Rigel’s Rebellion

When the Isthryen began clawing themselves free from the earth, Rigel Lomatré stood in awe. His armor was crafted for every muscle on his toned body. His long sword held firmly in his grip, he did not waver. Known in the common tongue as Unseen Hunters, they emerged from the ground and set upon their prey with lightning speed. The Isthryen’s gnarled limbs twitched and cracked as they dragged their mutilated corpses forward. They were legion, an army of corpses spelled to end Rigel’s Rebellion. But this was more than a rebellion, this was a reckoning. Rigel knew that when he saw him that his rage would be wholly all consuming. Because in the end it always came down to Phoenix Shadowfall, Prince of the Shadowed Depths.

The severed eyes corded together around the necks of the Isthryen spoke to the lives they’ve claimed, spoke to the magic imbued in their very bones. Stolen magic from the arcanists they’d slain. Rigel sneered.

“Bow!” A roar floated over the crowd of Unseen Hunters and they did.

It’s a voice that Rigel would know in the deepest pits of the underworld, he’d know it deaf, he’d know it on the brink of death.

It is said that Phoenix Shadowfall’s horse halted mere yards from Rigel’s own, and Rigel’s soldiers erupted in screams and growls of hatred for the Stygian Prince. Rigel’s horse gave a threatening chortle as it stared into the black eyes of Phoenix’s horse.

Rigel ordered his soldiers into silence as he took in the sight of Phoenix, his dark hair falling in waves around his face, panting out puffs of breath into the cold morning. Rigel could remember those tendrils between his fingers, could inhale and still smell the sweet sinful aroma of him.

Months before Prince Phoenix Shadowfall raised the Isthryen to put down Rigel’s Rebellion, the two of them had been…

“This ends here!” Phoenix boomed and the Unseen Hunters seemed to double in number, crawling from the backs of their kin.

Rigel didn’t falter, his second in command blew a horn and their forces came from the wintered woods, surrounding the mile long horde of Isthryen.

“Clever clever thing,” Phoenix pitched his voice to Rigel so that only he could hear. It was a caress against the shell of his ear.

“This does end here, Prince,” Rigel smirked.

Phoenix had more than the Isthryen, his knighthood loomed in the center of the mass of rotting bodies. Ensuring he was protected even amongst his summoned creatures.

When Rigel lowered his banner and thrust it forward, a storm of rebel troops released arrows as dozens charged at the enemy forces. Rigel took a step back as the bodies charged around him. But he never broke eye contact with Phoenix.

The heated eye contact as snow and ice cascaded around him was not unlike the look Phoenix once gave him as Rigel held him tightly in his arms. Fierce determination, hatred, need, admiration, all merging as bodies clash and fall. All in the name of this love which was cruelly destroyed and denounced.

After the two were found out, Phoenix’s claim to the throne as heir was in jeopardy and the King demanded Rigel be hunted down and executed. It was only natural that he fell into the rebel factions looming in the kingdom, which he already dabbled in.

That didn’t matter. What did matter was when Prince Phoenix stood upon the dais and denounced ever caring for Rigel. When he endorsed the execution of Rigel Lomatré before the entire kingdom.

That was six months ago.

Rigel had spent six months hiding, planning, killing, and inching his rebellion ever closer to ending Prince Phoenix. The wretched boy he fell for, the Prince who broke his heart.

Blood splattered against his chest, through his helmet. He cut down soldiers and Unseen Hunters alike with a rage only extinguishable by the death of Phoenix. Or perhaps the taste of his love upon his lips once more.

No.

Rigel roared as he separated the head of an Isthryen from its shoulders. He reared back and kicked a royal knight in his chest, sending him into the arms of other knights who were advancing on him.

“Vyrketh,” Rigel hissed the spell and sent dark jagged spears of dark magic into them. They rose from the ground and impaled three of them. Others stumbled back as Rigel raised more jagged stone pillars of dark magic from the ground. This pure form of dark magic laid waste to hundreds as the battle raged on.

Phoenix used his own Stygian Magic to end rebels in droves.

Both Rigel and Phoenix fought through lives and bodies and blood and hell to get to one another.

The screams consumed the disgraced lovers as bodies knocked into them. Rigel didn’t take his eyes off of Phoenix who was now draped in the blood of the rebels and lavishing each kill. Prince Phoenix loved his kingdom, he would die for his kingdom. There was once a time where Rigel thought they would always choose one another, would run away and be free. Because Phoenix never wanted to lead armies into war. He wanted to prevent them. And yet, and yet, and yet.

Phoenix drove his sword into the throat of the rebel standing between him and Rigel just as Rigel gutted a knight which stood in the space between, too.

When Phoenix’s black eyes met Rigel’s blue eyes, the world around them seemed to stop. Bodies fell in slow motion, swords stopped mid clash, the clouds held their breath.

They bared their teeth at one another, panting through the adrenaline which drew them closer. Love clung to their souls like blood to their swords, not quite able to be washed clean by hatred.

So when Prince Phoenix whispered the spell that changed everything, the world remained frozen for another moment. The snow remained still in the air between the two as Rigel inhaled in shock, his eyes blowing wide with realization.

It started within the recesses of his body, solidifying his organs, slowing his blood. There was an impossible weight inside of him. Rigel tried to scream but his vocal chords stilled. He watched Phoenix wrestle with despair.

“I once told you that you were mine forever,” Phoenix whispered.

You’re not killing me, you’re keeping me! Rigel realized.

A dark graying color crawled over Rigel’s skin, his grip turning to stone on the hilt of his sword as the magic worked through him. He panicked, he tried to scream, tried to move. But there was no use, the Prince was turning him to stone.

Phoenix stepped closer. Close enough that Rigel could see the tremor in his hands. Close enough to hate him for it.

Rigel wanted to shake his head, to call down the Titans, to curse himself for hesitating to kill Phoenix. Curse himself for still loving him as he turned him to stone.

The sun reached its apex in the sky as Rigel Lomatré became frozen in time. A possession for a selfish Prince who meant only to own him.

Rigel Lomatré was not slain.

He was preserved.

Rigel’s Rebellion was lost that day, and after ten years Prince Phoenix Shadowfall took the throne.

At the base of the dais stood the stone statue of Rigel Lomatré. Paintings which depicted him in battle, portraits done by artists, and sketches done by Phoenix to immortalize him hung within Phoenix’s bed chambers.

The throne room stood tall in a palace dedicated to the Lomatré name. Where temples were erected and Rigel Lomatré was named a demigod, servant of the fallen Titan Xeusis who bestowed the arcanists with their powers.

King Phoenix Shadowfall’s reign became irrevocably attached to the love of Rigel Lomatré, immortalizing him. Rigel’s perfect beauty became the paragon for men. Women fawned over the demigod who belonged only to King Phoenix.

Phoenix would die of old age, alone is his bed with only the ghost of Rigel to keep him company. Servants recall his last moments spent screaming Rigel’s name, driven to insanity by his deed, after a life spent failing to free Rigel from the stone.