I Will Love You Forever

Jazim Gonzales Alos waited somewhere ahead—he had promised her that he would find her again beneath these shattered first walls, that he would bring whatever was left of their lives back to her. Taul had said the words like a prayer when the world had been too dark to hold anything else. He reached the sanctuary’s broken threshold and paused just long enough to listen.

Boots. Several sets. Not the wandering sort, not the desperate kind that searched for shelter. These steps moved with purpose, disciplined and heavy. Between them drifted the faint, wrong hum Taul had learned to recognize a head—a tooth—arch. Something in the air that made the hairs along his arms prickle, as if darkness had teeth.

Taul’s throat tightened. “They’re here already.”

The boy’s head angled toward the sound, and for a heartbeat Taul thought the child had mistaken it for birds or wind. Then the child inhaled sharply, and the air around Taul seemed to tighten with it. Small sparks of pale light—nothing more than motes—skittered over the stone where the boy’s breath touched. They weren’t afraid. They weren’t magic that burned. They were finer than that, like frost catching sunlight.

Taul swallowed hard and forced his feet to move. He couldn’t afford to stop, couldn’t afford to be seen lingering in the open. He slipped through a jagged gap where a once-grand doorway had collapsed, guiding the boy behind a fallen slab that still held its shape like a shield. From there he could see into the sanctuary’s inner court—broken mosaics underfoot, a shattered fountain bowl stripped to bone, and the skeletal ribs of a hall that had once held ceremonies.

A torch flared somewhere to the left, and men’s silhouettes cut across the ruins. Taul couldn’t see their faces from here, but he could see the way they carried themselves—too still at the edges, too ready to pounce at the center. Darkar the Great’s forces moved like a net, not like a crowd.

Taul pressed a knuckle to the boy’s shoulder, not to comfort, but to anchor. “Breathe slow. Don’t speak.”

The boy’s mouth opened anyway, as if words were the only way to keep his fear from spilling out. Taul caught his wrist and held it. The child didn’t struggle—just stared harder, the way an animal stares at a trap.

“There,” came a sound like a stone dropping into a well.

It wasn’t a voice. It was the shift of presence, the way the air changed when someone stepped into a place they belonged. Taul’s skin recognized it before his mind did. He turned his head just enough to see past the broken slab.

Jazim stood at the edge of the court where the fountain’s shattered bowl offered partial cover, her dark hair pulled back tight, her cloak snagged on a piece of collapsed masonry. Her posture was all control, but her eyes were the same eyes Taul had carried through a decade of nightmares. He had imagined her in every version of survival—alive, waiting, impossible. Seeing her here, under the sanctuary’s ruined arches, nearly stole his breath.

“Taul,” she said, and the single word carried the weight of years.

He started forward, then stopped. The men in the ruins weren’t the only thing to watch. The boy beside him had gone still. His gaze had locked onto Jazim with a startled kind of recognition, like he was seeing something he’d been warned to fear and something else he couldn’t stop wanting.

Taul lifted his hand in greeting, palm outward, keeping it slow. “Jazim. I’m here.”

Her eyes flicked to the boy’s face, and her expression tightened so quickly it looked like pain. "You—" she began, then cut herself off. She took a step closer, and the air between them seemed to hum with a tension Taul couldn’t name. Her gaze dropped to Taul’s grip on the child’s wrist. “How long have you had him?”

Taul’s answer died in his throat when a sharp cry rang out from somewhere deeper in the sanctuary. A man’s shout followed—angry, startled, like he’d stepped on something that shouldn’t have been there. The torchlight wavered, and the silhouettes shifted toward the sound.

Darkar’s men were searching the ruins, and now they were reacting to something new.

Taul’s mind snapped into motion. “Not long enough,” he said, forcing steadiness into his voice. “We need to move. Are you alone?”

Jazim’s jaw set. “No.” She lifted her chin toward the broken hall. “I came with one of the old routes in mind. But they’ve been scouring this place hard. I thought I’d get to you first.”

“You did,” Taul said. He hated how the words shook. He reached for the boy, then hesitated, because Jazim’s eyes had gone fixed, too bright with fear and understanding all at once.

The child made a small sound, not quite a whimper. His fingers flexed, and the pale motes returned—this time faster, gathering along his skin like light trapped under glass. They didn’t fall. They clung, shimmering in thin lines that curved around him like invisible threads.

Jazim stared. “What is he doing?”

Taul didn’t answer, because he didn’t know. He had protected the boy with secrecy, with distance, with every careful step. He had kept him wrapped in cloth and shadowed in the ruins where old stones might swallow magic. But the sanctuary had its own memory. It had been built for kings and blessings, and now it was a wound.

The boy’s head snapped toward one of the torchlit men. His eyes narrowed, not at the man’s face, but at the space around him. Taul followed the line of sight and saw nothing at first—only rubble and broken tiles.

Then the torch flared too bright. The flame elongated as if pulled toward the boy, stretching in a trembling ribbon. A hiss rose from the man’s breath as he stumbled back, and his companion cursed.

Taul felt the boy’s breath quicken, felt the air around them grow taut. The pale motes flared, and the boy’s presence seemed to press against the sanctuary’s stones, waking something that had been sleeping beneath centuries of ruin.

Jazim’s hand flew to her blade. "Taul—"

“I know,” Taul said, though his voice cracked. He yanked the boy closer, turning him away from the torchlight. “Hold still.”

The child didn’t obey the way Taul had hoped. His body went rigid, then shuddered, like he was bracing against a pull he couldn’t resist. The pale threads around him thickened. They snapped outward in a quick arc, striking the ground and igniting lines of light across the mosaic pieces—faint at first, then bright enough to cast sharp shadows of men’s legs.

Darkar’s forces reacted instantly. A man shouted a command. Steel rang. Boots stamped, and a cluster of silhouettes surged toward the source of the disturbance.

Jazim stepped between Taul and the oncoming men, blade raised. “No,” she said, fierce and urgent. “Not like this. Not here with them watching.”

Taul had wanted their reunion to happen in silence, in breath and touch, in the space between war’s demands. He had wanted to look at Jazim and believe the world might soften for a moment. Instead, the boy had lit a beacon without meaning to.

“Can you fight them and keep him hidden?” Taul demanded, because questions were all he had left when the world moved faster than hope.

Jazim’s eyes flicked to the boy again. Her expression shifted—fear giving way to something sharper, a grim knowledge that tasted like grief. “He’s drawing power the way a blade draws blood,” she said. “I can hold them off, but I can’t stop what he is.”

The boy’s gaze darted between them, and his mouth moved as if he were trying to form a word. No sound came. The pale motes around him tightened, and then the air changed again—cooler, denser—as if the sanctuary itself had inhaled.

Taul heard it before he understood it: a low, resonant vibration beneath the stones, like a distant drum. It wasn’t thunder. It was older than thunder, older than the war. The sanctuary’s ruins were answering.

From beyond the broken hall, another sound joined the first: the scrape of something armored, not moving with human weight. Darkar’s forces didn’t just hunt with blades. They hunted with the things they carried, the darkness that listened.

Jazim’s face went pale under torchlight. “They brought a seeker,” she said.

Taul’s stomach dropped. He had heard rumors—whispers—cooler, denser—ashifted—fear pieces—faint "Taul"—first—only returned—this followed—angry, "You"—survival—alive, struggle—just themselves—too court—broken, afraid. motes—skittered light—nothing in camps—about machines or beasts, tools that could track magic the way dogs tracked scent. He had hoped those rumors were only fear dressed up as truth.

The boy’s threads flared, and the light lines on the mosaic began to crawl, tracing a pattern that pointed outward from him toward the sanctuary’s broken center. The lines pulsed once, twice, then aligned with the route leading to the shattered fountain.

Taul’s body moved before his mind caught up. He grabbed the boy and shoved him behind the slab again, deeper into shadow. The child’s shoulder struck stone, and he let out a sound of surprise that was quickly swallowed by Taul’s palm.

“Stay,” Taul ordered, softer now, because anger wouldn’t help. “Stay with me.”

Jazim followed, her steps quick and silent. She pressed her back against the wall, blade angled low. “If they come through this way,” she said, “we don’t win by standing. We move— ”

A torch swung into view, and the men’s silhouettes sharpened. A voice barked commands, close enough that Taul heard the rasp of breath between words. Another voice answered, lower, as if speaking to something that didn’t have a mouth.

The seeker had arrived in the sanctuary’s heart. Its presence made the air feel heavy, as if darkness had condensed into a physical weight. Taul fought not to pull the boy into his chest too tightly and fought the urge to cover him like a shield.

The boy’s pale motes spilled from the shadow again, despite Taul’s efforts. They clung to the edges of the slab, tracing the cracks like veins. The light didn’t just show the boy. It showed the space around him, mapping his bloodline resonance against the sanctuary’s old magic.

Taul felt Jazim stiffen beside him. “It’s seeing him,” she whispered.

Taul’s mind flashed through every precaution. Every lie they’d swallowed. Every night they’d hidden the child’s warmth and hidden his light. None of it had mattered if the sanctuary itself recognized the blend of blood that ran through the boy’s veins.

He leaned close to the boy’s ear, his voice barely more than breath. “Do you feel it?” he asked. “The pull?”

The boy blinked, slow and stubborn. His eyes were glassy, not from tears but from strain. He nodded once, a tiny movement that somehow carried the weight of a confession.

Taul’s heart clenched. The boy wasn’t choosing this. He wasn’t trying to betray them. He was just… responding, like a key turning in a lock that had waited centuries to open.

Jazim’s gaze sharpened, and she made a decision so quickly it was almost ruthless. She nodded toward a broken corridor to the right, where collapsed stone formed a narrowing chute. “There’s an old service passage,” she said. “It won’t hold them long, but it’ll buy us minutes.”

Taul didn’t argue. Minutes mattered. Minutes were the only currency that war didn’t steal immediately.

He shifted his grip on the boy, lifting him just enough to move without letting the pale motes spill into torchlight. The child’s breath came fast; his chest rose and fell like a bird trapped under a hand. Taul could feel the light gathering on his skin again, eager, hungry for release.

As they slipped from behind the slab, the mosaic lines in the court flared bright enough that the shadows of men stretched long and wrong across the stone. One of Darkar’s men turned his head sharply toward their movement, as if the air had spoken his name.

“You!” the man shouted. "There—"

Jazim moved at the same time, her blade carving a low arc that struck the ground not to kill but to throw up a spray of grit and shattered tile. The dust burst in a sudden veil, turning torchlight into a smear. Her voice cut through it like a command. “Now!”

Taul ran.

The sanctuary’s ruins tore at their path—sharp edges, loose stones that skittered underfoot, and the cold bite of damp masonry. The boy’s pale motes kept flickering, and every time they did, Taul felt the seeker’s presence tilt toward them, as if the darkness could smell light.

Behind them, men shouted. Steel clanged. A deeper sound—mechanical, grinding—echoed through the hall, closer than it had any right to be.

Taul shoved through the narrowing chute Jazim had indicated, dragging the boy after him. The passage was barely wide enough for an adult. Stone scraped his shoulders. The boy’s cloak snagged, and for a heartbeat Taul thought it would tear clean away.

He tore free instead, ripping cloth with a sound like wet paper.

The child cried out, but the cry was swallowed by the passage’s tight walls. Jazim followed close behind, her breathing controlled, her blade held ready. She reached back and caught the boy’s cloak, yanking it free without letting him fall.

Taul didn’t have time to thank her. He only had time to listen.

The grinding sound surged, then paused, as if the seeker had struck a barrier. Dust shook from the ceiling. Somewhere above, torchlight flared again, and a faint pulse of resonance vibrated through the stone, answering the boy’s presence like a call and a curse.

The boy shuddered, and pale motes crawled across the passage wall, sketching patterns that weren’t random. They looked like the first royal sanctuary’s old wards—lines drawn in light, recognizing him with terrifying intimacy.

Jazim’s face tightened. “He shouldn’t be able to do this,” she said, her voice strained. “Not in this place.”

Taul stared at the glowing lines, at the way they traced the boy’s bloodline resonance against the ruin’s ancient magic. He had imagined prophecies might be wrong, might be twisted by fear and stubborn hope. But what he saw now wasn’t rumor. It was proof.

The boy’s power wasn’t just waking.

It was declaring itself.

A new shout echoed down the passage—closer, angrier. The grinding sound returned, now moving through the broken sanctuary’s bones with purpose. Darkar’s forces were coming, and the sanctuary’s wards were no longer hidden from them.

Taul tightened his grip around the boy and drew Jazim closer, blocking her with his shoulder as if his body could shield her from what was coming. He didn’t know what the boy’s mixed blood would become in the war’s hands. He only knew they couldn’t lose him here, couldn’t let Darkar’s side take what the sanctuary had recognized.

The boy’s eyes lifted toward Taul, and in them Taul saw something that looked like fear and wonder braided together. When the child’s lips finally moved, the words came out soft and wrong, like a spell that didn’t know whether it was meant to heal or hunt.

Taul couldn’t understand the language. But the sanctuary did.

The light lines on the wall brightened, and somewhere beyond the passage, a seeker answered, turning toward them as if it had been waiting for this exact resonance to lead it home.

End of chapter one. 7 more chapters and about 22,278 words in the full book.