Pop!
A bottle of champagne popped and some foam spilled out of the top. Drinking glasses began to be poured as the god of melodies began playing a beautiful song on a harp.
At Vostus' temple was a quaint little party happening with very few people attending. Among the most important were Vostus, Sybell, Iyseuss, Yohr, and Helgrom. Helgrom the dwarf walked forward slowly supported by his cane.
He tugged at his long, white beard with a nice smile.
"Thankfully you didn't wait for this old man to die before you two got married. It's about time you two did so." He cackled.
"Helgrom…" Sybell said softly with a weak smile.
"Ah don't mind me. I've left my mark on this world, so I don't mind passing onto the next. Vostus will take care of me, won't you?" He looked toward Vostus with a teasing face.
Vostus recently decided to take up the name because of Auclair, but he used it as a last name.
"What kind of friend would I be if I didn't?" Vostus replied and grinned.
Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting!
They all turned towards Iyseuss who was going to make a toast. He had been forced into it like most people, but he didn't mind for his brother.
"We all gather here today because of Sybell; because we all know Vostus shouldn't have been able to marry someone that extraordinary. I kid of course; Vostus shouldn't have even managed to meet someone so nice in the first place."
Iyseuss raised his drink and continued.
"Honestly though, Sybell, thanks for putting up with my brother, and Vostus? You've become a much better man, hopefully one day you can prove to yourself that you aren't a bad person. Because all of us here already know it."
Iyseuss paused for a moment while rubbing his mouth in thought.
"I'm not so good at speeches and I'm just winging this, so I'll wrap it up before I drag on too long and embarrass myself. To Sybell and Vostus, the most loving couple I've ever seen, and that's not an exaggeration!"
He pushed his drink slightly higher before taking a sip from it, prompting everyone else to do so as well. He walked over to his brother and Sybell.
"How'd I do? Hopefully not too bad."
"You did great Iyseuss!" Sybell gave him a double thumbs up with an incredibly red face.
Iyseuss whispered to Vostus.
"She didn't get drunk already did she?"
"I'm pretty sure she's wasted." Vostus whispered back with a defeated smile.
Behind Sybell was two empty glasses of champagne and she lifted another one. Vostus gently took it from her.
"Okay- let's not honey."
The God of Peace and Purity walked over to her and tapped her on the head.
"Better?" The god, Emour asked.
"Thank you miss!" Sybell quickly bowed.
"Sybell, you don't have to bow for us. We're practically family now." Emour said.
"But I'm appreciative for you wasting your magic on little ol' me."
Helgrom took a step outside and looked at the pretty spring flowers blossoming in the clearing beneath the trees. Not long later Vostus stepped up next to the old dwarf.
"How long have we been friends?" Helgrom suddenly asked.
Vostus looked at him with solemn eyes.
"Around two hundred years now, I believe." Vostus answered.
"You don't mind if I ask a question do you?"
Vostus remained silent and so Helgrom continued.
"How much longer?"
Vostus was silent for nearly an entire minute as he had been dreading the question.
"…By the end of fall." Vostus answered.
Helgrom looked towards the dirt with saddened eyes.
"I see." Helgrom opened his mouth to ask another question, but closed it and decided against it.
However Vostus caught on to him, "Go on, you can ask. I don't mind answering."
"Well, you always said you didn't talk about it because people never listened. But what's it like? On the other side I mean."
"The best way I can describe it, it's a paradise of will. You're family that's passed on would be there and you can spend as much time as you want there. You can even look over at this side from there if you so wish. Once you've had your fill, you can return your soul to this world, your memories and soul will be reset, but you'll be reborn."
"It seems beautiful."
"Well, not everyone gets dealt a good hand in life. I built it for those people, to give them an opportunity for rest. The bad people are sent somewhere else, but you don't need to have that to sour your mood."
"Thank you Vostus."
Helgrom thanked him and the two stood there in silence, watching the trees sway in the wind.
A week after the party, Vostus and Sybell were laying outside of his temple stargazing and eating dinner.
"I wanna go to Setalla for the honeymoon." Sybell told Vostus.
"Oh? You want to visit some family?"
"After the honeymoon, yes I'd like too. My mother and father are expecting us and they want to see how far my treasure pile has come."
"How will that work? It's not exactly easy to transport all of that."
"Well I'll just turn back to my original form and use my stomach to hold it all."
"Dragons can do that?"
Sybell's face contorted in confusion and she smiled, "You're a god and didn't know that?"
"Well collectively we'd be omniscient, but individually we're just masters in our respective domains. My domain doesn't exactly focus on just dragons." Vostus laughed.
"That's true. Anywhere you want to go?" Sybell asked, before quickly adding, "Also pass me another sandwich."
Vostus leaned over and handed a sandwich before thinking about it.
"Not particularly." He admitted. There weren't many places he ever thought about going. He was perfectly content with his temple.
"…"
"…"
They began eating in silence while looking at the stars together. Sybell looked a bit troubled and she eventually opened her mouth with hesitation.
"Vostus." He looked at her immediately. She only used that name when she was being very serious. "I heard… Well, I heard that gods have a different form. A real form. Is it, ya know, true?"
"Where'd you hear that?"
"Is it true?" She didn't answer him and instead reiterated.
"…Yes its true."
"Why didn't you ever tell me?"
"It's a secret, I don't even know how you managed to find out about it."
"I'm more competent than I appear." She said with a smile.
Vostus laughed, "I know honey."
"Well, lets see it then!" She nudged him with her elbow.
"What?"
"I'm obviously not going to let you get away with not showing me it! I've shown you my dragon form, its only fair that you show me your real form!"
"Uh." Vostus pursed his lips and thought about it, "Alright, fine. But if I show you all of it, the forest will probably get crushed, so I'll show you some of it."
"Aw."
"These trees have been here for ages Sybell, I don't have a right to kill them."
"Yeah yeah, I got it you big nature lover."
Not too long later she was looking at the top half of Vostus' ego, his real body. While in his ego form, he could still operate his fake body at will, so that portion was trying to get comfortable while the ego was partially coming out of its back.
Due to the disproportionate sizes, it was incredibly weird to look at.
"It's a lot more different than I thought it'd be." She admitted.
'Well, it's representative of our domains. We're all similar in structure, but completely different in presentation if that makes sense.' His ego said directly into her mind since they couldn't talk normally.
"Not at all."
'Oh… We're similar but look different based on what we're gods of.' Vostus explained again but simplified it a bit more.
"See? You're learning to simplify things, only took two hundred years."
'Can I go back to normal now?'
"Hmm… Okay. But you'll have to show me all of it on our honeymoon. Promise?"
'Promise.'
A moment later and the two were back to eating as if nothing happened.
"It was pretty though. Very macabre, but in an oddly good way."
Vostus looked away and mumbled a thanks.
"Gettin' shy?" She poked him in the back while stifling a laugh.
"Its just the onions in the sandwich!"
"One, that doesn't even make sense. Two, that's not how that works, and three, you hate onions." She grinned.
"You're mean to me, you know that?" He pouted jokingly.
"Well that's not all I want to talk about." She said and looked towards the stars.
"What else do you want to talk about then?" Vostus asked and took a bite from his food.
"I want to have a kid."
The Vostus choked on his food.
"Excuse me?" Iyseuss asked his brother who was drenched in sweat. Iyseuss reaffirmed with confusion in his voice, "She wants to have a kid?"
Vostus slowly nodded with a thousand yard stare.
"Oh…" Iyseuss leaned back in his chair.
They didn't talk for a bit while Iyseuss let his brother have his little crisis.
"Wait! I get to say I told you so! Hah!" Iyseuss suddenly exclaimed while jumping out his seat.
"You want me to knock you out?" Vostus said with deathly serious eyes.
Iyseuss quickly coughed and sat back down.
"But uh, where's this coming from? Is this the first time she's brought it up."
"What do you think?" Vostus asked sarcastically.
"Fair enough. Did you tell her that a god doesn't reproduce like that?"
"She already knew, I think Emour told her." The god who got rid of her drunkenness at the party, the God of Peace and Purity.
"Well, they did become friends so it isn't far fetched." Iyseuss admitted.
"You know what she told me?" Vostus said weakly.
"What?"
"That you could create a child for us with our DNA. I mean, where'd she even get that id-"
Iyseuss tilted his head and interrupted, "Yeah I could do that."
"-ea." Vostus finished his sentence. He sighed, "But I don't know if I'm ready for that."
"Well talk to her about it. I'm not your wife and its a conversation you two should be having, not me. You can't use me as a substitute lover."
"Ew."
"Just a joke." Iyseuss waved his brother away.
Sybell and Vostus eventually had a long conversation about and eventually Vostus decided to have a child with her. Iyseuss took a scale from Sybell's real body and a piece of Vostus' flesh from his ego. After making their genes compatible, their child was born. It was a beautiful baby boy and after creating him, Iyseuss left the two lovers alone with their new child.
"What do you want to name him?" Sybell asked Vostus.
"You know I'm horrible with names."
"Yes. Yes you are." She giggled while holding her son. She kissed his forehead gently and whispered, "How about… Adrian?"
"It's nice. Adrian…" Vostus said softly.
Four months later they visited Helgrom with their kid. Helgrom was laying in his bed with tired eyes and pale skin. His handcrafted cane sat next to him, leaning against his counter.
"He's growing exceptionally well." Helgrom held the child weakly with a smile. "Adrian…" Helgrom called out, causing the little child to look towards one of their godfathers. The other godfather was Iyseuss who was sitting nearby watching the scene with sad eyes.
"Promise me you'll be a good kid for your parents." Helgrom asked.
Of course the child had no clue what the old dwarf was saying in the slightest. He just grabbed the dwarf's beard that they laid on with much interest, as if it held the secrets to the universe.
Not too long after, Vostus was sitting next to Helgrom alone. The leaves had started changing colors and falling to the ground. Fall had arrived.
Vostus sat silently in his seat with his head hung low. Helgrom's eyes were hollow and his cheeks were sunken. He had lived a long and experienced life.
"I think… I think I'm ready to go now." Helgrom said weakly.
Vostus placed his hand over his own mouth and gripped it tightly as he sniffled.
"Today was a good day." Helgrom muttered as he closed his eyes.
Vostus exited the small room and Sybell ran up to him, hugging him tightly with tears in her eyes. All of Helgrom's friends and family were here, including his children all the way to his great-great-grandchildren.
After Vostus left the room, they all knew that Helgrom had finally passed and the mourning began en masse. Adrian wasn't sure why his parents were crying, nor why any of the others were crying, but he quickly began crying too.
Eight years passed by quickly for the two immortal creatures, but they cherished every moment they had with their son that they could. It was currently the fall and the leaves were changing. It was the time of year where they were reminded of Helgrom's passing.
Vostus had finally started using Auclair as his given name too. Sybell grew extremely happy when she realized he started doing so. He realized it would probably be easier on his son that way and the name just stuck years down the line.
Auclair entered the temple after attending to one of the god's weekly meetings. He still didn't like them so he only went once a month, but it was nice to have a routine. Upon entering the room however he heard Sybell talking quietly to her son.
"How'd it happen?"
"I don't know."
"Baby, please just tell me."
Auclair peeped his head into the room the two were in and saw his son. He had the same hair and eyes as his mother, a soft blue much like her scales. But his face was much more like Auclair's, just a lot younger.
"What happened?"
His son had little bruises all over his skin and tiny cuts. Auclair quickly went to his son and started looking at them.
"I just fell down in the woods outside." Their son spoke softly.
Sybell sighed, "What did I tell you about the woods? Don't play without someone there to watch you, its dangerous out there." She grabbed a small vial that Emour had made that healed any wounds one might have.
She coated a small rag in it and gently started pressing it against Adrian's skin. Afterwards they all began having a quiet dinner together.
"After dinner, do you want to go outside to play?" Auclair asked his son with a smile.
However Adrian turned the offer down.
"I think I'm just going to go to bed early papa."
"Oh." Auclair uttered with a trace of disappointment.
After the dinner, Adrian got up and went to his room with slow steps.
"He didn't fall in the woods, did he?" Auclair asked Sybell with a tortured face.
"It was the schoolkids again." She said with anger.
Auclair ran his fingers through his hair and laid his forehead on the table in frustration. Adrian was getting bullied just because he was Auclair's son. It wasn't the first time, although Auclair desperately hope it to be the last.
It wouldn't be though and Auclair knew it.
"Should we just home school him?" Auclair asked in desperation.
"He has friends there, I think he'd be extremely lonely all the way out here."
Auclair hit his head against the table slowly while thinking, resulting in dull rhythmic thuds echoing in their kitchen.
"I don't even know how me being his dad got known by the public…"
"Honey, sometimes things just go awry and there's nothing we can do. It's just the sad truth about the world."
"But there's only a handful of people who knew." Auclair mumbled without much thought, before raising his head.
He suddenly realized, "Honey, there were only a handful of people who knew. It had to be one of them."
"I think you're being paranoid." She replied with raised eyebrows.
"I'd rather be paranoid than let someone hurt you and Adrian. I'll go speak with the people who should know, I hope they just let it slip on accident."
The very next day, Auclair sent his son to school and Sybell stayed home to clean up her treasure pile that had grown too large. Then he left to go to the Tower.
Once he reached the tiny bridge, he teleported directly to the realm of the gods to see everyone in a tizzy.
"What's going on?" He asked Yohr who happened to run by.
"Auclair? Wait- you could actually help!" Yohr said upon stopping.
"But what's happening?" Auclair repeated his question.
"Emour has gone missing! Just one second we could feel her presence, the next, she's gone! Can you check her thread of fate?"
"I'd need to see her to check which thread is hers to do that." Auclair explained.
"Damn it, I forgot!" Yohr clenched his fists, "Come on, we could use your help to find her though."
"I have my own problems at the moment. I need to know who let it slip that I was Adrian's father, he's getting hurt."
"What?" Yohr cursed again with a frustrated face. He tapped his foot momentarily before asking, "Who knows?"
Auclair gave a very short list as he didn't even tell most gods about his son. The list however, included Iyseuss, Yohr, Erus, Zinmes, and Emour, among a few others.
"Well it isn't the first three. Your brother and I would never do such a thing, and Erus has closed himself off in his cathedral since your wish. I doubt Emour would do it which leaves Zinmes." Yohr quickly concluded.
"Where is he?" Auclair asked.
"He's on another world right now. There's a planet where the humans and elves are having a petty squabble."
"Take me there." Auclair asked. His teleport could take him far, but not across worlds. He needed special magic for that, or he could ask the source of that magic directly, in other words he could ask Yohr.
Yohr, the God of Space nodded and reached out his hand. He searched for Zinmes' presence and quickly locked onto it before teleporting across the universe with Auclair.
The two landed on a dark world with a dying sun in the far distance. A thick snow blanketed the ground and a storm raged on, only thickening it further.
"Where is he?" Auclair asked.
"He was just here."
They had both felt his presence before it abruptly disappeared.
Auclair used magic to create a light source and let it illuminate the surface of the planet. What was revealed were thousands of corpses in the snow with blood dyeing it a deep crimson.
"What is this?" Yohr took a step back.
Auclair walked towards one of the corpses before bending over, then he walked to another.
"They were all killed by the same person."
"How could you tell from just two bodies?" Yohr asked incredulously.
"Because one belonged to a human, another to an elf. They were both crushed by a massive fist. Sound familiar?"
"Zinmes." Yohr muttered in realization.
"Why'd he kill all of these people? That's the question." Auclair said while tapping on his chin.
"Because we're trapped." Auclair and Yohr turned and saw a bloody Zinmes trudging through the snow with a limp.
"What?"
"I said we're trapped. You felt my presence disappear when you arrived correct? That's because you were looking directly at it. If you look for each other or the other gods, you'll find nothing. I only found out about it too late." Zinmes came to a stop and glared at the two.
Auclair and Yohr furrowed their brows but found the large god was telling the truth. The couldn't sense anyone else at all.
"I got attacked by that bitch Emour. She's definitely up to something."
"Emour?" Auclair asked and turned his head slightly.
"Wait, you know where she is?" Yohr asked excitedly.
"I knew; 'knew' being the keyword. I felt her disappear while watching the war on this planet rage on. Then she suddenly came here, how, I do not know. She sealed off the planet, wounded me, and disappeared. She fled because she bit off more than she could chew. But not before telling me you'd come here Auclair."
"She knew I'd come?"
"Your kid. She said you'd suspect me the most. I'm a bit hurt that you're here because that means she was right. I'll have you know I'm not so petty that'd I do something like that."
"What's she doing?" Yohr asked.
"I don't know." Zinmes admitted. "Although she's not smart enough to come up with something like this on her own. There's no way she'd know how to seal off a planet's travel, nor how to get here from the Tower easily. She had help, I killed everyone here because I felt something blocking my travel so I couldn't follow her." Zinmes lifted a pendant.
"She gave this to some random human and told them to hide it. I've been here for hours now, and I have no idea where she went. But if we break this, I'm sure we can leave."
Auclair narrowed his eyes before asking for it. Zinmes hesitated but knew he wasn't in a position to negotiate, his physical body and ego were both gravely injured. He tossed Auclair the pendant who caught it without any effort.
Auclair lifted it and scrutinized it immediately. He thought the markings were extraordinarily familiar but couldn't quite place them. He showed it to Yohr who didn't have a clue.
Auclair looked at it some more while Zinmes complained about bleeding out in the snow. Auclair of course ignored him.
That's when Auclair's eyes widened.
"It's Erus."
"What?" Both Yohr and Zinmes questioned.
"Remember that magic he was making all those years ago? With the tattoos on his body? This is just like that, I'm certain." He pointed at a particular scribbling, "I remember him talking to me about this character."
"So he's in on it too?" Yohr asked.
"It's too early to come to conclusions, but if Zinmes is telling the truth, Emour is definitely guilty of attacking another god. Erus might just be collateral damage." Auclair gave his thoughts.
"Well let's destroy it. Zinmes was right, it's messing with my magic. We can't leave with it on."
Auclair gripped it and began injecting a devastating amount of magic into it at random. It was enough to overload the experimental magic and destroy the pendant. It disintegrated to ash and Auclair let it fall to the ground.
They then grabbed onto Yohr who took them all back to the Tower.
Upon arrival, Zinmes collapsed and immediately called out for Iyseuss. Iyseuss rapidly came and quickly injected life into Zinmes to heal him. They then all explained what happened and the gods all ran to Erus' temple.
Auclair looked at the large building in contempt. Others saw all beautiful building but all Auclair could see was red. He walked forward in anger and placed his hand on the door. There was a high tier seal but in front of Auclair it didn't matter.
Much like the pendent, it crumbled immediately and Auclair kicked open the door.
Erus turned around and winced when the light flooded into his cathedral. He raised his bandaged arms revealing how much his body had been transformed since Auclair had last seen him. Back then it was just the arms, but now his entire body was wrapped.
"Where is she?" Auclair asked while steadily walking forward.
"Who? And watch your step."
Auclair sprung a magical trap but his stride didn't even slow down. He just grabbed the magic flare and snuffed it out with his bare hands.
"Emour."
"She's missing?" Erus asked as Auclair set off another magical trap.
A ghastly hound appeared and snapped at Auclair. It was a yolkio, a large hound with eyes all over its head and stood the size of a small building. Just one of them could give a god inexperienced with fighting a hard time.
Unfortunately for Erus, Auclair was the guard dog of the gods, so he obviously had more than one squabble to settle, even amongst the strongest of gods. Meaning he definitely had experience.
Auclair clasped his hands together and summoned his fire hound. The name was slightly misleading but Auclair never bothered to give it a real one when he created the magic. The fire hound started forming from smoke that rose from Auclair's back. It raised itself high as fire began emerging from Auclair's body.
The fire hound's claws dug into Auclair's shoulders as it roared at the yolkio. The rest of its body formed and it quickly leaped from Auclair's body and tore into the yolkio, ripping it to shreds. The problem with yolkios is that they were highly regenerative. However you can't regenerate things that disintegrate to their fundamental existences. Which is exactly what Auclair's fire hound does.
Thus, the yolkio let out a horrid scream as it was thrashed about before collapsing onto the floor with burnt flesh and fur emanating in the air.
Auclair arrived at Erus who didn't put up a fight.
"I didn't know she was missing. I just gave her a portion of my experiments to try out. I didn't know she would do whatever she did to piss you off. Do you think I'm suicidal?"
"What did you give her?"
"Nothing important."
"Bullshit!" Zinmes yelled from the entrance of the cathedral.
"Fine. I gave her something I'm calling a system and a sealing pendent. The system is just a prototype but it allows anyone to get exponentially stronger when the right conditions are met."
"What else can it do?"
"I can communicate with it and thus, I can communicate with her."
Auclair narrowed his eyes.
"Then do so."
Everyone went silent while Erus silently worked. It took him a few hours of tattooing various parts of his body.
"Since it's the prototype, I haven't implemented an easy way to communicate yet."
"But did you talk with her?"
Erus sighed, "Yeah."
"And?"
"She said, 'You're going to want to get home quickly Auclair.'" Erus said ominously.
Without even thinking, Auclair teleported out of the Tower and to the little bridge. The other gods also followed him immediately, leaving Erus almost all alone.
His sister Remis, the God of Truth and Lies spoke to Erus with a light laugh.
"You're pretty good at lying, you know that?"
On the little bridge that ran over the pretty creek stood Auclair. The forest surrounding his house was doused in roaring flames. Embers burning up leaves as they slowly drifted to the ground creating an eerily beautiful scene of destruction.
Auclair stared ahead in horror before running forward with all his strength through the forest. He practically appeared at the temple he called home in an instant to see it also engulfed in flames.
Various humanoid races were all around his temple watching the place burn while throwing things onto it to make sure it was entirely engulfed.
He ignored them and threw himself forward but found his path blocked by Emour. She stabbed at him with a sword, but Auclair didn't give her a single moment to attack and instantly brought out his ego in full force.
His ego stretched into the sky far above the flaming forest and covered the moon. All the races beneath them felt pitifully small and realized how puny they were to the creature they had been harassing all that time.
Thousands of bones were launched at Emour which she only escaped by bringing out her ego as well. Since she was the God of Peace and Purity, she didn't have a combat ego at all. In fact, her ego was much smaller than Auclair's ego.
Instead her ego focused on healing, meaning she was able to bring herself back from the brink of destruction. But once more Auclair attacked her all out. Organs stretched out from his body and wrapped around her, before slowly ripping her apart while he stabbed her with the bones once more, aiming directly for her core.
Her ego screeched out into the night in pain, but Auclair had no sympathy. He controlled the afterlife and in a moment of rage, shut off the path to it. He dug his claws into her chest and slowly ripped out her still attached core.
She desperately struggled and tried to pull herself away but the organs were too strong and kept her in place. With a final scream she tried biting into Auclair's ego with all her strength but only succeeded in injuring herself.
Once her core was ripped out, Auclair raised it high with a screech. Emour's body grew limp and Auclair kicked it to the side and tossed the core into his mouth without thinking and ate it. He was too angry to consider any consequences and as such he stomped on Emour's ego and body making sure they were eviscerated. He then quickly killed as many humanoids as possible in his rage.
He snapped out of his fervor and promptly controlled his humanoid body and threw it into his temple. He stumbled forward as the fires tried to scorch his body but failed too. The main hall was empty, save the humanoids too foolish to leave before the fire raged on resulting in their burning corpses littering the building. The living room was much the same, empty save the dead bodies..
Auclair checked the kitchen before taking a moment to think instead of blindly searching. That one thought brought him to Sybell's treasure room. The room was barricaded with a mountain of furniture blocking it, meaning he was certainly correct.
It was a dragon's natural instinct to protect their treasure and kin at the same time, so of course she'd be here.
Auclair didn't bother with the barricade and threw himself through the wall to the other side. He lifted himself to see the room covered in humanoids who tried stuffing their pockets with coins and relics. They had of course, perished in the flames.
At the top of the pile was Sybell's dragon body. She had wrapped herself around something.
"Sybell!" Auclair called out desperately as he scrambled up the pile.
She had deep cuts all over her body as well as a few swords and dozens of arrows still implanted in her.
Auclair kept calling out to her as he grabbed onto her, but she didn't respond. Auclair refused to check her threads of fate, fearing what he'd find. He kept pushing her body in a desperate attempt to get her to wake up from her slumber.
As tears fell from his grimy face from all the ash and embers, he knew deep down that Sybell was gone. He didn't even need to look at his threads of fate to know it. He pressed himself against her body and began wailing.
After a minute, his mind finally realized she was covering something. Something that she was covering so desperately that she'd die for it. Despite all the pain, she never once lifter her body from her ultimate treasure.
Of course it was Adrian.
Auclair gently lifted his wife's wing and crawled under to find Adrian's face, as clear as day.
"Adrian?"
Auclair called out and went to grab his son's body. He lifted the child out of his mother's embrace and shook him gently.
"Adrian?!"
But his son remained unresponsive. So Auclair did the only thing he could do and cried with the child in his arms. No matter how much his mother tried to protect Adrian, the fire burned to brightly and the child passed away.
He realized the bridges to the afterlife were still closed after killing Emour, so he quickly opened them. He searched the netherworld and found his wife and son's souls still lingering in the room. He couldn't bring them back, that wasn't how his powers worked, but for once, he betrayed the rules of fate.
They no longer applied to him, so it didn't matter. He gathered Sybell's beautiful soul and Adrian's delicate soul and slowly walked them across the bridge to the afterlife, something not permitted by the fates. He couldn't speak to them, but he could tell that they'd be safe. He made a place specially for the two of them where they'd be able to look down at him at any time.
Just as he was leaving the afterlife.
"I love you."
He swiftly turned and saw Sybell's fading figure wave gently to him.
"It's all going to be okay my love." Sybell gave the brightest smile imaginable as a pained tear fell down her cheek.
Then she vanished as quickly as she came.
Auclair stood and watched the spot she where she was standing moments before, and sat onto the ground. The afterlife disappeared around him and was instead replaced by the scorching heats of the temple.
Then he realized he wasn't just sad.
He was angry.
He was very angry.