The morning breeze flew across the forest mercilessly. The cold wind biting at my skin, still I felt nothing. And with such a large flame to warm me, I was both freezing and blistering simultaneously. Not even for a moment had my gaze left the ashes before me. It was all gone, everything I had hated- everything I'd dedicated myself to destroying, but I didn't feel what I had expected. There was no satisfaction. No peace of mind. No happiness or sadness or regret, anger, pain. Nothing. Just an empty silence.

'Is this what it means to fulfill your dreams?' I wondered. This would have been a joyous moment for him and his allies, had any of them lived long enough for them to celebrate it, but only in this instant of deep solitude did I truly feel whole. Whole and hollow. As if everything of substance, everything that had mattered to me was gone. Both the good and the bad.

My revenge was over, my enemies dead. Yet I didn't feel any better for it.