Prologue
Wrath stood before the headstone with his shoulders hunched against the cold. The snow, along with its icy breeze, left no room for warmth. The cemetery was white, a fresh layer of snow that had fallen overnight. The trees were bare, their branches heavy with snow, and the headstones were almost unrecognisable beneath the thick layer of frost.
He shivered, but it wasn’t from the cold. It was from the stifling void within he felt whenever he came here. He peered at the headstone, and the snow sticking to the engravings made it hard to read. He wiped off the snow with his gloved hand.
Corianne Mirabelle Valerian
Always in our hearts
1517-1722
It read.
It was a cold Sunday morning with a soft and hazy sky. The sun was just a faint distant glow behind the misty clouds if it could be seen at all.
He didn’t know how long he’d been standing here but, from his aching knees, he could tell it had been a while. Draken and Lucy were with him. Lucy was behind him, quietly sobbing, like she did whenever they came here. Next to her was Draken, casting a vigilant glance around now and then.
“It is me again,” he whispered, his voice barely audible above the sound of the sizzling wind.
“It’s been over two years already… time moves by quickly, doesn’t it? Everyone is doing well…. Thorne spends all his time in his lab, and Leo stays up in his study for hours pouring over cases. Heath has not written back since he voyaged to India. Miles….. I haven’t seen him since…. You left. I wonder if he is okay... wherever he is....” He briefly trailed into silence. “I use contractions now. It makes speech easier....” he paused with a small laugh.
Draken stalked to his side and placed a hand on his shoulder. “We should get going?”
Wrath remained still, silently staring at the headstone. “Luce,” he softly called out.
“Yes, my Lord,”
“I feel like cutting my hair. She used to brag about how great you were with hers,”
Lucy’s mouth turned up in a feeble smile while she smothered the cry in her throat. He smiled softly, but she noticed his dull golden orbs say something different. They reflected an emptiness that nestled and grew by the day.
“Could you give me a clean cut before I leave?”
"Before you go? Where..... my Lord?" she probed.
"Away... somewhere by the sea. The Iron Hills would be nice,"
“Of course, my Lord,” she beamed, her eyes glistening with tears.
He veered around, slowly making his way towards the carriage. Draken and Lucy followed closely. Lucy stared at his back as he walked, his one staggering, daunting stature remained, but he was a giant with a hollow. He was living for nothing, with nothing to live for.
In his eyes, as they were now, was nothing. No joy, sadness, or even the faintest glimpse of hate. He barely smiled and when he did it only made her sad.
Almost three years to this day, he lost everything….. And he lived every other day to get to this day, only to recall what he could’ve done right.
All the things he should’ve said.
He’d created a deep vortex of darkness where he found solace as the world rotted away. Darkness he had no hopes of escaping……
