Lady Melokin, Heir of None, Champion of the Fair People, Ruler Elect and Matriarch of the Final Bastion, stood at the window of her throne room. She had stared unblinkingly into the distance for quite some time, looking beyond the crumbling walls of the city, across once-verdant fields, now burnt and covered in bodies decaying within their armor. Her gaze stretched still farther, towards the mountains in the East, behind which the sun would rise at any moment. Except it would not, and Melokin knew it would not, and so at last she turned away from the window. Her glass of wine had emptied itself; she did not remember drinking from it while she gazed. There was no one there to refill it for her, for she had sent every advisor, messenger, and chambermaid home to their families when all hope was lost. Only Synott, her guardian angel, stood beside her.

“Will you not watch the storm spread?” Synott asked. His wings hung out of his robe with uncharacteristic carelessness. “Darkness covers the mountaintops already. Even my eyes can longer find the tip of Heaven’s Pike.”

“That is because it no longer exists, dear Synott,” she answered in a whisper. Melokin began to turn her head back towards the window, then thought better of it and went in search of the rest of the wine bottle. She found it on the floor, behind Synott’s legs, illuminated by his pale glow. He made no effort to move out of her way, forcing Melokin to reach through his celestial form. “Even now, dear guardian,” she mocked, “you will not help me soften the edge of a blade.”

“It has never helped you think about what is next,” he responded with a voice as taught as the highest string of a harp. “The pike has crumbled, it is true, but that was last night. Today the storm spreads, but the dawn must rise behind it. And you must rise to meet that light.”

“He’s dead. My son is dead.” Melokin took a drink and finally looked out of the window again. The angel was right, the mountaintops were covered in darkness. To the North and South she could see the first light of morning, but erupting from the peak of tallest mountain was pure darkness. It looked thick, like liquid ash flooding both down the land and up into the clouds. As she watched, a dot in the distance that she recognized as Upper Crag — the largest city in the foothills, where she was born — descended into shadow, then sank into solid blackness.

“Young Lord Felokin may live, yet. The prophecies spoke of -”

“The prophets of the Second Age spoke of a child saving Heaven’s Pike from collapse. And how many in later ages spoke of the darkness emerging victorious? Or, how many times has some other child prevented such an event, throughout time? Many such a catastrophe may have been averted, gone undocumented simply because life continued. Ages passed. Until the event after which there will be no more ages. The forces of evil will not record our history. They will forget prophecies which said they could never triumph, just as we forget those that said we would fail.”

“My lady, surely you do not believe this could come to pass. Have we not spoken of the power in the pendants born by Felokin and yourself? Have we not tested their power in defense of evil? Even as that… tar spreads,” he gestured with an ephemeral hand at the darkness which was filling rivers of the lowlands. “You must believe your pendant will shield all who are within the walls of the Bastion.”

“I wear a fake, poor Synott. What you see before you is just glass.” Melokin tore the bauble from her neck and threw it to the floor, where it shattered. “Felokin’s was destroyed while protecting him from the final assault of the Mage Giants. I knew he would have no hope ascending Heaven’s Pike without it, so I gave him mine. The loss and the forgery I kept secret, even from you.”

The angel lowered himself to the floor, solemnly inspecting the fragments of jewelry. Then he knelt, bowing his head in prayer.

Lady Melokin looked upon her guardian, trying to calm the mixture of pity and resentment that filled her. She steeled herself, and turned her eyes back to the window. “When I watched Felokin ride for the mountains…” Her voice caught in her throat, “When I watched my child ride off with what remained of our army, I had a vision of insects in the darkness swarming towards a fire. They were so small, and the forces of evil so enraged. I thought the mountains would shatter with an explosive force. That flames would engulf us. As if the end could only come if we went towards it, drawn by the light so that an awesome force could kick the embers back at us, stamping us out at last.

“But now, it only looks cold.” She squinted her eyes, trying to glimpse the coast of the North Sea, but the darkness in the sky had completely smothered the morning sun. Outside the city walls, the roiling black mass consumed distant farmland, then nearby villages. It seemed to turn solid when a structure was fully engulfed, while the near edge oozed ever closer.

“I see the churches of Auckridge, like a skyline painted in dark oils. Everything is static. The bells were on their fifth chime, but now they stick, frozen by a winter we have never had in this land, buried in a frost that will never thaw.” She had not touched the full glass in her hands, but now she placed it on the floor and reached her hand towards the angel. “I suppose we are insects, but it is not fire that ends us.

Synott placed his hand in hers, each of them feeling a slight warmth where his celestial aura passed through her skin. Then he rose and embraced her, exerting what little force he had to turn her face away from the window as the view darkened. “Then let us hope we are mere insects, small creatures who cannot understand why the frost holds us any better than why the spring thaws us. For now we hibernate, not because we know the seasons will change, but because, in time, they might.”

And so the darkness spread from the mountains of the East, across the land, and over the walls of the Final Bastion. It seeped through windows and doors, embracing all it touched with a cold, relenting grip. There it met Lady Melokin, Champion and Matriarch, who greeted it with open arms.