No. No. No!

Not him! N-no.

It's not true! He won't believe it.

He isn't dead. Vid isn't dead!

Like some avenging angel, Zima is kneeling, knees sunk into supple earth, bent over the unresponsive body, her eyes wide and flashing with anger. Electric blue... Her hands are spread like she's shielding Vid... Vid... his mismatched eyes are opened, unseeing, light snuffed out as he's looking up at the blood-red moon. It's almost as if he's floating on a large, dark lotus leaf. It's simply blood. A pool of it, still spreading leisurely, soaking the nurturing soil and Zima's tattered robe.

Plamen can't breathe. He really can't breathe now.

Zima's eyes cry bloodied tears, pinkish in the light of the early dawn as they fall, translucent red as they solidify into sharp, needle-like ice. Her lower lip is already bruised and bloody, but she continues biting into it, and Plamen realizes that the pain is the only thing keeping her from completely breaking down.

She utters an angry cry (or is it desperate?) and sends the needles flying.

Shining armor is the only thing Plamen notices before the person wearing it blurs, going zigzag. So fast, Plamen marvels with his numb mind.

He can't follow the movement, but he knows, he fucking knows where the finish line is.

He opens his mouth to shout, but before he can even spout one word of the warning, a head thumps down the ground, rolling away from the body that follows.

At that moment, something breaks inside him. It's like a volcano erupting inside his head, heat emerges from a deep, hidden part, vicious and blazing, and spreads. With the only conscious part of his mind, he notices that the air around him is warming up, grass lights up, burning immediately, only scorched earth is left behind.

Suddenly, he can see the man clearly, almost as if the time slowed down. That man wields a curved, single-edged sword, and what Plamen has previously thought to be an armor is actually a paper-thin, silver chainmail. The man is approaching him, slowly, so slowly... and Plamen wants blood, he wants someone to pay, and the prey is falling into his lap.

The Dragon King mark feels like an inferno as it brightly glows on his hand, then that red light encompasses his body, from head to toes, boiling hot, but to him, it's strangely a pleasant sensation. It's almost like fire, the light, it rages more and more until he can't see anything.

Then it dies out. Along with whatever haze gripped Plamen's mind.

Oh, gods. What was that? He falls to his knees with a loud smack, panting loudly. He puts his head in his hands as he tries to slow down his galloping heart.

He realizes he's not at the clearing in front of the Castle anymore. There's no grass under his knees, just a white limestone spreading ahead; it's not dark anymore as if the sun is shining overhead; there's no breeze nor any kind of sound. He's not at the clearing where bodies of his dead comrades lie.

And that murderous aura. Was that him? It sure felt that way. He couldn't control his mind nor his body. He spreads his fingers over his face, groping over his skin, maybe to assure himself that he's still himself.

"Wicked, right?"

He jolts his head up at the unfamiliar female voice. And ahead, at the end of this weird place stands a throne. Made from the same white marble as the floor. And on the throne sits a woman. The most shocking thing in her appearance isn't a scarlet red hair, but a vivid orange armor. Because he can't get over the fact that it's moving like it's alive. His hands unconsciously fall to his lap.

"I know, my armor is awesome," she says with a shrug. "Perun gifted me his special lightning so I woven it into my flames."

He looks up– and stares. Because her eyes are a molten blaze. No iris, just pure red-orange magma.

"You ask yourself who I am, am I right?"

Plamen can only nod, his mouth too dry to answer.

"I am Goddess Ognjena, the Protector of Everburning Flames."

He can only stare. How— 

"How is this possible?" she finishes his question with a tilt of her lips forming a small smile. "Easy. I brought you here because you were losing control." She shifts to the right, leaning her elbow against the armrest, her head on her hand. "Wicked, right? The power that had coursed through your body."

He's pretty sure she's talking about that haze that settled over his mind back then. It is horrifying to remember how it felt, how he felt. So he nods.

She doesn't comment on his lack of words, just stretches her smile into a more pronounced one, a grin plastering over nearly half of her face.

"It was your birthright. Do you know what I speak of?"

He shakes his head because what bloody birthright? Nothing makes sense.

"The power of a dragon," she explains easily as if she had expected his lack of knowledge. "It's too hard on your mind. Dragons themselves are magnificent creatures, but they're not humans. Your human body might be a result of a curse, but it is your current body, and with it came the modifications of your mind. You must understand, a dragon is a completely different creature from what you are now, more animalistic, more instinctual." She pauses, regarding him.

Plamen doesn't understand. That...what he felt back then. It was terrifying because it wasn't him. There are still other things on his mind, other things he needs to know about.

He gulps loudly. "Why bring me here?"

She sighs loudly. "Show yourself!"

What? What is she talking about? As those questions start swirling in his head, the Dragon King mark burns with a sting, painful enough that he brings it to his chest, curling his body around it. Just as quickly pain has come, that fast it disappeared.

"Long time no see, Ognjena."

Plamen glances up to see a tall, red-haired man standing on his left. Both his voice and how he speaks is familiar, but he can't connect why. Then the man shifts toward him and he sees it.

A red iris, vertical-slit shaped pupil, just he has seen with the Eye. But now there are two of those set on a person's face.

"The Eye!" he blurts out. Oh, gods, he's turning into Vid with those stupid remarks his friend is always spouting...

He isn't anymore. He won't be spouting out anything ever again.

The Goddess laughs. "Priceless. Dear heavens! This is gold."

"Har har," the man deadpans. "You put me into that damn shape so don't laugh."

Ognjena looks to be a scant distance away from tumbling down the throne from wheezing laughter leaving her mouth. "But Borislav, they dubbed you 'The Eye.' It's hilarious!"

What. Wait. What? Borislav, as in the Borislav, the mightiest warrior of dragon kind history? Plamen can feel his eyes widening at that.

The man glances down at Plamen, sighing. "Yes, yes. I'm that Borislav," he says stingly.

When Plamen keeps on staring at him with a puzzled look, he rolls his eyes. "I could see it on your face, kid. And I know how much praise on my account my descendants keep on spouting out–Oi, you old hag, stop laughing!"

Ognjena does stop laughing but only to present him with a mocking smile. "I'm calling you the Eye from now on."

The man – Borislav – groans into his palm. Plamen is sure he can hear him mutter something along the line, "Just what I needed." Then Borislav approaches Plamen offering him a hand. "Come on, up to your feet."

He puts his hand in Borislav's and jolts. So much raw power, so much magic tingling over his skin just from a touch...and it's all fire.

Borislav pulls him to his feet, letting him go when he's stable. He turns to glare at Ognjena with those red eyes for a short moment, then shrugs, and starts waving his hand in a circular motion. Fire erupts from the said hand forming two chairs.

"Make yourself comfortable, this will be one long conversation."

Plamen still can't wrap his head around the fact he's seeing the legend in front of his eyes, someone he's been looking up to for as long as he's known how to read.

"O-okay."

He sits down. It's so fluffy! is his first thought, then the second comes, How does he control the flames with such precision?

"Now, first things first," Borislav says. "You've unlocked the dragon inside of you, I could feel it, so I brought you here before it consumed you. Your next challenge is to defeat all the Nužda's Vanguards and then you get the audience with her. And you can only do it with the Dragon power." Borislav scratches through the stubble on his chin. "The best way of dealing with her is snatching the jade necklace she wears. Destroy the jade and you'll destroy the curse."

Plamen blinks. "Jade? A necklace is the answer to this nightmare?" he asks incredulously.

"If it sounds stupid, it probably is stupid," Borislav laments, his slitted eyes narrowing. "But yes, a jade necklace is the answer to all of our troubles."

"There's another way," Ognjena interjects.

"Oi, stop butting in when it isn't your turn!" Borislav snaps at her.

She waves her hand, rolling her eyes. "You tried to stay hidden at first and left me to deal with the kid. You have no right to complain."

"I was just testing him."

"Yeah, yeah, tell it to someone who cares."

"Another way?" Plamen interrupts their banter because otherwise, he would start to cry...it's so familiar. "I assumed there is another way because of how you worded it, 'The best way of dealing with her...'"

Borislav shifts his head to regard him. His eyes look sad.

"Yes," he replies. "The other way to uncurse us is to behead Nužda."

Oh.

The jade necklace it is.

"Oh, kid. Don't look so freaked out," Ognjena says, misinterpreting his thoughts. "It's not like you could kill her with that."

"Why does her beheading break the curse?"

Borislav shoots a scowl in Ognjena's way, but she ignores him and smiles wickedly.

"It's our dear Eye who declared that he would cut the head off of her shoulders," Ognjena says, beaming at Borislav. "Nužda retaliated by saying that no dragon alive will ever be able to touch her neck. Already fed up with her bullshit, the rest of the Pantheon woven the magic binding her to her words and threw in a bit of spice so that if any dragon manages to behead her, it will automatically break the curse. Regardless of the existence of the jade necklace on which the curse is bound."

Plamen assumes it makes sense, Gods are fickle and certainly able to do something like that. But then he realizes something; no one's explained how he had 'unlocked the dragon inside' as Borislav put it.

"How did I bring this power to the surface? How did I exactly unlock it?"

They are both silent for a long moment. "Because the other two champions died," Borislav answers.

And Plamen feels like all the air in his lungs got squeezed out. For a moment he doesn't breathe, he doesn't blink, he just stares, hoping it's just a horrid joke. Because if that's true, then the power to uncurse his kind came at the price of his friends' lives.

He won't cry. He won't cry. He won't... A solitary tear descends down his cheek, dropping from his chin and leaving a wet stain on his shirt.

"Why?" The question tears out of his mouth as a ragged cry, but ultimately he can breathe again.

"It's the last part of the prophecy," Borislav says in reply.

Plamen can't believe it. That wretched prophecy.

"Dimmed light of the Sunburst Yellow, splattered red of the Electric Blue; Flame of Conquest gives birth to myth."

Dimmed light - Vid can't see anymore.

Splattered red - Zima had even cried bloodied tears before the blade met her neck.

No tears come. He is expecting them, yet there are none.

"But you have a choice," Ognjena says.

"And it's your choice, yours alone," Borislav adds.

Plamen looks at them with tiredness he can't even fathom. He's just done. "What now?"

Red hair swishes as Ognjena rises to her feet. She steps forward and snaps her fingers. At her side two bright circles of light form, one palest yellow, one faintest blue. Then the lights swirl, growing, forming shapes of human bodies. Plamen watches with wide eyes, his hands shaking.

"Vid! Zima!" he cries out, running, stumbling over his feet to the pale projections of his friends. He knows that couldn't be them, so pale they seem like washed out paintings, but he has to see them once more, has to touch their skin, has to--

He collides with two actual bodies, forcing his hands to grab at the first thing he can, then starts passing his hands over their sides, shoulders, their faces, until their eyes snap open.

"Plamen!" two voices exclaim with equal enthusiasm.

He never thought he would hear their voices again nor feel their hugs. They aren't warm to touch. That's his second clue, the first being their paleness.

"Are they real?" He looks over his shoulder.

A smack over his head makes him look back. Zima scoffs at him. "We didn't get erased from existence, we just died," she says it like it's no big deal.

"We're souls if it isn't clear," Vid clarifies, pinching his forearm. It seems like something isn't clear to him too.

Plamen casts his hands around them once more, desperate and frantic as he brings them closer.

Borislav coughs once and Plamen finally let's go, but continues holding their hands with his, and turns around.

"Your choice," Borislav starts. "You can choose between keeping the power you unlocked and getting their lives back.

Plamen freezes. No! Don't make me choose between that! He can't...

Two hands, previously icy to touch, warm up slightly and their squeezes stop him from breathing too fast. He wants to tell them he appreciated helping him to keep his head calm.

Ok, he can do it. He can approach this subject analytically. He just needs more information.

He squeezes his eyes shut as he asks, "Those who made it to this level...How many of them chose the lives of their comrades?" He has to ask. He has to know.

The silence is deafening. The wait makes him anxious.

"None."

And he has his choice.