Aiden plunged.
The void swallowed him whole. The world above—where Ivar stood, motionless—vanished into the endless dark.
WHOOOSH—
Wind howled past his ears, but it was wrong. There was no warmth, no rush of air that should have burned against his skin.
This fall wasn''t normal.
It was slow. Drawn out.
The darkness wasn''t just absence—it was presence. A weight pressing against him, suffocating, drowning his flames before they could even spark.
Then—
THWAM!
Aiden hit something.
Not the ground.
Something soft. Something shifting, writhing beneath him like it was alive.
His breath came in short, ragged gasps as he tried to move—tried to see—but the dark refused to let him.
Then, a voice.
Soft. Familiar.
"Aiden?"
His blood turned to ice.
Slowly, too slowly, he turned his head.
A shape emerged from the abyss.
Small. Fragile.
A child.
No—himself.
Aiden—a younger Aiden—stood before him, barefoot on the shifting dark, staring with wide, trembling eyes. He looked no older than five, dressed in the simple sleepwear he used to wear in the Pendrol estate, his hair still wild, but lacking the fire that usually burned behind his gaze.
The child took a step closer, hesitant.
"Where''s Ivar?"
Aiden swallowed, his throat dry. "Kid…" He shook his head. "This isn''t real."
The child flinched. "I want to see Ivar."
Aiden exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair. "You''re not listening—"
"Ivar''s gone, isn''t he?"
Aiden froze.
The child lifted his head. Eyes wide. Pleading.
"He left you behind, didn''t he?"
Aiden''s chest tightened. "No."
The child stepped forward. "He abandoned you."
"Shut up."
"He was always meant to leave you behind."
"Shut up."
"You were never his equal. Never his brother. Just something to hold him back—"
"SHUT UP!"
Flames exploded from Aiden''s body—FWOOM!—a burning tempest tearing through the void.
The child''s face warped. The darkness screamed. The entire world burned—
And yet.
Through the fire. Through the destruction.
Aiden heard it.
A whisper.
Soft. Cold. Final.
"Then why are you still alone?"
And the flames—
—died.
Aiden gasped. Staggered back.
His fire. His fire was gone.
No.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
No, no, no, no—
This wasn''t right.
Aiden clenched his fists, trying to ignite a spark, trying to summon even the faintest ember—
Nothing.
The child took a step back, fading.
The dark returned.
The cold seeped into his bones.
And for the first time since he was a child—since the nights he spent shivering alone while Ivar slept soundly beside him—
Aiden felt small.
Powerless.
And utterly, completely alone.
Aiden stood in the abyss.
Alone.
The darkness wrapped around him, pressing into his lungs, sinking into his bones like a slow, creeping frost.
No fire.
No warmth.
Nothing.
His breath was ragged, uneven. His hands trembled as he tried—desperately—to summon a spark. Even the smallest flicker.
But the flames wouldn''t come.
For the first time in his life, the fire inside him was silent.
And then—
CRACK.
The void shifted.
The ground beneath him twisted and split apart, and suddenly, he was falling.
No—not falling.
Being pulled.
Downward. Deeper. Into something worse.
His body slammed into the ground—THUD!—but there was no pain. Just a hollow, empty weight pressing into his chest.
And then, he saw it.
A fire.
Weak. Small. Flickering.
Barely more than a dying ember, struggling against the suffocating dark.
Aiden''s breath caught in his throat.
That flame—he knew it.
It was his.
He staggered forward, legs heavy, reaching toward it. His fingers stretched out—so close, just a little more—
FWOOSH!
A wall of ice erupted before him, slamming into the ground and cutting him off.
Aiden flinched back, his heart pounding.
Then—footsteps.
Soft. Slow. Purposeful.
And from the darkness, stepping through the frost, came Ivar.
Or at least, something that looked like Ivar.
He was taller now. Sharper. No longer a boy, but something cold and unyielding, draped in a regal cloak of white and silver. His icy blue eyes, once distant but never cruel, now glowed with an eerie, lifeless shimmer.
Aiden took a shaky breath. "Ivar…?"
Ivar looked at him.
And then—
He reached out.
Not for Aiden.
For the fire.
CRACK!
The ice surged forward, swallowing the flames whole—extinguishing them completely.
The light vanished.
Aiden''s world went black.
And Ivar''s voice—soft, distant—echoed through the emptiness.
"You were never strong enough to stand beside me."
The words hit harder than any wound.
Aiden fell to his knees. His hands clawed at the frozen ground, his breath coming in sharp, shallow gasps.
"No…" He shook his head, his voice hoarse. "No, that''s not—"
"You always needed me, Aiden."
Ivar''s figure blurred.
The ice crept closer.
"But I never needed you."
The frost swallowed everything.
And Aiden screamed.
---
Aiden''s scream echoed into the abyss, swallowed whole by the encroaching frost. The ice climbed up his arms, spreading across his chest like chains of cold iron. His breath came in ragged gasps, each one weaker than the last.
His fire—his very essence—was gone.
Extinguished.
Erased.
He shivered violently, his body rejecting the unnatural cold. But worse than the ice was the silence.
Ivar was gone.
The only thing left was the void.
Was this it?
Was this the truth?
That without Ivar, he was nothing?
That his fire had only ever burned because his brother''s ice had given it form?
"You always needed me, Aiden."
Aiden''s fingers clenched into fists, his nails digging into his palms.
"But I never needed you."
His chest tightened, his throat dry.
He wanted to deny it. To scream, to fight, to burn.
But there was nothing left to burn.
His body sagged, the weight of the ice pressing him down. His head drooped, his breath slowing.
Maybe Ivar was right.
Maybe—
No.
A single ember flickered inside him.
Small. Weak.
But still there.
Still fighting.
His fingers twitched. His heartbeat steadied.
This wasn''t the first time he had been left behind.
It wasn''t the first time people had told him he was lesser.
Less disciplined.
Less controlled.
Less needed.
But had that ever stopped him?
Had he ever let someone else decide his worth?
His breath came out slow. Steady.
The ice tightened around his ribs, but this time, it felt lighter.
Aiden''s fingers twitched.
Then moved.
Then ignited.
FWOOOM!
A spark erupted in his palm.
Tiny. Faint.
But enough.
The ice hissed as the heat surged, small cracks forming in the frost. Aiden clenched his fist, the ember flaring brighter.
"I don''t need you to need me," he whispered.
The ember became a flicker.
"I don''t need to be half of something else."
The flicker became a flame.
"I am Aiden Pendrol."
FWOOSH!
Fire exploded outward, shattering the ice in a cascade of steam and cinders. The void itself seemed to recoil, the blackness thinning as the flames surged.
Aiden stood.
His hands burned with golden-red fire, his fire, unchained and roaring. The frost melted away, the darkness retreating like a dying storm.
The vision of Ivar—cold, untouchable, indifferent—shattered like glass.
And then—
The trial ended.
Aiden blinked.
The abyss was gone.
He stood back in the platform, his body drenched in sweat, his breath ragged. The flames still crackled around his hands, but they were steady now. Controlled.
His heart pounded, but not with fear.
With certainty.
Aiden exhaled,
Then he smirked.
"Guess I passed."
---
Meanwhile In Ivar trial
Darkness.
A deep, swallowing blackness, stretching endlessly like the abyss beneath a frozen lake. Ivar stood at the center of nothingness. Silent. Still.
Then—
FWOOSH.
A fire roared to life in the distance.
Warm. Familiar.
Aiden''s fire.
Ivar''s breath hitched as he took a step forward, but the ground beneath him—no, there was no ground. Just an endless void, an expanse of emptiness stretching in all directions.
And yet, they stood ahead.
People. A crowd. A sea of faces. Some familiar. Some unknown.
He saw his father, William Pendrol, standing tall with his arms crossed.
He saw the councilmen of the Titan Federation, their expressions unreadable.
He saw warriors, nobles, scholars—people who once acknowledged him, relied on him.
And at the center of them all—
Aiden.
Blazing. Laughing. Moving forward.
The people followed.
The world moved with him.
Ivar frowned, his chest tightening. He stepped forward—
But no one turned.
His voice caught in his throat. "Aiden—"
Aiden didn''t stop.
The crowd moved with him. Faster. Louder. Their cheers grew, their voices rising in praise.
"Firestorm Aiden!"
"The Titan''s Flame!"
"The hero of the Bound Cores!"
Ivar''s pulse quickened.
No. That wasn''t right.
It was Bound Cores. Plural. Two.
Two of them.
He stepped forward again. "Aiden!"
His voice was firm. Strong. But the sound barely left his lips before it vanished.
As if the void itself had swallowed it whole.
He reached out—
And his fingers passed through them.
Through Aiden.
Through the crowd.
Through everything.
Like mist.
Like he was never there.
Ivar''s breath turned shallow.
He looked down at his hands. Pale. Transparent.
"No."
A weight pressed against his chest. A slow, suffocating pressure.
He tried again—moving, speaking, existing.
Nothing.
No one noticed.
No one needed to.
The weight grew heavier.
And then—
The whispers came.
"What was his name again?"
"Ah, yes. The other one."
"Did he even do anything?"
"It was always Aiden leading the way."
"He''s not needed."
Ivar''s breath hitched.
He clenched his fists, but they barely felt solid. His skin flickered, thinning at the edges.
The whispers grew louder.
The crowd moved further.
Aiden burned brighter.
And Ivar—
Ivar faded.
His fingers crumbled like snow caught in the wind. His feet dissolved into frost. His body thinned, unraveling into nothingness.
No. No, no, no.
He tried to move. To stop it. To exist.
But the world had already moved on.
And it did not need him.
His chest squeezed. His vision blurred.
And then—
Nothing.
But even in that nothingness—
A thought.
A whisper of his own.
"Is that all I am?"
The void did not answer.
"A shadow?"
Silence.
"A footnote?"
Nothingness.
A pause. A breath.
And then—
Ivar''s fading hands clenched.
The first crack of ice shattered through the void.
SHHHHRRRKKK.
Thin veins of frost raced outward, creeping over the endless black. The abyss recoiled. The silence wavered.
Ivar straightened. His breath calmed. His heart steadied.
"I don''t need their eyes on me to exist."
More ice formed beneath his feet, solidifying into frozen ground.
"I don''t need their voices to know my worth."
The mist of his dissolving arms reformed—blue and sharp as a glacier''s edge.
"I am not just Aiden''s shadow."
The whispers howled, trying to consume him again.
But Ivar exhaled.
And the cold answered.
With a single step forward, the ice surged.
A storm of frost erupted, swallowing the blackness whole. The whispers shattered, the void cracked apart, and for the first time—
Ivar felt.
Not the absence of warmth. Not the silence of being overlooked.
But something solid. Something real.
Himself.
His own existence.
His own presence
The darkness was gone.
Ivar stood in the platform, his body steady, his hands clenched. The trial was over.
But something was different now.
His ice was colder. His stance firmer.
He had always been the calm one, the rational one, the quiet force behind the storm.
But that did not mean he was lesser.
He was Ivar Pendrol.
Not a shadow. Not the other one.
He was.
And that was enough.
---
To be continued.