Was it Enough?

Was it ever enough?

That was what ran through Elyra’s mind as she watched the devoted followers of her brother, Erevan, battle among her people. The Temple of Dawn had once been a monument of radiant marble and gilded glass. Sunlight had poured through its vaulted windows like liquid gold. Choirs had lifted their hymns here, their voices rising in praise to Elyra, the Bringer of Light.

Now the air was thick with dust and ruin.

Shattered stained glass glittered like fallen stars across the floor. Pillars lay cracked and broken, their intricate carvings crushed beneath rubble. What light managed to spill through the broken ceiling trembled, as if wary of the shadows curling through the temple’s bones.

The world used to live in harmony. Both light and darkness co-existed in peace, a set of twins that controlled each side. Elyra, the Bringer of Light, was worshipped during the day. Erevan, the Lord of the Veil, was worshipped in the night. Until one day, he became greedy. Their followers began to fear the night as chaos and violence began to take over. They began to worship the light, forgetting about the harmony of darkness.

Erevan’s faithful followers were introduced to the evilness of blood magic.

Elyra stood in the center of the devastation, her white-gold hair tangled with dust, her armor cracked but gleaming faintly with dawn fire. Her heart ached, not for the temple, but for the figure striding toward her, cloaked in swirling shadow. Making his way towards her, his magnificent sword, Veilrend, by his side, ready to strike anyone who comes his way.

Erevan.

Her brother.

His eyes, once gentle as twilight, now burned with an obsidian flame that swallowed light whole. Shadows coiled around him like serpents, hissing against the remaining patches of sunlight. The air grew colder with each step he took, as though the world itself recoiled from him.

“You should not have come here,” Elyra said softly. “This place was never meant for war.”

Erevan laughed, a sharp, ragged sound that echoed too loudly in the hollowed space. He raised Veilrend and wiped the blood on his cloak, staining the garment more than it was.

“War is all this place represents,” he said. “A shrine to your perfection. Your purity. Your endless, blinding light.”

“This temple was built for all,” Elyra replied. “Even for you.”

His smile curdled into something twisted. “Do not lie to me. I see the truth carved into these broken walls. Look around, sister. Where is my sigil? Where is my hymnal? Where are the mortals kneeling in shadow as they kneel in your light?”

Elyra looked around at the ruin, the toppled statues, the crushed candles, the sun-washed mosaics.

She could not answer him.

Erevan’s shadows swelled. “Exactly.”

She took a breath, steadying the tremor in her voice, “mortals fear what they do not understand. But this, this dark blood-magic, these terror-born storms, you surrounded yourself with, is the fear you now resent.”

“I created nothing,” Erevan snarled. “I merely embraced what your worshippers forced me to become.”

Shadows lashed out like whips, splitting what remained of the nearest pillar. Marble shattered against the far wall.

Elyra didn’t flinch, “You could have come to me, dear brother.”

“I did,” he yelled, “for ages.” His voice cracked, revealing the wound beneath the rage. “But every prayer to you was a knife. Every hymn praising your radiance drove me deeper into the pit they dug for me. They worship you because you are warm. Easy. Comforting.”

He stepped closer. The blood shadows surrounded him like a storm on the verge of breaking.

“But me?” His voice lowered to a whisper that cut sharper than any blade, “I am truth. I am the darkness that shows what mortals really are. And yet you condemn me for existing as you created me.”

“I never asked you to carry that burden,” Elyra said, her heart twisting.

“And yet here we are.”

Silence stretched between them, thick, trembling, fragile.

Elyra took one step forward, extending a hand toward him. “Erevan, we can still restore the balance. Please. Let us—”

His roar shook the temple foundations.

“There is no ‘together’ anymore!”

The last surviving sun-symbol above the altar cracked, splintering into pieces. Blood shadows surged upward, swallowing the shards before they even hit the floor. The screams and clashing of the battle roared inside the temple. What was once a beacon of peace has become a beacon of death. Elyra closed her eyes as the sound surrounded her.

“I am done being the shadow of your radiance,” Erevan hissed. “This world will remember me, not as your brother, not as your opposite, but as its true god.”

A tremor of sorrow rippled through her; her eyes snapped open. “Then what is it you seek?”

Erevan’s Veilrend became surrounded by the blood magic he created, summoned from pure darkness. Its edges leaked a faint red glow, the stain of countless blood rites.

“Power,” he said. “Enough to unmake the tyranny of your light.”

Elyra shook her head, “You call this liberation, but all I see is conquest painted in greed and sorrow.”

“I call it justice,” he said. “I call it truth.”

“You twist sorrow into justification, Erevan.”

“And you twist light into chains.”

His blade lowered, tip grazing the shattered mosaic floor, “When I take your flame, when your dawnfire dies, the world will finally see the truth.”

Elyra inhaled, and with it, the remaining sunlight in the temple brightened, as though it rallied to her.

She lifted her spear of Dawnfire, its golden light flickering with the ache in her heart, weakened by the death surrounding it.

“I pray you forgive me for what I must do.”

Erevan lifted his blade in answer, shadows spiraling behind him like wings.

“And I pray you survive it.”

They met in the center of the ruined temple, light and shadow colliding with a force that tore the sky above them open. Marble exploded in every direction. Dawnfire clashed with Veilrend, weaving into the first eclipse the world had ever seen.

The Temple of Dawn crumbled around them.

Their war, the war of gods, the war of twins, changed forever.

And all Elyra could think… was it ever enough?