When the Light Bleeds: The Fall and Rise of Lumiel Aetherion

It began at dawn, as all things did in Aetheris.But unlike the orchard's gentle hush, the northern border met the morning with the cold snarl of steel scraping steel.

Lumiel rode at the front, though Varcan had argued, and Thalior had only silenced the general with a single, thunderous glance. Let him see the blood, the king had said. Let him carry it back on his boots.

The prince sat tall on a gray warhorse, borrowed armor gleaming like sunrise on river ice. His breastplate — too large still, straps hastily punched smaller — bore the Aetherion sigil: a blazing sun split by a silver sword.

He hated how it weighed on his chest. Heavy. Suffocating. More prison than shield.

Beside him, General Varcan's stallion stamped the frozen earth, breath steaming. He barked commands at the vanguard, voice flint on flint. Lumiel's eyes drifted to the horizon — where the hills unrolled like broken teeth and a thin smear of black smoke marked where the enemy waited.

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The clash came sudden as a thunderclap.

Bandits? Rebels? Loyalists turned feral? Lumiel didn't know. He only knew how quickly lines blurred when arrows flew. The first shaft struck a young knight just two horses ahead — the boy crumpled, his scream lost under the drumming hooves.

Varcan roared orders. Shields locked. Swords unsheathed. The orchard's prince found himself swept along — steel ringing in his ears louder than his own pounding heart.

He clutched the hilt of his sword — real steel, not Varcan's dulled practice blade. His knuckles whitened under the engraved pommel. He forced his breath to steady. Remember the circle, he told himself. Balance. Teeth bared.

When the clash broke the line, he was there in the thick — mud, blood, hooves, screams. Someone lunged at him — a ragged man with rusted mail and wild eyes. The world narrowed to the swing of an arm, the flash of metal, the sick crunch when Lumiel's blade connected.

The man fell. Lumiel stared at the ruin of him — the way blood pooled black on churned snow.

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It was not graceful. It was not righteous. It was just a boy's shaking hands on a sword hilt, breath ragged behind a dented helm.

Behind him, Caelum's voice rose above the din — the stable boy turned squire, who refused to stay behind the supply train.

"Dawnstar! To your left!"

Lumiel spun. Parried clumsily. Another shape in furs and iron slammed against him — blade skittering off his breastplate, knocking him sideways into the mud. His vision filled with gray sky, swirling crows overhead, his mother's orchard far, far away.

Pain bit his shoulder where steel found flesh. Warm blood spread under cold armor. Stand tall, he thought. Bloom, even if it breaks you.

He rolled, swung upward. His blade found ribs — the man screamed, crumpled. Lumiel scrambled to his feet, chest heaving.

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The world shrank to moments:Varcan's roar — "Hold the line!"The wet slap of mud.Caelum's breathless curses — "Behind you, Lumiel!"Steel against steel, over and over, until the orchard's prince could no longer feel where his hands ended and the blade began.

And then — like a stone thrown into a pond — silence.The enemy broke. Ragged figures fled across the hills. The vanguard surged forward but Varcan barked them back — enough blood for now. Enough lesson.

Lumiel stood in the churned snow, sword dripping. His knees buckled. Caelum caught him by the elbow before he hit the ground.

"Easy, Dawnstar," his friend rasped, mud up to his knees, cheek bloodied. "Easy. You did it. You did it."

But Lumiel's eyes were fixed on his blade — on the blood, bright against steel. His mother's orchard seemed a dream then — a softer world, lost in the hush of a garden that never truly belonged to him.

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That night, back at camp, the Iron Wolf found him sitting alone by the watch fires. He had not cleaned the blood from his blade yet. It lay across his knees like a sleeping serpent.

Varcan lowered himself onto the log beside him, joints popping. He did not speak for a long while. The only sounds were the crackle of the flames and the distant, uneasy snort of horses.

At last, the old general rumbled, "First blood is never easy, boy."

Lumiel's voice was small. "He looked like he could have been my father's age."

Varcan grunted. "Or your father's enemy. Or your father's friend. In the end, a blade does not ask which."

Lumiel's fingers curled around the hilt, nails digging into the etching. "Will it always feel like this?"

The Iron Wolf's eyes — old, tired, unwavering — fixed on the fire. "Only if you're lucky."

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Later, alone in his small canvas tent, Lumiel washed the sword with trembling hands. Caelum watched in silence, the only sound the drip of water from steel to earth.

When the blade gleamed clean again, Lumiel set it beside him and curled his knees to his chest.

"It's not the same, is it?" he whispered into the hush. "As the orchard."

Caelum sat down, back to the tent wall, arms draped over his knees. "No, Lumi. It's not."

Outside, the watch fires burned bright under the frostbitten stars. The orchard prince, with blood still crusted under his nails, closed his eyes and dreamed of petals falling like snow — dreams that smelled of iron and ashes instead of blossom.