𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐄 | ❝ No matter what lies you tell, you can't fool your own heart. ❞
After losing the best and only true friend he's ever had, young prince Eryk Warmane is set on a dark and spiraling path of revenge that leads him halfway across t...
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"ERYK... E-ERYK, PLEASE don't kill them all." Merlin's breaths come in short, labored gasps. He coughs and there's suddenly bright scarlet blood spilling down his front, he reaches up to trace the hard lines of Eryk's grief-stricken face. They both ignored the blood and simply stare into each other's eyes. The mage's fingertips are soft yet sorrowful and their curious path along the young prince's skin fill him with undeniable wrath. Why should he be the one to die? Why now? Why like this?
Merlin stumbles through the rest of his words, both of them knowing his time is near.
"Th-they just don't understand what they're doing, they're scared. You know what it's like! ... to lash out when y-you are filled with nothing but fear and pain. Eryk. Eryk, ar-are you listening to me?"
"You bloody fool, of course I'm listening to you!" Eryk cries out, fresh tears streaming down the sides of his face. They fall onto Merlin's neck but the mage, who had been faithfully by his side for nearly ten years now and had never witnessed the prince cry even once, just smiles one of his little smiles that fills him with a sense of comfort. He hates it! Merlin is dying, why is he smiling?
"Don't cry, Eryk."
"Why?!" Eryk demands with a shout, fully sobbing now. He doesn't hold back the flood of tears and the pain that courses through his body, making him achingly aware of how his heart twists because he knows what's coming next. He stares hard into Merlin's eyes, so demanding of answers. "It's-It's not fair! Just because that bastard doesn't trust magic doesn't give him and his people the right to hurt you. So why shouldn't I kill him? Why shouldn't I make him suffer? To feel as I now feel?"
Merlin laughs, but is cut off by a cough that overtakes his body. More blood. Less time. "It's... what he wants, my dear prince." Merlin's rapidly cooling fingertips stray up to Eryk's hair. "He craves death. And you, y-you are destined for greatness. Why else was I assigned to be your protector?"
Eryk shakes his head. "That doesn't matter. If he wants to die, I will gladly take his life in your name."
"Please stay... on the right path, Eryk... y-you are destined to be the Once and Future King." Merlin sighs as the warmness of his breath leaves his body, fanning onto Eryk's face for one last time before his chest falls, and it does not rise again. The insurmountable passion that always drove Merlin forward, which was the flint-and-steel that lit the hot blue flame behind his eyes, dies slowly and Eryk watches as the life leaves his companion's eyes.
And that fire dampens, never to be relit again.
And then Merlin's eyes are no longer welcoming, no longer compassionate. They are dead and cold and lifeless eyes that will haunt this prince for years to come. He will see them in every waking moment, in every pair of brilliant blue eyes, in every nightmare that sends him kicking and screaming awake into the late inky-blackness of the void that slowly becomes his waking reality for he cannot rest until Merlin is avenged.
Destined for greatness or not, Eryk solemnly makes a promise to himself to live up to his namesake and fulfill the longstanding call for violence singing in his blood. He made this promise for his protector who died performing his duties. For his best friend, for Merlin. The path ahead would lead Eryk through lands where never light has shone and he would relish in this dark night that descends upon him. He knew what the next steps were and he knew them well.
After all, the Warmanes were not known for their peaceful reign.
