23. Legend of the Hero

“Miss Lilith, before I tell my story, may I ask you something?” Annie’s gaze was steady as a river stone, her voice taut like a drawn bow.

“Go on,” Lilith said, nodding like a leaf settling on water, inviting the question to land.

“I want to know—what is a Hero to you?”

Hero.

What is a Hero?

The word rang like a bell in fog. Lilith asked her own heart first, a hand pressed to a door she hadn’t opened. She had never faced this question.

She was a summoned otherworlder, a reed plucked by unseen hands. Before she even saw the land’s true face, she was pushed to raise a blade and sweep away fiends, given the name Hero like a brand in fire.

She had no time to ponder. The pressure was a mountain on her shoulders. The kingdom’s land was gnawed ragged by the Taint, and tens of thousands waited like lanterns in a storm.

They weren’t waiting for a holy rescue. They were simply waiting for someone to bring them—

Release. A clean dusk. A last snowfall.

Lilith couldn’t bear to watch the kingdom’s people suffer under the rampage of the Taint, that crawling mire. Basic human empathy was a red thread that pulled her forward. She cut a path all the way to the Demon King’s castle and severed the lump of Taint-twisted flesh like hacking a canker from a tree.

She remembered the sword-shaped sigil on the back of her right hand, its glow gone like an ember gone cold. Since stepping into this strange world, she had worn the mantle of Hero like armor. Yet this little dragon had never once asked what that mantle meant.

“In Vampire legends,” Annie said, eyes closed like a prayer, “a Hero carries the weight of everyone’s wishes. He lifts the Holy Blade high, then drives it into the Black Sun that shrouds Spuiset. But I keep feeling—it’s not that simple.” Her tone was level as still water, but Lilith heard a hush of longing in it like wind in pines.

“Think about it. There should only be one Hero, right? There’s only one Holy Blade. But this continent is vast as a sea. No matter how mighty a Hero is, he can’t fix everything.” Annie smiled, a thin crescent like a moon through clouds. Lilith didn’t find it funny; the smile felt brittle, like ice on a river.

“Black Sun Devouring, Moonswallow Mist, and Dust of Death stain the west like three storms. In the east, the Taint rages across half the land like a wildfire. Aside from humans fighting tooth and nail and dragons wheeling in the sky, no other race dares draw near. In the north, the ice fields used to bring news each year of battles with spirits, like auroras colliding. In the southern sea, something stirs, like a whale turning deep. If one Hero must face all that, it’s just not possible.”

Lilith dipped her chin, a candle-flame nod. She wasn’t sure there really was only one Hero in this world. If there was, the burden was a boulder on a reed boat. Even dying on her feet, she could never clear it all.

“So I think a Hero shouldn’t be just someone with overwhelming power,” Annie said, voice soft as felt and sure as iron. “A Hero is someone who gathers the faith of those around them like hands around a fire. It’s not only the one who pierces the Black Sun with the Holy Blade. The one who holds the prayers of all Vampires is a Hero too. If we think like that, every race can have a Hero of its own. Then all the world’s disasters won’t sit in the dark and wait for one person.”

Annie pressed her left hand to her chest, lids half lowered like an altar lamp. “Even without the Hero’s sword, anyone who steps forward to save others can be called a Hero.”

“That makes being a Hero sound easy,” Lilith said with a crooked smile, a spark dancing on the edge of ash. By Annie’s rules, anyone could wear the name.

“Let it be easy,” Annie said, smiling with the dusk in her eyes. “At least everyone gets the thought planted like a seed.” Her gaze dimmed, a cloud crossing the sun. “Just don’t let them all end up like him…”

Lilith lifted a brow. Heavy news was coming, like thunder stalking the ridge.

“Let me start with my own story.” Annie cleared her throat, the sound small as a pebble in a pond. She looked down at the table’s grain like rings in an old tree. Her fingers interlaced until the knuckles stood out like pale stones. “After I was born, I was assigned to Hero Street. I grew up in a family you could call well-off.”

“Our neighbors were the poorest on the street, living month to month on ration blood bags like rain in a drought. Not because they were lazy. It was just a couple at first. The man left with an expedition team and never came back. The house became a widow’s lantern. Before any word of his death arrived, she brought home a child. She couldn’t send him back, so she raised him alone, one bowl at a time.”

“They lived hard but stayed kind, like grass in wind. Officials working in the halls gave them extra blood rations each month, and the rest of the street lent hands like ropes from every window.”

“We lived next door. I was about the boy’s age. Bit by bit, we ran together like two kites on the same wind.”

“His name was Joe. He was six months older.”

“When we were little, I gave him a picture book. It told how a Hero led the people of Spuiset to strike down the Black Sun, like sunrise cutting fog. I didn’t like it. The Hero in the book was too full of himself, strutting like a rooster with the Holy Blade. He thought he was invincible. He only woke up after losing his childhood sweetheart, like a bell rung too late. I figured a boy might like that sort of tale, so I gave it to him.”

What kind of picture book is that, so bleak, Lilith muttered inside, the thought a spark that didn’t jump to her tongue.

“Joe loved it. He wouldn’t put it down, like a sailor clinging to a compass. Every day he told me he’d become a Hero. He’d pierce the Black Sun like the one in the story, so Vampires wouldn’t have to be buried underground anymore.” Annie snorted, then broke into a giggle she tried to catch with her hand, laughter like silver bells before it faded. “He was a dummy and hated reading. He didn’t know that outside Morris, Vampires don’t bury themselves in the dirt.”

“I told him the first step to being a Hero was to join an expedition team. Go once around and face the Black Sun’s terror, then talk about the rest. Joe trusted me. He trained like a wolf in winter and fought for it. Last year, he finally made it.”

“He came to me that day waving the acceptance letter like a banner in wind. I was proud; my heart was a drum. Only I knew how much it had cost him. We cooked a feast together, steam rising like clouds. I even snuck one of Dad’s treasured bottles, dust soft as pollen on the glass. It was the first time we drank. Joe clearly overdid it. He barely ate before sleep took him like a tide.”

“That was the last time I saw him laugh. I was so stupid. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have let him go with the expedition.” Annie’s head bowed; her eyes drifted like smoke. Regret pooled between her words like rain in ruts.

“Joe left with the team the next day. They were gone a long time, like a season with no birds. So long we thought they’d gone silent for good. So long his mother went mad with worry, like a string snapped. So long the people of Hero Street almost forgot him, like a name worn off a stone. Then one day, Joe came back. A full-strength expedition had left, and only he returned, a lone shadow at noon.”

“After that, Joe shut himself in, a door barred against daylight. Princess Eliza ordered every expedition halted. Morris was sealed like a city under an iron lid.”

“Miss Lilith, would you speak with Joe?” Annie’s voice trembled like a thin flame in wind. “I want to know what he went through to become what he is now. Please.”

Lilith held the Vampire girl’s earnest gaze. Silence stretched like a string.

“Let me think about it.”