Before Kage could respond, the world around him shifted, shaped by her will. She cast an illusion only he could see. Haven, whole and unbroken, blooming before his eyes like a memory long denied. His body froze, his eyes softening, lips twitching as if a forgotten smile trembled there, half-born.
Freya’s chest tightened, sorrow washing through her like an icy tide. She hated herself for what came next, yet she would not falter. If this act brought her closer to her children, to the home she had lost… then she would do it without hesitation.
From her boot she drew a small dagger, the hilt cool and familiar in her grasp. She looked upon the wyverian prince standing entranced in her conjured dream, lost to the fragile comfort she had woven for him. At least the illusion might give him peace, a fleeting moment of happiness before the end.
Behind her, the shadow crow screeched, wings thrashing in frantic protest.
‘For what it is worth,’ she said, her voice scarcely more than a ghost in the cold air, ‘I am sorry.’
The blade sang as it swept across Kage’s throat, a swift, merciless arc. Black blood poured forth like a dark river unbound, staining the pristine snow in a stark, cruel bloom. His eyes, wide with shock, glimmered for one fleeting moment before his body folded into the whiteness beneath him.
Freya dropped to her knees, clutching his arm as she pulled the illusion away, reality reclaiming him in his final moments. The guttural rasp of his strangled breaths filled the silence, broken only by the mournful cry of the shadow crow as it descended beside its fallen master, a sound raw and aching, primal in its grief.
‘Find Mal,’ Freya urged, her voice trembling as she met his fading gaze, his body shuddering under the relentless rush of blood that coated her hands. ‘Make her kill Hades.’
His breath rattled, shallow and broken, black eyes fluttering towards the heavens as their light ebbed and dimmed. The crow screamed once more. A final, hollow lament before collapsing at his side, its body dissolving into a plume of smoke.
‘I’m so sorry, Kage Blackburn,’ Freya whispered, her palm tenderly closing over his face. She summoned one last illusion, merciful and soft, gifting him a vision of his sister waiting for him, her arms outstretched to guide him home.
Rising to her feet, Freya lingered for a heartbeat, staring down into eyes fixed on the indifferent sky, tears still clinging to their corners. She prayed, silently and futilely, that one day forgiveness might find her.
Turning away, she left him there in the blood-drenched snow, Ylva’s unconscious body curled near his feet. The forest swallowed her, but not before the silence deepened, broken only by the faint whisper of Kage Blackburn’s final, shivering breath.
If one were to delve deep into the ancient scriptures, those forgotten scrolls and dust-veiled tomes, one might begin to uncover the tangled threads that bind the gods to one another. There is one thread in particular that has always captivated my curiosity. A truth that time has quietly buried, that most have either overlooked or never truly known.
Hades has a cousin.
Not just any cousin, but the one who stood at his side as the Underworld took shape, who breathed life into Elysium with divine light.
The very god whom the phoenixians and drakonians bow to beneath gilded suns.
The first flame.
The Sun God.
Tabitha Wysteria
Ash knew where Adriana vanished to on certain mornings. He had always let her go without question, but today he followed, for he understood the weight such journeys carried.
Through the marshlands he trailed her, a land he found oddly beautiful despite its decay. Charred woods that had once burnt now stood reborn, their twisted limbs heavy with moss; crumbling buildings whispered with echoes of enchantmentsuttered long ago by witches and warlocks whose voices still seemed to haunt the stone. He saw it all, not merely with his eyes, but through the cursed visions that clung to his soul.
Tabitha Wysteria—Hecate, as the gods named her—had touched him with a peculiar curse. His sight was no gift like that of a Seer, but a tainted thing, steeped in blood magic. Through it, he glimpsed everything: from the world’s first breath to its final sigh.
Adriana, he knew, had been visiting the wall, different sections of it, seeking a way to bring it down. She possessed godhood, yes, but not enough power to crumble the entire barrier. Keir could do it, perhaps, but it would likely tear his fragile mortal vessel apart. So she searched, endlessly, for another way.
Ash watched as she stepped into one of the old wooden boats left behind by witches of a forgotten age. They had once rowed such vessels with spells, gliding over water like ghosts; but Adriana needed no magic, for divinity itself carried her.
Keeping his distance, Ash followed, his own oars dipping soundlessly into the water. The marshes were steeped in mist, a ceaseless fog curling like pale phantoms across the surface, thickening until sight became little more than a memory. Still, he rowed, silent and unrelenting, chasing the shadow of a goddess through a drowned and haunted land.
It took them hours to reach this lonely stretch of the wall, likely a section Adriana had never laid eyes upon before. At first, Ash had wondered why Adriana never travelled on one of the wyverns, creatures trapped in this wretched land as they were. But in time, the truth had dawned on him. The goddess never summoned Ayaru, Nisha, or Daku because they were too conspicuous, too likely to draw the eye. And for reasons she kept close to her chest, Adriana clearly did not wish word of herlittle excursions finding its way back to him.
She left her boat moored to a skeletal dock, weathered and forgotten, and walked another hour through silence so thick it seemed to breathe. At last, the wall loomed before her, a monstrous spine of stone that cleaved the world, marking where the Kingdom of Ice pressed against its unyielding face.
Ash knew what lay beyond it.
He unsheathed his sword with care and sank low into the shadow of a thicket, his golden eyes fixed on Adriana as she strode along the wall, palm pressed against its cold, unfeeling surface, muttering curses beneath her breath like prayers to a god who would never answer.
Her shoulders stiffened, her body poised as though she sensed the presence on the other side. But before she could react, the wall where her hand rested erupted in a thunderous blast, stone and mortar exploding outward. The force hurled her back like a ragdoll caught in a gale.
