Author's Notes: My first Kain Chapter. This begins after Legacy of Kain: Defiance.

Smoke: You know, you even make a good point when using such descriptions. You really do! I know how my writing seems really choppy, but I have a habit of getting really good motivation to write when it's obviously way past my usual time to go to sleep. So it's not my 'best', per se... this chapter is being revised even I was write 'this'. Thanks!

WillieHewes: I fixed the 'Anne Rice-y' problem, and actually made the picture a little clearer. I was eager to get on with the story when I first wrote the chapter, and didn't want to waste time on too many details. I know I'm not as good as most around here... I know for a fact that you probably revise and revise like a maniac. And yes, I guess you probably 'should' read Witch's Prophecy first... But I also lengthened the 'explanation' in Amanda's re-cap in Chapter 1 as well... I hope that makes it clearer for you.

LunaticPandora1: It is fans like you that make me so happy to be writing. I'm so glad you've been so patient with me! I wanna hug you, but, uh... that would be rather hard. Squeaks Anyway, I hope you like Kain!

--Kain--

In Nosgoth's darkest hour, I rose quickly to the threat of the Hylden's return. Any hesitation would have given them an advantage I could not afford to give them. I hadn't fully explored my power as Scion of Balance - but something told me I had all the time in this broken world to do so.

I could not simply wander Nosgoth and pillage and plunder every demon I laid sight upon. Gallivanting through time was also too dangerous for me to attempt. So instead, I searched the time-period, five-hundred years after Moebius had begun recruiting vampire hunters for his holy war, for Janos Audron's body. He was possessed by a Hylden demon just before I finally met Raziel underneath the Vampire Citadel. It was difficult work, considering Janos had wings and I did not. Portals, of course, were strewn about Nosgoth's landscape and I had but to access one of them to reach the other side of the continent. It was obvious that I should take up my seat at Scion of Balance. It would have been the logical thing to do.

I am not the most logical vampire.

In my wanderings, I often stopped and longed for the opportunity to right the things that I have done wrong. Perhaps if I had not cast Raziel into the Lake, the world as we knew it would have remained whole. Still, nothing could have stopped my past self from refusing the sacrifice and becoming the Scion of Balance. I was, and am still, through with casting my coin to the winds. It was not destiny, but Raziel's sacrifice that gave me the power to remake Nosgoth to its former glory.

Although it may not know its true life, for the scars of my treachery ran deeper than I could ever know, perhaps I could bring Nosgoth her vital breath that she had been missing for so long.

How could I not complete my role, after all that Raziel had given me?

It became painfully clear that I would not find Janos Audron easily. I had already wasted much time looking for him, so now I approached the remains of the Pillars. Here, in another time, I would have built the seat of my vampiric empire. Now I would have to give the Pillars back to them, which meant I would need to raise more sons. This task was hard enough, since I no longer possessed the Heart of Darkness. With it, I had been a vampire. I knew not if I still had the gift, or the strength, to do so once more.

The Pillars themselves stood like the broken backbone of a great and glorious beast. Their white stones had turned black, their jagged edges still hot from the energy it had taken for them to collapse. I stepped over the broken remains, feeling as though I treaded on the sacred grave of something enormous and lost, never to be regained again. There was a soft humming in the air, but there was little meaning in it that I could comprehend. I felt the ground beneath me tremble every few moments, as if the earth were protesting against this disaster.

I reached back to draw the Reaver. My claws instantly closed on it of their own volition, much sooner than I had intended. I drew the blade, and realized that the humming was coming out of the sword itself. It glowed along the entire serpentine length of it. This phenomenon was not new to me. It often began to glow when the Hylden were close.

"What is it, Raziel?" I murmured softly, my voice purring on the name. "Do you feel something close by?" I had often begun referring to the sword as himself, merely because I refused to see it as a mere object, or a tool. I wondered how he felt to be inside of it, trapped in this nearly six foot length of steel and vampiric sorcery.

The sword did not, by any means, provide a feasible answer. Instead I turned, surveying the Pillars once more. I approached the Pillar of Balance slowly, gazing up at it. There was an ominous crack that still followed straight up through it, toward the broken peak where it had fallen. In time, this cracked piece would also fall and become the perfect place to craft a egotistical vampire's throne.

"What am I to do, eh?" I sighed. How the hell was I supposed to know how to fix the Pillars? Their damage was done. Was I to go and fetch every meandering shard of Pillar-stone and glue them together again with mortar?

Suddenly I felt the Reaver - Raziel - pull me. He was guiding me closer to the Balance Pillar. And then the blade was suddenly yanked out of my grasp to the point of making me stumble. I was angry, of course - the Reaver running away from me is something I hadn't planned on. It didn't go far. It slipped easily into the crack in the Balance Pillar. The sight appalled me, as a bright line of white light seemed to flash upward along the crack.

The other Pillars seemed to follow the example. Light seemed to implode from the very air, striking the stone and making the atmosphere ring with several notes, as though great bells had all been struck. I thought the chord was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.

Then the Pillars started to glow.

I stood back, my body savagely attacked by the constantly echoing din of the bells. The Pillars were singing, and I had but to relinquish my body to their eternal song. The Reaver made this possible - Raziel was the orchestrator of this wonderous event, and all of my hopes rested upon him.

The horizon was on fire. I was momentarily blinded, almost terrified that the sun was rising and it's rays would harm me. It burned my eyes, but the rest of me was untouched. I watched as the Pillars strengthened. I was enthralled to the point of gaping my mouth slightly, watching as the shadows of the structures lengthened. They were taller, almost lost in the blueness of the sky.

The Pillars were, for lack of a better term, 'a little better'. I approached to reclaim the Reaver, pulling it free with ease. I smiled a little, and a relief filled me, warming me more than the ethereal spilling down on me. The Pillar of Balance appeared better off than the others, and its shadow had already fallen across me like a comforting omen of good fortune.

This last was the best certainty I had felt in a long time. But there was still the question of the Hylden, and whether or not the Binding would renew itself.

I turned away from the structures, only for a moment. I was reeling from the sight I had witnessed. Very few things in my life had been so... involving. My emotions were as tumultous as the whole wretched history that Raziel and I had prevented. (I am still inclined to give him most of the credit, even if I am a heartless, egostical son of a bitch.)

A portal suddenly came to my attention. It was blatantly obvious, sitting in the midst of the wreckage, and spinning like a small galaxy. At first it was beyond my line of sight, being flat like a mirror. It was only visible from one sid as well. I approached it, sheathing the Reaver as I went. I was naturally leary. I didn't blindly explore things without good reason. Yet I had very little choice in the matter. Before I knew it, I was thrown off of my feet, and tumbled headlong into the swirling vortex.

Raziel obviously had other plans.

Author's Notes: I had to do something that would ensure Nosgoth's safety -- at least for awhile. This does not mean that it will last. Kain will eventually be inclined to return... Ahem, ahem But for now, Amanda has to borrow him. She didn't do it this time, though. Raziel's really quite useful as a sharp, pointy object that looks like the embodiment of scariness.