The Rider of the Extinguished Flame

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The wind howled through the bare branches as night cast its cloak over the forest. Under the light of the full moon, he appeared—a rider described in legends for centuries. His steed, pale as the bones of the earth, paced one foot after the other, the metal clang of its eroded armor echoing in time. No one spoke his name, but all called him the Rider of the Extinguished Flame. Once, he was a guardian of the borderlands, a knight of unparalleled loyalty, whose sword rested beside the fire that guarded the boundary between life and death. This fire, the ancients said, was older than the stars, and as long as it burned, shadows would not invade the world. But pride and doubt gnawed at him. He believed fire was a shackle that robbed people of their freedom to shape their own time. On that night no one wanted to forget, he let the fire go out—some say out of arrogance, others out of despair. No one knows for sure. But from that hour on, only a faint remnant burned in his chest, a flame that both condemned him and kept him alive. His body transformed. Flesh and skin faded until only bone remained, entwined by black vines that grew from the earth itself and never let go. Every step his horse took lit lanterns along the way, as if remembering his ancient vow. Their light was golden, yet cold, and they cast shadows that moved in the night as if they had a life of their own. It is said that those who meet the rider do not first hear the clatter of hooves, but the voices of those under his spell. Whispered names, broken promises, screams that never faded away. And when he pauses, as he sometimes did, to pause beneath the moon's sickly silver disk, the earth opens beneath his feet. One could see the glow of the extinguished flame that still stirred in his breast, flickering like the last ember in an abandoned hearth. Yet the most terrifying thing about his appearance was not the emptiness in his eyes, but the memory he awakened in others. For everyone who met him saw in the flickering light not only his face, but also what he himself had lost. A father saw the son he had failed to protect. A mother heard the laughter of her child, long since silenced. The rider brought no hope, only reflections that cut sharper than any sword. That night, however, a figure stood by the wayside. A wanderer, young and foolish enough not to shy away from the forbidden. The rider stopped, lifted his skull, and spoke for the first time in centuries. His voice was the crunch of stones under ice. "What do you seek here, where even time has avoided me?" The wanderer trembled, but he answered: "A flame to lead me back." Then the rider slowly lowered his head.