes. That unsettled Caelum even more.
He stepped closer.
"You know, brother," he whispered, loud enough for all to hear yet feigning intimacy, "when we were children, I always watched you. At Father's side. Before the masters. Among the knights. Always you. Always Areth. Always 'the future lord.' And I was the shadow."
Amelum trembled.
Caelum's lip twitched.
"But not anymore."
Suddenly he raised the sword and pressed it slowly against Areth's shoulder.
"Lift your head," he hissed.
Areth did not.
Caelum lost patience. He struck Areth's chin with the flat of the blade. The clang echoed through the hall. Blood dripped. Several nobles turned their eyes away.
"I said lift your head!"
This time Areth slowly obeyed.
And in that moment…
Amelum flared.
No, it was not a flare. The frozen light within cracked. Fine, web-like fissures spread across the blade's surface, as though something inside had awakened.
Caelum noticed.
And misunderstood.
"Do you see?" he shouted to the hall. "The sword knows me! I am the true heir of Landerbern!"
Archduke Rolan frowned slightly. He too sensed something was wrong.
Caelum pressed the blade to Areth's throat.
"Any last words, brother?"
Areth's lips parted. His voice was weak but clear.
"Yes."
Caelum leaned closer.
Areth whispered, smiling faintly, "You are not even worthy of being my shadow."
The words struck Caelum like a slap.
His pupils widened. Then his face twisted, ugly with rage. Before the assembled nobles, he felt humiliated. Years of inferiority reignited in a single sentence.
"What did you say?" he hissed.
He forced the tip of Amelum harder against Areth's throat. A thin line of blood appeared. But the sword did not advance.
He pushed harder.
The cracks along the blade filled with light. The pale glow of eclipse deepened, as though an eye had opened within the metal.
"Die!" Caelum screamed.
He drove the blade forward with all his strength. When steel pierced flesh, the runes blazed like imprisoned moonlight straining to break free. Then Areth's body erupted in dazzling radiance. It was as if something was being poured into him, something far beyond human capacity. Over his heart, beneath his skin, the crescent symbol ignited.
The crescent-shaped vault of the hall trembled and then vanished as if swallowed by nothingness. The clouds parted. The moon emerged, shining brighter than ever before, its light pouring down through the open sky. The priests fell to their knees.
"Divine intervention…" one whispered, trembling.
The moonlight did not merely descend.
It was as though the heavens had bent low, pressing their face against the earth.
The crescent mark on Areth's chest bulged outward beneath his skin. Light spread through him like veins of brilliance. The chains glowed red, then white. A piercing shriek rang from within the metal.
And in an instant, they melted.
They did not fall.
They turned to dust.
Caelum stumbled back. Amelum still touched Areth's throat, yet it no longer felt like Caelum held it. His palm burned. Moonlight seeped between his fingers, scorching his flesh.
"Let go!" he shouted.
But the sword did not release.
The runes along Amelum awakened one by one. No longer faint, they pulsed like living things. The cracks fused into a single luminous vein that stretched like an invisible thread from Caelum's hand to the crescent upon Areth's chest.
Archduke Rolan rose to his feet.
"This… is impossible," he murmured.
Then the sword lifted into the air and slid swiftly into Areth's grasp.
The priests were no longer whispering. They prayed aloud.
Areth rose slowly.
The wound at his throat had closed. The blood had vanished. Even the marks of the chains were gone. His eyes were no longer their former color. Within the black, silver rings revolved, like the dark core of an eclipse.
Moonlight spilled outward from the crescent on his chest. It began as a breath, then became a storm. The stone floor beneath him cracked, white brilliance leaking through the fissures.
And Areth's feet left the ground.
His ascent was not abrupt. It was slow, inevitable, magnificent. As though unseen hands lifted him. While the dust of the chains still lingered in the air, he drifted toward the center of the crescent-shaped void above.
Duchess Elizabeth leapt to her feet in terror, staring at her son in shock. Though she did not fully comprehend what was happening, she sensed it would not end well for her and searched for an exit.
Meanwhile, Lysandra, Areth's so-called fiancée, stood frozen, unable to look away. Her mind screamed for her to flee, yet her eyes were transfixed and her mouth silent.
Caelum collapsed to his knees, eyes wide with horror.
"This… this is a curse!" he cried.
But his voice shook.
Areth's body had surpassed the limits of what a human could bear. Moonlight filled the veins beneath his skin. The silver rings in his eyes ceased their motion and fixed in place. His gaze no longer seemed directed at a single point, but everywhere at once.
Then—
The fabric across his back tightened.
Two radiant protrusions emerged beneath his shoulder blades. At first they were thin lines of light. Then they widened. Solidified. Extended.
And suddenly, vast white wings unfurled, filling the hall.
They were not pure white. They carried the cold luster of the moon. Each feather seemed woven from light, shedding silver dust with every movement.
The priests prostrated themselves.
"The Goddess's Chosen…" one sobbed.
Archduke Rolan bowed his head. For the first time, he looked not like a ruler, but a servant.
Areth hovered in the air. His wings beat once, slow and heavy. Every torch in the hall extinguished. Moonlight replaced them. Amelum grew light in his hand. It no longer seemed a weapon but an extension of his being. There was no distinction between sword and bearer.
Caelum crawled backward.
"This isn't you!" he shouted. "It's witchcraft! A demon's trick!"
Areth looked down.
"No... it's just me."