My eyes readjust to the darkness of the midnight sky flooding in, slowly searching for light. They settle on the reeds that adorn the winding, grassy course towards the hum of a town, drooping at their tips from the weight of flowering glow-bulbs as if bowing in welcome to any newcomers. The stalks shed light particles of pollen, which float away languidly in the breeze and snuff out upon their sticky descent on the tar covered trees far off in the periphery.

  Up ahead, a tall, spindly figure dips a large wooden ladle into a deep ceramic jar and then sprinkles the water droplets over the bulbs of light. He hears Duchess parting the grass in search of a treat and turns around, his face cast in the shadow of his straw hat. As we approach, he raises his long, slender fingers in brief greeting.

  “Welcome, guest.” The gardener looks up at me, revealing tired, kind eyes under the brim of his conical hat. He strokes Duchess’ neck firmly but gently and notes, “Thy steed breathes heavy.” He lowers his voice in a sing-song tone, directing his next remark at my horse. “I know you’re hungry.” With a snip and a snap, he presents her with a nice, tasty batch of long grass. I chuckle as she proceeds to snort it up hastily, munching away.

  “Care for a beacon of light?” Without waiting for reply, the botanist grips the plants just beneath their heads, straightening them before clipping above their roots with a pair of shears and tying them tightly together. He offers the bouquet of light to me, which I gladly accept.

  “I suggest not to stray too far off the beaten path; the tar is thick this season,” he advises.

  “Would it be frowned upon to enter the tar?” I question, knowing full well of my intention to do so tomorrow.

  “It is at ye own peril. For what reason?”

  “To mourn an old friend.”

  “A grave past the tar? You must keep interesting company,” he wonders, murmuring to himself before returning to tend to the foliage.

  I thank him, making my way down the path until the gardener is far out of sight. I cannot heed his advice for I have come in search of the grave of Solas. The thought of the name alone ignites the explosive magic within me, creating a heat that prickles my veins and burns my insides. This volatile nature of mine is what started this mess and will bring me to my finish.

  I was born into a long lineage of Cyclonites, destined to be king of an almost extinct kingdom. We were gifted with magical currents coursing through us, an eternal source forever kindling and on the verge of detonation. And so, we were miners by trade, able to blast the earth and scavenge for rare materials as our sole means of survival. These resources, unlike our magic, proved limited and exhausted with our depleting numbers. When I became king, I avowed our perseverance, barely conquering the nearby lands to obtain the raw materials that laid beneath. We then flourished as a traveling band, growing in numbers and strength. Our reputation preceded us wherever we went, leaving whispers of fear behind. I grew arrogant and prideful, demanding excess in my aggression and gluttony until we met our match.

  They too, in the same persistence we had once channeled, refused to back down. In desperation to maintain our glory, I sought to bargain with a merchant of multiple faces, notorious for equivalent exchange of ambition and sacrifice. Oh, I was a naive soul, making a deal with the devil.

  “Do you have what it takes?” Solas had asked me; a warning I did not regard. I nodded eagerly, foolishly unaware of how pathetic it considered me and the weight of that judgement on the cost it would command. I rode into battle, confident and assured, knowing — nay, thinking — the power of the trade was on my side. My opponent dealt a fatal blow, or so he thought, but my immortality curried favor with fate over his. When I returned home, bloodstained and victorious, of course, the sight before me ejected a guttural, agonizing scream of pain from the depths of my being. My wife, with child, was sprawled face-first on the hard granite, her distended belly acting as a pregnant fulcrum to the hellish seesaw of her cold body. Each drop of the blood pooling beneath the bottom of her dress was an additional knife to my Wound Man body.

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  “King Cecil…” My butler, Keelan, tried to console me, but trailed off, for no words could assuage my immeasurable pain. I scooped my hand behind her icy neck, burrowing my face into the nape of her neck, her perfume now replaced with rotting stench. This world is nothing without her.

  “Who did this?”

  “We don’t know, sir.” Keelan shuddered at the mystery, fearing the spirits had been angry. “Queen Zinnia was lively one minute and suddenly fell dead the next.”

  In that moment, I didn’t care about finding out the truth, revenge, or solace. I only felt an apathetic hollowness. Without a second thought, I clapped my hands, sparking a tremendous heat from the friction and embossing the ruins symbols deep in my palms. My appendages blew from their roots into oblivion; my head rolled far from my body, legs were thrown about separately around the court interior, and my arms propelled outwards, slamming into the walls.

  To my dismay, this wasn’t my end; instead, my pieces, attracted to their core, crawled back as if by magnetic pull. The trajectory of the return of my head fed my eyes the passing view of my butler who had met his demise in my place.

  It was no coincidence. Before I was healed, the truth of my trade dawned heavily on my conscience as I witnessed Keelan split into a million pieces, trying to puzzle himself back together where the countless cubes of meat had sloughed off onto the floor.

  The scene was comically grim. I couldn’t help but lose myself to the madness, laughing as the beheaded man I was. My hysterics were dead silent, since there were no lungs to give my voice impact, leaving behind a frozen and terrorized smile.

  That was the first time I bore witness to the curse that has haunted me since. I am bounded to my kingdom, soul-linked to its people. It is a heavy sacrifice, suitable for the lofty ambitions that once consumed me. In the throes of my grief, I subjugated any and all enemies, rashly growing my empire in power and wealth to fill the voracious emptiness I felt inside. Yet, simultaneously, my kingdom diminished in size, suffering from the burden of my sins.

  I shake my head of the vestiges, unable to relive the memories any longer. A ball of rot crawls up my gut, tickling the back of my throat. I let it linger there, feeling the heat of hate. It pleases me to hold it there and balance it as its stinging warmth bathes my tongue.

  I involuntarily gag, too late in grasping my mouth shut, and it slips. In front of me, I see the orb of smoldering rage that escaped. The taste of the charcoal in the air intoxicates me as the red glow of the fireball taints my perception. I stare at it hypnotized, entranced by its powerful flame that singes my beard as it steadily floats away towards Tarwood Forest. It only takes one spark to burn the entire forest… Forget the forest, I could set the whole realm ablaze and surely destroy the whole World Cemetery in the blink of an eye. No, I must not let my recklessness repeat itself again.

  Suddenly, there is a sharp pressure of indentation on my neck, pushing deeper, threatening to slice into me. I frantically pat the spiral on my forehead. The curse laid on me not even an hour past had slipped my mind in the midst of my rumination. Taking swift action, I snap forward, cracking the reigns as Duchess sprints in a mad gallop towards the forest tree line. The orb, in its slow but determined track, gets brighter and bigger as I close the distance between us. Ahead, a hanging pine dangles dangerously low, just reaching the trajectory of the explosive ball.

  I hurry, panic-stricken, thinking, have I ruined everything? My fingers skim my neck, feeling for the slickness of any trickling blood from the ghostly wound, a fearful expectation not dissimilar to the way a mutt anticipates the wild pull of its leash from a cruel owner. Just as the glowing sphere incinerates the tip of the drooping pine, I swallow the fiery orb, pine needles and all, back into the pit of my stomach, the bristles poking me inside on the way down. I grimace at the bitter, burnt taste as we continue onwards with no plans to slow down, no sense of direction, nor care of surrounding, until we are deep in the forest somewhere. The speed of our travel circulates the crisp air between the hairs in my beard, bringing a refreshing rush of wind towards my face and cooling the flames in my belly and my heart.

  It isn’t long until Duchess’s mad dash has slowed to a snail’s pace and I feel her muscles strain under my weight. Although I am protected by my cloak from tar seeping down the pine, bubbling at it’s needle tip, I cannot say the same for Duchess. Her once sleek golden coat is matted in a blanket of sticky black substance, trailing behind her and dragging onto the ground, weighing her down as a make-shift ball-and-chain.

  We were only a few paces deep into the forest before skidding to a stop, but it felt like an eternity inching back out of the brush and onto the trail. I look down at the poor creature, feeling foolish at my tantrum and overwrought with regret.

  I guess people don’t change.

  I claw away at the muck, using my bare hands to comb away the tar stuck to her coat. It burns at my fingertips as it disintegrates into tiny fireworks. “I’m sorry.” I whisper to her, hoping for underserved forgiveness. But the words wash away easily in the breeze passing through, lightweight in its worth and impact. Having wasted our energy and spirit, we head towards the village of Death’s Door to face the locals, who will surely laugh and mock the fool who muddied himself and his steed in the tar.