This is the English version of the novel Huyết Dạ Trường Ca.
I'm Vietnamese and not fluent in English, so please forgive any mistakes or awkward phrasing.
Thank you for your understanding.
Silver moonlight spread across the hilltop where Talion and Liora stood silently, eyes fixed on the resting camp where Lioren was asleep. The atmosphere was as quiet as a grave. Tonight, the two souls once thought unshakable were now bound tightly by their own pasts.
"He's... too much like me." – Talion whispered, as if speaking to the night wind. His voice was hoarse, each word dropping like a boulder pressing down on the heart.
Liora didn't answer. She sat hugging her knees, eyes blank as she stared at the dying fire. The space between them was no longer silent – it was heavy with all that had never been said.
---
Years ago...
Talion, then a young warrior, proud like the first lightning bolt tearing through the battlefield skies. The people of Orinth revered him as a symbol of justice. But on the night he first awakened his lightning power, he lost everything.
A thunderous explosion like heaven and earth splitting apart. Lightning speared down from the pitch-black sky, tearing rooftops, splitting the dirt road. Flames erupted from the bolts, consuming every memory in the village – his parents, and the little brother who used to call him "hero."
The next morning, as bodies still smoked, Talion knelt in the ashes, silently picking up the charred wooden bracelet of his brother. His hands trembled as he touched it – not from cold, but from guilt sharpened into a dagger buried deep in his chest.
---
And Liora...
She had no memory of her mother's first embrace. On the night she was born, the sky erupted with unnatural lightning. They said a bolt struck the house, killing her mother in labor. They said it was Liora's first cry that summoned the strike. She grew up under eyes of suspicion, whispers behind her back:
"The child of thunder... a cursed omen."
From a young age, she lived in cold stares, isolation, and self-loathing. But instead of breaking, she forged it into icy reason. Liora began studying magic not to help others – but to control. So no one could ever call her "cursed" again.
---
Back to the present
Talion held the storm blade before him. His hand trembled, not out of fear – but because wounds from the past never truly heal. "I protect Lioren... not because I believe he's a hero," he said softly, "but because I'm afraid... that without someone by his side, he'll become me."
Liora nodded slightly. "And so do I. Not out of pity, but because I see myself... in his eyes. The way he looks at fire – like he wants to love it, but fears himself."
They sat in silence for a long time.
"Lioren..." – Talion looked into the dark. "He may become the thing I've feared the most. But if possible, this time – may lightning protect, not destroy."
---
A moonless night. Lioren sat against a cold rock wall. No sound. Not a single star. Only his own breathing – and the voices slowly seeping up from within.
The voice of Lightning came first, gentle, like an older brother. But behind its calm, lurked a savage ecstasy:
> "Do you remember... the smell of burning flesh, Lioren? When my finger touched that mercenary in the southern woods... his blood boiled, his eyes turned white, and then... BOOM – his skull burst like a cracked melon.
You called it defending justice – I call it... purity.
Nothing is cleaner than a charred corpse."
Lioren shuddered. He once thought he only used lightning for self-defense.
The voice of Ice slithered in next – feminine, refined, smooth like a noblewoman. But each word carried the sound of cracking and muffled sobs:
> "Lioren... humans are so beautiful when they stop breathing in the cold.
They tremble like late autumn leaves, their eyes pleading, lips cracked and purple, their final breath crystallized into mist... I especially love that moment – when despair turns to stone.
I don't freeze them – I release them."
Lioren clutched his head. "Shut up… you're not like this…"
Earth didn't come with a voice. It rumbled – like stone grinding deep within a cavern. Deep, heavy, and cold like a coffin:
> "No one knows the true feeling of severance, Lioren. But I do.
When I pull the ground from under their feet – CRACK! – bones snap, lungs rupture, they gasp beneath the soil, clawing at roots, scraping stone… hopeless.
And I bury them deeper. Flesh into earth. Blood into earth. Memory into earth.
You call me endurance? No, I am the living tomb."
> "You thought I was the foundation of morality? No, I am the deepest layer of human nature – the desire to bury every evil and call it stability."
Lioren screamed, his eyes bloodshot. He tried chanting a calming spell. But the shivers wouldn't stop. The images they showed were too real. Too vivid. As if... he had done those things.
Fire remained silent. Shackled. Locked in his chest, trembling.
> "Why..." – Lioren whispered – "Why do I fear... fire, yet allow these things to dwell inside my mind?"
No answer came. Only soft laughter, echoing from all three elements – light as wind... but sinking his reason, little by little.