[Elythia]
"This is simply the consequence."
The voice slipped through the cracks of his sorrow, drifting into his ears, gentle. It was the kind of voice that could bring comfort to the suffering, ease to the restless, serenity to the tormented. But not him. Not now.
Not when the weight of his grief was so absolute it crushed the breath from his lungs.
Aelfric's frame trembled, his body wracked with violent, erratic spasms as despair swallowed him whole, his mind screaming denial, his soul clawing beneath the unbearable reality before him.
Despite the devastation anchoring him to the ground, despite the way his broken, bloodshot eyes refused to part from the gruesome, twisted remains of the only two people who had ever mattered—they did.
His gaze, sluggish and unfocused dragged itself upward.
A shadow, descending.
A figure, ethereal and radiant, slowly gliding downward, framed against the sky like a being that did not belong to this world. Something about her was unnatural—not in the way a monster was unnatural, not in the way an abomination was unnatural, but in the way something too perfect, too absolute, could never truly be real.
Bare flesh, pale as snow, smoothed to unnatural flawlessness, its unblemished surface glistening faintly in the light, not a single scar, not a single imperfection, as if she were carved from the essence of perfection itself. A black tarp—thin and delicate, barely enough to conceal the most intimate places—draped across her form as though it were a mere afterthought.
And then, her hair—white, so white, not the white of age, not the white of decay, but the kind of white that seemed to radiate, seemed to consume all color around it.
But it was her eyes that held him still.
Two burning, brilliant pools of red—the red of something far deeper, far older. They were alight with something that was neither warmth nor cruelty, neither hatred nor love—only an empty emotion.
Behind her, six vast wings, radiant and blinding, stretched outward, shifting slightly as she descended. They did not move with the effort of flight, did not flutter, did not struggle against the air. They carried her effortlessly, as though gravity itself dared not impose its will upon her.
Aelfric barely registered the sight.
Had this been any other time, had his mind not been drowning, had his soul not been crushed beneath the weight of his own undoing, perhaps he would have been spellbound, ensnared by the sheer, unparalleled beauty of this being, entranced by the impossible allure of a creature that embodied every standard of perfection.
But none of it mattered.
Nothing mattered.
Not when his wife's lifeless eyes stared at the sky with the absence of a soul.
Not when his daughter's small, fragile body lay crushed beneath the ruins of their home.
The winged woman's dainty bare feet touched the shattered earth with grace, her form descending upon the ruin as though the destruction beneath her was of no consequence, as though the blood that seeped through the broken stone did not stain the soles of her feet.
Her gaze never left him.
A hollow smile curved her lips—a mere illusion of something that should have been warm, but wasn't.
"It's the same here, huh?" Her voice, that same gentle, serene voice, slipped through the air. She wasn't speaking to him, not truly, yet her words reached him, wrapped around him, forced themselves into the marrow of his bones.
She did not look at the ruin. She did not look at the devastation. She looked at him.
"I broke free from my father only to be subjected to the control of others once more," she continued, that empty, unreadable smile still lingering on her lips. "'Tis bad comedy."
Aelfric's mind, frayed, barely grasping at clarity, could not fully process the meaning of her words, could not wrap itself around the importance they carried.
But one thing—one thing—pierced through the haze of his grief.
"Who… who are you?" His voice—hoarse and trembling—spilled from his lips before he could stop it. It was weaker than he wanted it to be, barely a whisper, barely holding form, as though the presence of this being stripped the strength from his lungs.
She folded her arms over her barely covered chest, a simple, almost casual motion, yet there was something deeply unnatural about it, something deeply unsettling, as though the act of making such a gesture was foreign to her, something borrowed from beings lesser than herself.
"I am… hm." A pause. A slight tilt of her head. A flicker of something behind those red eyes. "Suppose I cannot use my real name here anymore, huh?"
A breath.
And then—the name that sent ice through his veins.
"I am Octavia. What you know as the Goddess of War and Magic."
A brief silence.
"And I am your Executioner."
Aelfric's world froze.
Not because of her title. Not because of the power she wielded. Not because of what she claimed to be.
Because of one single word.
Executioner.
His pupils dilated. His breath hitched, a sharp, involuntary inhale that burned his throat. His already trembling hands clenched into fists so tight his nails cut into his palms.
Executioner.
She was responsible.
She had done this.
Calliope.
Aviva.
Gone.
Because of her.
Aelfric's teeth ground together so violently he thought they might shatter, the taste of iron flooding his mouth as his jaw tightened, tightened, tightened until his entire frame was locked, rigid, trembling with a rage so absolute it threatened to consume him whole.
His body screamed at him to run. Every instinct within him, every primal, animalistic remnant of self-preservation howled at him to turn away, to flee, to not stand before something so utterly beyond his reach.
But then—
The cold, still, lifeless bodies behind him.
And suddenly, there was no hesitation.
"I'LL KILL YOU!"
A roar—feral and unhinged—ripped from his throat as he lunged, his form a streak of black, nothing but pure, blinding, blood-soaked anger—
But he stopped.
He stopped.
His body—suspended
A force constricted around him, halting his advance mid-motion as if invisible hands had seized him. His momentum snapped to a dead stop, his limbs frozen in place. The air seemed to turn to stone around him, suffocating. A flicker of confusion crossed his bloodshot eyes as he tried to force his body forward, but it would not obey. The sensation slithered over him, something tight, binding, coiling—alive.
His gaze dropped, and only then did he see them.
White.
Chains, pristine and radiating, wrapped around his form with an eerie sentience. The links slithered over his limbs, binding his wrists, twisting around his ankles, threading across his torso, encasing him completely. He tried to move, to wrench free, but the chains did not so much as rattle. They were still.
His eyes traced their origin, and he saw them stretching from the air itself, protruding from a dozen white glyphs.
His fingers twitched, magic stirred in his core, a desperate attempt to summon power—to break free, to retaliate, to destroy—yet nothing came. Not even a spark.
The realization struck like a knife.
He was powerless.
"Your anger is warranted, I suppose."
Octavia's voice was ethereal, but it carried no sympathy. It was hollow and distant, spoken by one who had long since abandoned the right to weep for the condemned. Her red eyes, brilliant yet void of warmth, traced languidly over the destruction that lay before them—the corpses, the ruin, the remnants of structures. Not once did she flinch.
"I did not want to do this," she mused, her tone light, conversational, as if discussing the weather. "But alas, I myself am but a dog to the Keepers of Order. And this…" Her eyes settled upon him, locking with his. "This is simply the consequence of defying the Divine Principles."
Aelfric's breath came in ragged snarls, he pulled, he strained, he willed himself forward, but the chains did not so much as tremble. He could do nothing but glare at her.
"You…" His voice was shaking yet filled with anger. "I'll kill you!" The words ripped from his throat, a desperate promise. His body convulsed, struggling against his prison, his muscles tensing to their breaking point. "I swear it—I'll kill you! You're dead! You hear me? You're dead!"
Octavia did not react.
Her expression did not shift, did not waver, did not even acknowledge the malice he hurled at her with every ounce of his being. She simply gazed upon him, then, with the faintest tilt of her head, she raised her hand.
A snap of her fingers.
The chains vanished.
The world spun as Aelfric collapsed, his knees slamming into the earth, his hands barely catching him from falling completely. He gasped, his body weak from the unnatural restraint that had held him captive. His mind screamed at him to move, to strike, to lunge at her, but his body refused.
He remained on the ground, panting, glaring up at her through strands of dark, sweat-matted hair.
But he did not attack.
Because he understood.
The difference between them.
"You sought to defy Death," Octavia continued, her voice unaffected, as though speaking to a child throwing a tantrum. "You disregarded your entire race. And now you do not even want part of the blame." Her gaze bore into him. "Ancestor, the Deaths of those dear to you are your cause just as much as they are mine."
Aelfric's breathing hitched.
No.
No, she was wrong.
She was lying.
His fingers dug into the dirt, nails carving deep trenches into the lifeless ground. His mind screamed at him to reject her words, to silence them, to rip them from existence—but they had already taken root.
He had been warned.
By Lyra. By the Dragon of the End. By Death itself. Even that pathetic, weak God had tried to dissuade him.
But he hadn't listened.
Because he had been desperate.
Because he had believed himself beyond consequence.
And now—this was his reckoning.
"This is your fate now," Octavia declared, lifting slowly from the ground, the space around her warping, light bending. "Death is your master now. As such, I cannot kill you." Her wings spread, the light intensifying. "So steel your anger and fight."
The words struck him harder than any physical blow.
"One day, mayhap you shall kill me and The Keepers both."
Her smile was not kind nor was it cruel.
"Go on, defy these lofty rules placed upon the realm. Grow wise on how to conquer them…"
"And maybe," her voice echoed, carried by the wind, "you shall have my head."
And then—light erupted.
A blinding explosion tore through the skies, a pillar of light that sundered the sky, splitting clouds apart. A shockwave rippled outward, blasting away debris, scattering the ashes of what once was.
And she was gone.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Aelfric stared ahead, unblinking.
His mind was void.
His body was still.
It was his fault.
No one could be blamed but him.
He had killed them.
His wife. His daughter.
No.
His fingers twitched.
That wasn't right.
It couldn't be.
Was it his fault for wanting happiness? Was it his crime to seek eternity with those he loved? No. No, they—they—were to blame.
The Keepers of Order. Their rules. Their arrogance. Their existence.
And Octavia.
That damnable untouchable Goddess.
She killed them.
She took them from him.
He could not let this stand.
Their Deaths were not his fault.
They were not his sins.
Octavia.
The Keepers of Order.
They were the ones who would answer for this.
And he would make sure to exact his vengeance.