Harry was the first to rise from his deep slumber… Still troubled from the event of last night… Could he really trust this woman in battle now? She wasn’t predictable anymore… He couldn’t just understand her ways and act accordingly now… Improvisation was all there was… But a cog couldn’t just improvise; that isn’t how you make a machine work. He had to follow a singular path… That was the least confusing thing he could do… The most rational…

He let out a small sigh as he descended the stairs… Fully in his light armor once again… He stood outside the house ready to depart to the volcano as soon as Elaria was ready… The trip shouldn’t be that hard… After all, the volcano was inactive for millennia, and there were no signs of it becoming active anytime soon.

Elaria stepped out of the doorframe illuminated by the warm sun in the sky, casting a dark shadow against the wall next to her… Her radiant and cold beauty ruined by her previous actions… She silently glanced toward him before looking at the giant shadowing volcano before him… She was slightly ashamed of her previous actions… It was wrong and she knew it… But she had her reasons… She felt justified in them but despite all her justifications… She couldn’t look at him the same anymore.

Harry let out a small sigh once more as he did a small nod of his head toward the volcano. A silent request to keep moving forward on their “mission.” Which Elaria did not object to. She would had loved to stay at her childhood village longer… But duty called. Her duty to get rid of this gem… Or was it her fate due to what she had seen in that previous vision… Should she… Just let the gem take her over. She wasn’t fated to do such a drastic thing… So what if she did let it take her over… What would happen then? But what if she was fated to do that too and she just didn’t have the time to read that in the book?… What if—no. She couldn’t let it run all over her mind… She should do what was right for her dominion… That is what she cherished the most… The gem would only bring destruction… That is all it can cause. She had to destroy it…

They both startled their horses once more as they began to ascend the volcano’s path. It was quite a safe path, to be exact. The last death recorded on this path was about 300 years before the foundation of the town. The town had been founded about 200 years ago. The path was flat…hardened from the last volcanic eruption that had happened right before the creation of the town… Why would anyone build a town right next to a volcano that had just erupted a few years before? Them, it appears. Weird humans and their stupid logistics…

Harry stood the side as Elaria got down from her horse… Standing right next to the mouth of the inactive volcano… The magma silently moving like a school dance… Vibrant and dangerous… Wrong and yet so right… The warmth emanating from it just felt like a nice summer day… The gem roared in silence in her pocket… Just waiting for its turn to shine…

With a shaking hand, she grasped onto it… Releasing it from its small prison… Bringing it up to her eyes. Harry could see it as clear as day once more… The gem wavered against the light and its gravity… It was beautifully dangerous. She silently extended her arm… holding the gem right above the bright source of magma down below… Had she had to do now was let go and everything would solve itself… The world would be rid of this cursed powerfull artifact… Her fate would go as planned… Everything would be fine. Her hand opened… The gem flew from it…However.

It refused.

The gem sent itself flying right back at Elaria as if fate itself had chosen otherwise. It forcefully stabbed itself right into her forehead, never giving her any time to act. Harry had only the time to blink before he felt a huge wave of power emanate from Elaria… Something had changed.

Words suddenly came out of Elaria’s mouth… They did not sound like her at all anymore… She sounded almost possessed.

Tide Breaker.

Harry never had the chance to even blink… In a mere half of a trillionth of a second he had been projected off his horse by a huge gush of wind coming right from Elaria’s hand that was now pointing straight at him…was now pointing straight at him… The wind ripped right through his horse, painting the sky red with Desdemona’s blood… It seems like changing the name of the horse truly didn’t change the fate tied behind it. Harry was thrown flying… Hurling right back toward the forest… He could do nothing to stop his fall other than hope to hit a tree not too hard… But it still hit.

His left arm was ripped off as soon as he connected with a branch, sending him spinning right at the ground, where he thumped loudly with a loud growl of pain escaping his mouth. What the hell just happened? He most likely said to himself if the pain wasn’t too hard on him. He knew damn well he couldn’t stay here… This was the forest; he hadn’t been able to see her… What if she attacked him all of a sudden? In his condition he wouldn’t get quite far…

Of course… At that same moment… That is when he felt the wave waver again… It was like she could tell exactly where she was, as if she was reading it… He knew she was before him… Ready to attack again… He could feel her. But once more, he couldn’t see her. Running away would be suicidal if she could really track him this greatly… Using his sword… He shakingly brought himself back up to stand before his invisible enemy.

The wave moved around him… Almost as if it were analyzing him… All of him… The way his arm bled… The way the blood formed a puddle under him… The way he would most likely collapse soon… It was scientific… This wasn’t Elaria anymore… This was the gem itself…

Harry felt his feet tremble… His legs slowly lose their grip on consciousness… He knew he wouldnt be able to stand for more than a few seconds… So he used all of his remaining strength to sent a sudden and swift strike of his blade toward what felt like his enemy—IT caught it… The blade caught into the claws of the usurper using the body of his queen as a tool… Elaria’s eyes were blank… Soulless, she wasn’t in control anymore…

Harry collapsed next to the entity wearing the skin of someone he knew… IT only observed him… Gently dropping the blade next to him before walking away… IT didn’t wish to hurt him, it seems… But why?… Did it truly matter… He might not even wake up from all of this blood loss he was currently living throught… Those were the last thoughts he had before it went dark for him…

End of Prologue