The Four and The Fire of Morning by Kvitan Shevchuk

Once, in the Silver Archipelago, on the Island of the Third Bell,

there stood an old lighthouse. At its very heart burned the Fire of Morning – a living spark which, according to legend, had been carried into this world by the stars themselves. It did not merely shine. It kept at bay the Black Tide – a darkness from the depths that rose from the sea once every hundred years and drowned not houses, but human hearts. Under its breath, people grew suspicious and cruel, betrayed their friends.

That year, when the Tide had begun to creep toward the shores, Four of Them came together by the lighthouse.

Elarian Windwhirl, the elf-pirate, was the kind of person who walked straight toward the places others were afraid even to look at. He knew how to find a way through and reefs, and other people’s secrets. Morvein Shadowblood wielded dark magic. People feared him before he even had the chance to speak. But Elarian was the one who knew what Morvein was truly like: loyal, quiet, and terribly lonely. They were more than friends, they were the closest thing either of them had to family in that salty, vicious world. There was also Saelor Estenvale, a healer and mage-cleric. He mended not only bodies, but the things that broke much, much deeper than flesh. And finally, Tiaren Seahearth, master of water: calm, beautiful, flawless. 

When the Black Tide drew nearer, the four set out for the lighthouse, for only the Fire of Morning could hold the darkness back. But that night, Elarian vanished.

They found him beneath the cliffs by the sea – already dead. Traces of dark magic remained on the stones.

The continent exploded like a disturbed hive. Everyone who had known Elarian for years believed the worst at once: that Morvein had killed him. Who else could it have been? Who else possessed such power? Who else had been so close? And is not the cruelest kind of evil always the one that comes from the person you trusted most?

Morvein was thrown into prison. He barely tried to defend himself. Perhaps because he knew that people are always far more willing to believe a frightening story when it already contains a convenient monster.

Saelor refused to believe in his guilt until the very end. But his voice drowned in the tide of fear around him. Their company fell apart. Tiaren vanished into his sea-bound wanderings, Saelor withdrew into the hospitals of the monasteries, and Morvein rotted away in a tower cell with a view of the cold sea he had once looked upon beside his dearest friend.

Many years passed. And only when the Black Tide rose again did the truth rise with it.

Tiaren returned to the lighthouse. He no longer bothered to hide. It was he who had killed Elarian that night, because he had wanted to seize the Fire of Morning and bend it to his own will. He believed light was not meant to be shared – it was meant to be possessed. And Elarian had learned the truth and stood in his way.

Saelor freed Morvein, and the three of them: the healer, the mage unjustly broken by the world, and the memory of their dead friend between them – came to face Tiaren in the heart of the lighthouse.

They say that when Morvein touched the Fire of Morning, it it illuminated his darkness it illuminated it from within. And then everyone saw the simple truth at last: not everything dark is evil, and not everything bright is worthy of trust. Tiaren perished in the waves he had once believed his own, undone by the Fire for which he had treacherously betrayed his companion. The Black Tide retreated. And Morvein’s name was finally cleared.

Because it is better to be yourself than to be dead inside from living in fear of others. All good things require time. And even in the darkest of times, light prevails, but often only because someone finds the strength to believe in it until the very end.