Amethyst Ring
Even though years passed, the memories still haunted him thick with regret. At the time, it was a simple promise. Just a simple promise: to break the pact when he had no more need to call upon it. How could he have known that it would hit him this hard...?
It was the ring. The Amethyst Pact Ring, with swirling depths of purple so deep, one felt he could fall into it. But most importantly, it was the object that separated him from the darkness…
Klarth sighed deeply with remorse. He couldn't think of any way to convince the darkness to return to him. It had been a sweet, careless pull, yet it was all that was needed to give him an eternal addiction to its darkness. There had been so many moments in the dark that never left him, and they haunted him every night. Most of it was sweet, but with the sweet came the repugnant. Klarth remembered his enjoyment of his dark thoughts and what they were about. He remembered the joy of slaying enemies, of feeling his blood running with infinite speed through his body. He remembered the feeling of the enemies' blood against his skin, drenching his clothes. He remembered darkness, and how sweet it felt…
Try as he might, he could not release himself from the darkness. Try as he might, he could not despair over what he has done; what he is doing. All he felt was the deep need to return to the darkness that he once abandoned.
No wonder everyone said Shadow was the hardest summon to master. Fighting against the darkness of humanity was…impossibly despairing.
Klarth walked aimlessly around his hometown. There was no need to return to his house just yet. It was night, everyone was asleep, and dawn will not arrive to awaken the dead for another few hours. Awaken the dead… he was slowly losing his sanity, and he knew it. Not that he was surprised; no, far from it. This was the normal routine for the ones who summon Shadow—overconfidence, addiction, insanity, death. There was a life to be lived for him, but he was not able to live it. There was the woman that he loved, whom he wanted to marry. There were his students, who wished to learn eagerly. There was his half-elf friend, who wished him to visit impatiently. There was a life for him, but no motivation to live it. He needed the darkness to live on…or he was to break away from it…there was no hope for that. No hope at all…
Klarth sighed once more. Hope, as he remembered, is a thing with feathers. Hope then, was not for him. Hope…was for Arche, for Mint, for people who can imagine flight. He was able to do so once, but no longer. Infinite darkness had taken over his heart…
A noise broke out from the distance. He didn't know from where, so he looked up. This was the first time since he had done so since returned. He saw stars—diamonds—in the black sky. Shining so brightly, they lit the night, along with their elder sibling the moon. Diamonds—Origin. Moon—Luna…
Suddenly, he realized the solution.