Demon Law : Lost Isle Book 1

Lost and Found

Ayame -

“Passion, it lies in all of us…..

Sleeping

Waiting

And though unwanted…

Unbidden

*It will stir……. *

*Open its jaws and howl….. *

Passion rules us all……” – Joss Whedon

I always wondered why the greats were so tragic. How the most deeply stirring, if not on point, poets were always so sad. Love… It was supposed to be the most amazing thing in the world. The only force that could defy all others. Reshape and redefine the laws; written and imposed alike.

Shakespeare, Whedon, Neruda… Obscure, but favorites of mine. Back when I was a girl who couldn’t wait to grow up. Just a silly girl, who couldn’t wait to fall in love…

I think everyone has heard the expression: Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to.

I either missed or ignored that memo.

Rolled my eyes at the popular phrase: You can’t handle the truth.

Like most life lessons, neither applied to me until they did.

I treated poetry like gems. Information like currency. Secrets like the finest treasure—not to trade, but to hoard in a cave of wonders that enriched my soul.

Even as a child I couldn’t, not know.

Good. Bad. Unsettling.

It didn’t matter. I needed to be let in on those secrets. Craved to understand with such obsession that it landed me on yet another Earthworld expression:

Curiosity killed the cat.

Oh, I may be alive and well—better than I could ever imagine being—considering I’ll never see my home. My family. Or the girl who believed in fairytales, ever again.

My father may have seemed pragmatic. Utterly cold to the rest, but Syvern was the first reason I had to believe in those life-changing tales. The one who found me. Saved me. Taught and prepared me long before I knew my life as a spoiled princess on Earth would be so short-lived.

Patient as he was, even Syvern would get frustrated.

He’d tell me, “Forget what you think you know, and pay attention to what actually is.”

Advice I took—but not until it was too late to apply it.

On the Isle, they say that the long night comes for us all. What they neglect to mention is that no one survives it. None of us are the same on the other side of war, tribulation, or even something as simple as a life lesson. The long night is not defined by time.

It’s simply an event that doesn’t allow us to be who we once were.

And when my sun set, I didn’t believe it would ever rise again. Let alone, in the only place that guaranteed I’d never see or hold the people who made me who I was again…

They say every story begins with a spark.

Not the kind that warms or guides—but the kind that ignites. Searing through myth and memory, fading echoes of time. Leaving emptiness where there once was knowledge. Faith replacing fact. Questions that reverberate through all that is, unable to reach what once was or might have been.

They say that it is the edge of the world. The rim of the galaxy where the Hollow still exists. The primordial void where all life began and must go to end. But what also exists on that frayed edge—the fabric of existence—is a place where not even the boldest of souls dare tread.

At the end and the edge, is a place. A forgotten corridor that neither time nor condemnation can erase.

The Isle.

The Far Shore.

The Last Stop of the Cosmos.

Once a haven. An honored gathering place. Now a curse. An inescapable prison where the first war between gods and men was waged.

Some claim it was the Originals who ignited it. Others say it was the wrath of primordial gods being overcome. No one who now lives was there to remember it, but my father speaks of this time like it is memory. Like it is fact—foundation and still poetry—that he’s kept about the first evil that descended.

And more still, champions who gathered from across the cosmos and rose to defeat it.

The Veyorn — Darkling Elves of the Mountains. North Lords and the origin of all Vampyric races. Men who needed only blood to survive the lifeless and lightless caverns of the darkest realms.

The Fairies — Women of light. Of vibrancy and vitality. They were the essence of beauty itself, and the foundation of every whispering version of the word Witch. Their communion with nature gave them the ability to wield the elements like no other race before or since.

The Thern — Emperors of the East. Masters of war. The first known shapeshifters of the universe. Beings who could take any form and who had the ability to withstand any injury, ensuring victory no matter how long or far they had to go to achieve it.

Finally, the Sages — Animals with the wisdom of ages. Beasts who shared a singular mind and recalled their past lives. A bone-chilling omnipotence that allowed them to read the minds of others as well as share with their brethren. Humans claim that it is elephants who never forget—but it is the Sages who taught the first humans to read the stars. Who encouraged them to sing.

The Four, or Champions of Old, warred with the first evil for many centuries.

Others came and went, but they—they did not know the meaning of the word defeat. Would not abandon the Earth to darkness that was bent on consuming it. For all knew, no matter their own world or differences, that the Primes would not stop. That knowledge was universal.

If they failed, it wasn’t just their lives they sacrificed. Their peoples would be defenseless if even one Champion dared forfeit.

This was not a battle for one world, but every life, under the light of Solsus the sun and Lumina the moon.

Whether it was a curse by the primordial gods who envied their love, or a choice by Luminera herself, none know. Only that in her silver rays was a promise—that the Champions of Sol would not walk the dark hours alone. She could not aid her Champions, only reveal what lingered and waited for them in the shadow.

In time, each original would have their own armies. Their own followers, taught by the gods the sun and moon made. But before that could happen, the Champions were tested. Destruction brought grief they had known. Bred an evil so malicious it was beyond imagining.

The only solution was equally unfathomable. Unforgivable. Because the only way to truly end the Devils was to complete their enemies. To end all life, and cut off their food supply. The Fairies—the most compassionate and connected of all beings—begged for another way.

That is when Lumina shared her wisdom. Her light. The first vision between the Ancients and mortals.

It was the moon’s will to sever the First Shore from the Mainland—as she herself separated from Solsus—to give the Champions a chance. To offer hope in the darkest hours of the longest nights that took so many. When the Fairies shared their plan, some stood. Others ran.

Taking the magic and knowledge they passed to create their own havens—protected realms that could not be touched by their enemy or man. Only the Sages, with their ability to read minds and intentions, believed the Fairy priestess.

They were able to see the will of the Ancients. Believed so much that they offered their lives—their very souls—to complete the seal that Lumina had given. Eternally dividing the First Shore from the Mainland. Separating the evil from the rest of the cosmos and the planet we now call Earth.

In the wake of the new world, lines were drawn and laws were made, but desperation…

It brings many things. The most common, and unfortunate, consequence is stupidity.

It was only by grace, if not sacrifice, that the Champions were able to isolate the great threat as the First Shore was divided over and again.

Each fracture led to the risk of their great sacrifice being in vain. So, with the Ancients’ blessing, the Champions gathered once again. Creating a true prison that none could enter, and that none could leave.

Isolating the Isle and ending the hope that they could ever return home again.

But even gods fade. Stars die. And evil waits. For every rule, there is an exception. For every law, a balance that must be maintained. No matter how songs have faded from myth, to legend, into the forgotten…

The Isle remembers.

And the Ancients of Light are as patient as the sinister masters of the dark.

And nature—

Nature will always have its way…

2: Hiro - Being Zen