*No way to escape. We’re all sitting ducks.* The dark shadow that was my enemy turns towards us.

“You're right to think that way, Farad. There is no escape.” His slithering voice pronounces, sending shivers down my spine.

“There is always a way, you just have to look for it.” My father’s dying words echo through my head. “Farad, there is always a way.” Looking at the shadow above me, I finally understand his words.

I turn to the friends who had made the journey with me, beaten, but still burning with determination. At one of them especially. At Eutla. My love. Her eyes meet mine, and in that instant, she knew everything about the plan that I had come up within the few seconds it took to look at the group behind her.

“NO! Farad! You can’t! What will happen without you to protect this realm! What will happen to me?!”

“I’m sorry, Eutla,” I whisper, “But this is something I’d known I’d eventually have to do. Hopefully, we will meet again. But for now, know that this is not the final goodbye. We will meet, be it in the next life, or be it in this one, we will meet.”

I turn to the dark figure and yell “From my father before me, and his father before him, and down the line of heroes that is my family, I bestow upon you these words,” The power coursing through me feels as if the ancestors of my family have joined me in this stand against the darkness, “No matter how dark the day, no matter how dead the night, no matter how powerful you think you are, I will be here to stop you from hurting the lives of the innocent and I WILL protect this realm, no matter how much you threaten it!”

The look of absolute hatred on the mask becomes my target, my vision narrowing. I look once again at Eutla. “I’m sorry that I have to say this, but farewell Eutla, I am sorry to not be there to witness the miracle of life that my son will be. Take care of him. I will never forget you.” Though it was a whisper, I could see the hope and heartbreak etched in the eyes of my beloved. “Take care of my son, for he is the next hero. The next in the line of the Flaming Whisper.”

With those words, I turned to the menace ahead of me and, shouting a battle cry that seemed to split the sky, ran straight at him. In the few seconds that it takes me to reach him, my life flashes before my eyes. My birth. My father’s death. My mother. And finally, the joy that I felt when I first held the tiny body that was my son. My armor shifts into the shape of an arrow, and I shift forms along with it for the last time. The shadow knew what was happening and bellowed in fury, but I had already stabbed into him. I feel the world slip and send out a last message.

“Take care of our son, Eutla. I will watch over you. Do not mourn, for this is just a new page in the old book that is our realm.”

“FARAD! DON’T LEAVE ME! PLEASE!” The voice was already fading, and a high-pitched noise filled my mind, warning of the strain that I was putting on my armor and on myself. The darkness of the Shadow was tearing me apart from the inside. I had to hope that the light within me could overpower the strength of darkness. Otherwise everything was for nothing. Everyone I loved would die, and there would be no one to save them. These thoughts give me the strength I needed to overcome the shadow’s strength. Falling to the ground, I landed on my feet. My armor started to turn to dust and was taken by the wind. Turning around to look at the group behind me, I saw the hope in each of their stances. *The shadow is defeated, and Farad is standing, surely it was all over?* echoed in their thoughts. My legs gave way, and I fell to the ground.

“FARAD! NO!”

Then the world changed to a blur, and I slipped away, leaving my wife and friends the Solas Sword, knowing that when the time came, my son would face the shadow again.

                                                                …