It was all gone. Friends. Villagers. Neighbors. My father. Da.
Da.
I would never have a chance to talk to him again. He would never look at me with recognition. That had always existed as a possibility, as a hope. Never would I embrace him. Never would I tell him I’m sorry and that I loved him. That chance was forever lost.
Invisibility did not protect me from the world—from the poisons of this life.
I felt the scalding heat, the stinging hiss of those flames radiating across the distance.
Maybe Ishouldwalk into Isstad and let myself die alongsideeveryone else, become the ghost I once thought myself to be. I contemplated this.
The village in the valley below,my village, was a nest of climbing flames, devouring all. It was more than ready and willing to consume me, too.
The choice was mine.
My body decided first. Perhaps it was instinct, this urge to keep going, the will to survive.
I took several sliding steps back, my boots dragging a jagged path through the snow.
My legs felt like lead, a struggle to lift, and still I moved, one step after another...until I couldn’t.
Until I collapsed, broken, falling on my back, staring up at the night through blurry eyes, gasping, sobbing as the snow soaked through my clothes—into my skin, into muscle, finding its way into my very bones, into the marrow of me.
I wasn’t invulnerable to discomfort, to pain, to death. The years had proven that. I’d endured cuts and scrapes. Blisters, bruises, even a deep splinter that festered and took weeks to work itself right.
Despite my unique tolerance for the cold, I couldn’t remain here like this forever. Staying put where I had fallen in the snow for too long would finish me. I would perish. The cold would seep inside me and end me the way that it ended all living things.
And yet I could not summon the will to move. Not yet.
For long moments, perhaps hours—days?—I did not move.
Time was incalculable.
I gazed numbly, starkly, at the red night above me filling the space surrounding the gently swaying branches. Dark smoke billowed in great, twisting spirals against the glow. Lethargy pulled at me, deep and syrupy sweet, and I dimly realized the cold was working its power over me. It would be so easy to surrender to the temptation of it, let it wash over and consume me.
They were all gone. Nothing could get past that bleak truth.
I’d always felt alone before...but now this? I was gutted, theache left in the hollowed-out cavity of my chest so deep and gnawing and profound.
I was truly alone.
I wondered listlessly if I would become visible when I was dead? Would my corpse become corporeal then? Would my bones be stumbled upon later by bandits or soldiers? Or would the spell hold fast forever, even as I rotted to dust?
The cold howled, mingling with another sound. My ears pricked and sharpened, reaching for it, struggling to identify the noise.
It was the fading roar of those deadly beasts.
Between the crooked, snow-dusted branches, I spotted the great winged monsters soaring away in the night, the sails of their wings beating a pounding rhythm as they took flight. They were leaving. One after the other, at least a dozen. Damage done. Vengeance wreaked. Havoc inflicted. They’d done what they had come here to do, and now they departed.
I could feel no relief.
I remained as I was, sinking into the snow.
My breathing slowed, sinking to shallow sips of air.
I blinked slowly, growing drowsy as my blood thickened, turning gel-like in my veins, trickling along, barely flowing at all.
The cold no longer stung. I no longer even feltcoldat all. I didn’t shiver anymore. I felt almost...pleasant. As comfortable and cozy as I would in any bed of brick-warmed furs. That was when I knew I was close to the end. Close to joining Da and all the rest. I could just drift away, fall asleep, and never feel pain again.
