TRIGGER WARNING: I have recently rated this story mature because of this chapter. Thoughts of death and wanting to die are stated repeatedly.

Revenge
Is his name
This is no man
An empty tomb
What happens now?
There's no one left

When had he stopped shaking? Didn't he feel the cold? With each step he took...why couldn't he feel them? He couldn't even remember why he left the shelter in the first place. Dov would get lonely if he wasn't there.

Even if Dov was now buried in a shallow grave of snow and ice. He had the bloodied fingertips to prove it.

And what was this dread? Did he want to live or die? Nothing awaits him here, but nor does anyone there. He had lost everything; his home, his people, his family.

His hope.

Ah. That was the feeling. He had lost hope. Wandering in the plains alone, looking for a gate to a pointless freedom. Why had he wanted to leave? To die in the arms of his family, or to die alone. That was his choice. It felt so simple, as all that was left for him was death. Now, it was a fate to suffer alone.

If only...if only...

"Pyrilor!"

The winds howled around him mercilessly, sweeping snow and ice into his eyes as a new blizzard roared. The bite of the cold stung his cheeks. His vision blurred and watered.

"Pyrilor!" he cried once again. "Why did you leave us? Are we not your people whom you cared for? Were you so unhappy with us that you abandoned us? Leaving us, only for the Tir to reap the spoils of war? Answer me!"

Bitter tears dried against his skin as the wind whipped around harder.

"Please..." he sobbed. "Please, just give me an answer as to why you allowed this to happen...what did we do to deserve this? Why...why have you taken everything from me? My parents, my brother...what are you punishing me for!"

He sank to his knees as his wails continued to go unanswered. There was no one there. No person in sight, and no god to hear him. Unable to keep himself upright any longer, his arms gave out; his head hitting the sharp snow beneath him. He curled around the lantern, blue embers barely glowing within, as it was his last source of comfort. There is nothing left. His lips trembled as he hoarsely whispered, "End my suffering here."

The winds continued to howl mournfully, brutally, and unforgivingly as the last of his consciousness left him.

And oh, how he wished it remained that way.

The first few times he awoke became blended together in one blur of color. His body ached terribly as it warmed gradually. It was as if pins and needles were driving over every inch of his body. Everywhere except his hands, feet, and parts of his face.

As time moved forward, he was aware of someone else there. Sometimes he saw them moving around, while other times they sat next to him. Sometimes they brought him water or spooned broth into his mouth. He didn't know why he drank any of it. Why live when there was nothing left? He didn't know how long it had been when his head was clear enough to finally take in his surroundings.

The first thing he was conscious of was the smooth stone ceilings above him. He didn't think he was asleep a few moments prior, so he must have been staring at it. It wasn't very high, but it wasn't too low either, made of a single, curved slab of grey stone. It was the same sort of stone on his right where the bed was pushed against the wall. Am I...in a cave? He shifted his head to the left to get a clear look at the room but stopped short as he jerked upright. He didn't know where he got the strength to sit up in the first place, but he was in a bed, and it was warm. Was he—did he somehow make it to Brivvala?

He moved to get out of the bed when he realized two more things. One, he had no shirt on, and the pants he wore now were not the ones he had before. It was only a thick blanket that covered him when he was lying down. He would have been more concerned that someone had undressed him if it weren't for the fact he couldn't feel his hands or feet, and that brought him to his second, terrifying realization.

He stared at his hands as he slowly moved his fingers; gripping them into a fist and unfurling them. They weren't as responsive as before, even as he remembered them going numb. He couldn't feel anything from them. Not the movement, nor the touch. It was as if they weren't there in the first place, and he was merely looking at a hallucination. He would have thought they were, but he quickly found that they were real as he used them to pull the blanket up, revealing his feet. His feet were the same as his hands; sluggish movements, but he found he could feel the slight pressure of the mattress against his heels. There were thick bandages wrapped around his wrists and ankles, and he was too afraid to see what was underneath. He had a feeling he knew, however. A horrible, sinking feeling, but he knew these hands were not his.

He took a deep breath, trying to collect his thoughts. Everything that had happened in these few months...from their god leaving, the realm freezing, the loss of his parents—

The loss of his brother.

Tears stung his eyes, and he watched them drip onto his hands. Hands he couldn't feel, even as he gripped the blanket tightly. He could hear his knuckles cracking from the pressure, or perhaps those were his bones breaking. Not that he cared about hands that didn't belong to him. He couldn't care about anything. Why was he alive?

He would have torn the blanket in half if it weren't for old, withered hands being placed gently over his. In an instant, he released the fabric and whipped his head to the side, coming face to face with the compassionate expression of an elderly woman.

"What grieves you, child?" she asked, carefully unfurling his hands further. "I found you unconscious in the snow. You could have died."

"And you should have let me," he bit out. Without another thought or any regard to his health, he flung the covers back and swung his legs off the side of the bed. He swiftly stood to his feet, stumbling forward and barely managing to catch himself by the side table. Everything in him screamed that something was wrong. He could barely feel his feet, and more awful cracking accompanied his grip on the table. The woman was quick to pull his hand free, but he was already seething. "What makes you think I want to live at all? There's nothing here! Not my home, not my family—Do you think I was just some idiot wandering in the snow for the fun of it?"

Why did I leave him? Don't I want to die?

Tears were streaming freely down his face, and he let them. He didn't know why he was still running. He didn't even know what he was running to. There wasn't a scenario in his mind where he was left alone; it was always him and his brother.

"I want him back," he sobbed, leaning into the woman's embrace as she gently pulled his head down to rest on her shoulder, stroking his hair calmly as she comforted him. "I want them all back."

"Then grieve, child," she said. Her voice sounded suspiciously wobbly, but he was in no condition to fully realize why. "It's alright to grieve for something like this. You have lost so much."

So he did. He screamed, he cried, he begged. Anything to make the pain he felt disappear. It never did; not completely. It was a feeling he carried with him for the rest of his life, but at that moment, he wept bitterly.

He woke up again sometime after with his mouth dry and his throat sore. This time, he faced the room itself instead of the ceiling. For the first time since he had been there, he took a good look at his surroundings.

The first thing he was met with was the warm glow of a lively fire. It was lit further into the wall where he assumed a chimney carried the smoke upwards. A cooking pot stood over it as the woman stirred its contents idly. Moving past that, his eyes drifted over to where a heavy wooden door sat, bolted to the stone wall of the cave. Other items and furniture were scattered around, cooking utensils and a table with chairs, but he found them insignificant. His lantern, now vacant of a blue flame, sat on the side table while his father's sword rested beside it.

Slowly he pushed himself up onto his elbow, giving his hand an unsettled look. While he began feeling a bit more, it was as if he wore a thick glove. He vaguely noted that he now wore his shirt, freshly washed. His movement must have alerted the woman as he soon found a cup of water held in front of him.

"Drink it slowly," she instructed, making sure he gripped the cup correctly before drawing away. "Are you hungry?"

He gave a reluctant nod. "Yes."

No, he wasn't, but he knew he had to eat at some point. He survived, after all, no matter how much he despised it. He survived the invasion, the journey, and the Neverdawn Plains. Perhaps the gods saw him as their jester and kept him alive to see him suffer further.

She gave him a gentle smile and a nod of approval as he returned to the pot, grabbing a bowl on the way. Meanwhile, he drank the contents of the cup. It wasn't just water as he expected; something sweet was added in. Honey? Nonetheless, he found it pleasant. He awkwardly set the cup aside when she returned, holding a bowl full of rice porridge.

"Can you hold this?"

He scowled at the question, but he knew why she asked. "So this has something to do with you," he accused instead, stubbornly taking the bowl—albeit nearly spilling it as he fumbled at first.

"Your hands and feet were already too far gone by the time I found you, so I gave you ones I thought would match you best, even as you grew older." She sat on the edge of the bed to help him adjust his grip on the spoon. "I'm sure you've noticed how you're slowly regaining feeling in them, but I'm afraid you won't regain more than that."

"Where...did they come from?" He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer, however.

It seemed she had read his mind, and she replied simply, "They won't be missing them."

He gave a sardonic huff at that. So these are a dead man's hands.

"You're a witch, then?" he asked instead, and she responded with a hum.

"Call me whatever you'd like, but I'm a little more than that," she said coyly.

"A...goddess, then?"

"Yes."

That explained a few things. The timeless look in her eyes, the strength in her limbs despite her apparent age. If anything, she looked younger than before when he first saw her. She couldn't have been much older than his mother, and grey hair shifted into long, dark locks. He didn't question it, however. Instead, he continued to eat quietly. It was common for the gods and goddesses to live amongst their people, but his family wasn't considered important enough to ever encounter them up close. As far as he knew, he had already offended this goddess, or she was close to her breaking point after the scene he made earlier. But...she also let him cry on her shoulder, and she cried with him. Perhaps she was different from other divine beings he has heard about.

She took the bowl from his hands when he had finished. "What's your name, child?"

"Aeric," he responded immediately, and he could have laughed as he instinctively chastised himself for giving his name so easily. He was no longer a boy, after all. "Aeric Ward."

"Aeric," she said idly before settling the bowl beside a basin, and when she came back, she held a damp cloth and a bottle of ointment. He jerked away as the cloth first touched his cheek. He didn't expect to feel any pain as she did so. "Your face was not spared from the cold, I'm afraid," she explained patiently, patting the cloth to his raw skin. He willed himself to stay still. "I couldn't fix it the same way I gave you your hands. The scars may stay with you for the rest of your life."

"I'm not vain," he managed to grit out as she switched to his other cheek and his nose.

She hummed again and stayed silent until she began dabbing the ointment to his face. "My son didn't abandon you. He loved his people too much to do that."

He felt himself pale at the implication of that statement, but the Queen of the Gods continued before he could utter a word.

"I may have exiled myself from the world, but I am still aware of what's been happening since the death of my husband." She frowned, whether at a particularly bad spot on his face or the tale she told. "I do not blame Pyrilor for killing him. My husband was no longer himself, and his soul was long gone, but I blame myself for not being able to do it instead. Pyrilor was always such a quiet child and never wanted the recognition for stopping his father's tyranny, so he withdrew to the underground."

She drew away, fiddling with the ointment bottle as she sat with a sorrowful look. "They started a war against him out of fear and pettiness. They were convinced that one day he would turn on them as he did to his father. So he struck a deal with them. To freely give his soul in exchange for your safety." Her eyes suddenly sharpened, and she clutched the bottle in her hand. "But they killed him. They killed him and bound his soul in a place even I don't know."

"And then they invaded Lo'ahm," he said, half in awe and half in anger.

"That they did. Even if I left now, there's only so much I can do." She shook her head before setting her gaze on him. "You were heading to the Neverdawn Gate, weren't you."

It was said as a statement, and he nodded in confirmation.

"Then you were lucky I found you. You were still miles away from it. If the life-flames were still strong and your realm as it was, you would have had a chance."

His heart sank at that. So it was a lost cause from the beginning. He glanced at his lantern, once again noting that no blue flame shone within it.

"What happened to the life-flame?" he asked, motioning to it vaguely. "Is it because..."

"Yes." She rested a hand atop of his. "The life-flames have died, and whoever was left in Lo'ahm has frozen along with it."

He took in a shaky breath. So his home was gone after all, along with everything he had ever known. There really was nothing left for him there, and anything ahead of him scared him more than he wanted to acknowledge.

"Stay here for as long as you'd wish," she said, breaking him out of his thoughts. "I'm sure you want time to figure out what you will do from here."

* * * * *

So he did. He stayed with the Queen of the Gods for three years until he was ready.

Ready to lead his people in the new world.

The wind howled around him fiercely as he gazed up at the Neverdawn Gate. It was a sight to behold with its grand arch and shimmering surface as its warmth beckoned to him, but he couldn't help but think of what brought him to this moment. The goddess had shone him around her personal realm and let him gaze into the pool of water that showed her the world outside. It was there where he saw his people suffering in the hands of the Tir. It didn't matter if they lived in Brivvala; the Briv never did anything to stop them. From the slaughter to the torture to the separation, he felt sick as he could only watch.

So he trained and listened to the wisdom the Queen of the Gods provided. She had lived long, even longer than her husband, and proved to be merciless. He wouldn't have had it any other way, however, and he slowly learned how to use his father's sword with hands that didn't belong to him.

He gripped the hilt of the said sword and frowned. The bandages around his wrists and ankles had long been removed, leaving behind harsh scars. He didn't dare look behind him, knowing that the realm was nothing but snow and darkness. Nothing awaited him here, but there was a world beyond waiting for him.

Without another thought, he entered through the gate, leaving behind all that he knew.

Tell me, hero
Was it worth it in the end?