The Exile’s Last Vigil
A tapestry of whispers through the crumbling stones,
He stands—the nameless knight, his armor scarred
By battles etched in time’s unyielding scroll.
No crest adorns his shield, no banners rise;
His lineage drowned in ash, his homeland’s cry
A dirge that haunts the hollows of his helm.
Exile is his mantle, cold and vast,
A second skin forged by betrayal’s frost.
Three leagues beyond the realm of mortal tread,
Where ancient oaks conspire with the mist,
A temple looms—its spires claw the sky,
A skeletal hand beseeching forgotten gods.
Within its vault, the air is thick with hymns
Unsung, the weight of centuries condensed
To silence. Here, the earth remembers blood—
Old rites, old wars, old sorrows petrified
In marble veins. His pilgrimage concludes
Where no prayer echoes but his own.
*She* waits—not flesh, not ghost, but liminal,
A breath between the candle’s glow and wick.
Her voice, a silver thread through midnight’s loom:
*“You tread where stars have faltered, love. Turn back.”*
Yet in her eyes—twin pools of liquid dusk—
He reads the curse no blade can cleave: her soul
Bound to the temple’s heart, its pulse her prison.
A queen without a crown, a rose ensnared
In thorns of geas, her freedom bartered for
A kingdom’s dawn. His oath, once sworn to kings,
Now bends to her alone.
The altar smolders, blackened by the tears
Of sacrifices lost to yawning depths.
Upon its face, runes coil like serpents’ tongues,
Their venom spelled in tongues no mortal throat
Shall shape. *“A life for life,”* the stones decree.
*“To break her chain, one greater must be bound.”*
He knows the pact—the price his heart must weigh:
To don her shackles, let his spirit fade
Into the temple’s maw, that she might walk
Beneath the sun’s caress, unshackled, whole.
Dawn lingers, hesitant, beyond the arch—
A blush of gold denied to vaults below.
He kneels, not to the gods, but to her gaze,
And lifts his sword—not steel, but memory’s edge.
*“I traded crowns for crossroads, throne for dust,
Yet here, in this forsaken sanctum’s gloom,
I find the only sovereignty I crave:
To serve your light, though darkness claim my name.”*
Her plea is tempest, thunder, tidal force:
*“Do not immortalize me with your death!”*
But love, once kindled, wears the face of doom;
Its logic defies reason’s brittle spine.
The blade descends—not flesh it severs, but *threads*—
The unseen cords that bind her to the abyss.
A gasp. A sigh. The temple’s lungs collapse.
Her form, now tangible as morning’s breath,
Flickers—a wisp unspooled from night’s tight weave.
*“Go,”* he murmurs, *“where the lilacs bloom
And rivers chart their courses unrestrained.
Let my exile be the soil where you root.”*
She reaches, but her fingers sieve through his,
A cruel mirage of touch. His armor dims,
Its luster siphoned by the hungry stones.
As she steps free, the temple’s jaws constrict.
Pillars twist to ribs, the altar beats—
A monstrous heart revived. His breath grows thin,
A reed flute’s final note. Her voice, now distant:
*“What kingdom waits for you, my fallen star?”*
He smiles—the first and last unburdened spark—
*“The realm where your shadow guards my sleep.”*
The dawn breaks, amber-sweet, upon her brow.
Behind, the temple sinks into its grave,
A tomb of whispers. On the wind, his vow
Lingers—a riddle etched in ash and wave:
That love’s truest compass points not to possession,
But to the grace of becoming absence’s throne.
She walks, but every step is sacrament,
Her freedom bought with echoes of his breath.
And in her wake, the lilacs rise, their scent
A requiem for the life that conquered death.
