I couldn’t just leave the poor man out there in the open. So after I gathered my courage and puked a few times at the sheer carnage before me, I began placing rocks around his body and hiding him from the world, giving him at least a semblance of peace.

  The issue, however, was that halfway through the makeshift burial, Stevin and Arther ignored my very clear instructions to stay put and started walking toward me. They saw what I was doing and who I was doing it for.

  “Christof…” Stevin whispered.

  His eyes were wet, his hands trembling as he recognized the man at my feet.

  Cursing my luck, I turned to him. “You knew this man?”

  “One of my older sister’s men,” Stevin muttered. He crouched beside me, picked up a stone, and added it to the growing pile. “He was a good man.”

  He kept stacking rocks one by one, doing his best to hold back his tears. When Arther quietly joined him, I stepped back for a moment, giving them space and myself some air.

  I felt guilty. Not because of Christof specifically… but because I still couldn’t bring myself to get attached to this world. Not yet, at least.

  I had killed. I had seen more death in one month here than I had in nearly three decades on Earth. And still… it didn’t hit me the way it should’ve.

  It wasn’t that I thought this was a game, no. It was real. As real as the life I’d left behind. As real as Julia was.

  But… I couldn’t feel what I was supposed to feel. All I could do was offer the same wisdom-filled nonsense I’d whispered to the man before he passed on.

  “He didn’t suffer, at least,” I said quietly from a nearby rock. “His death was a quick one. And, as cruel as it may sound, I wish all our deaths would be just as quick and painless as his.”

  “He died because of me,” Stevin choked, voice already a crack in the character he tried portraying. “The bastards…”

  “Don’t go there,” I sighed. “He was killed. You had nothing to do with it.”

  “This confirms the fucker was my uncle, Elio,” Stevin snapped, not even realizing he’d called me by my name. “This means the sons of bitches are getting impatient, cornering those who could’ve helped me escape into telling where I am.”

  I hadn’t even thought of it that way, and it hurt to realize it.

  In times like these, all my education, all the books I’d read, all the knowledge I thought I had turned into fuck all. History wasn’t some glorious saga of conquest with morally grey protagonists and dramatic betrayals. It wasn’t fiction.

  History was real once. The blood, the weeping mothers, the crying children, the widows, the pain, the terror, the uncertainty of it all. It was all real. Too... real.

  And now, I was burying it under rocks. Like I was burying the truth again somewhere deep, where light never reached.

  Stevin’s situation, all his worries, became painted in a shade of crimson. Making them all too real. Reminding me how strong this adolescent boy really was, and how deep in political shit he truly stood.

  “You will have your revenge,” I said, meeting his teary eyes as I placed another rock on Christof’s body. “And if you can’t… if, after you see it all for yourself, you truly can’t do it, then I’ll take you away. Hide you until the day you die. The truth won’t vanish. The dead won’t return. But you’ll be able to pretend they did. Okay?”

  He stood there, watching me. Maybe imagining a life he never thought possible. A simple one. A tempting one. And as he finally broke down crying, as a boy his age should... I felt nothing.

  I cried over a bed. But not for him. Not for the dead man at my feet. I had enough grief in me already. The bottle was full, and the cap was glued shut. There was no room for more.

  But as Arther and I placed the last rocks in silence, something else took the place of that guilt. Something I had ample room for.

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  Anger.

  Whatever was happening overhead, with the Fractures and the Broken Laws, could damn well wait. I needed to see for myself how cruel this world really was. What a family looked like here.

  So I sighed and placed a hand on Stevin’s shoulder. “Come on. Best to wash up and rest. And don’t tell the others what happened until we leave. Alright?”

  They nodded and got to their feet, and we started walking back toward the cave. But I couldn’t help glancing at the sky, whispering a quick prayer.

  ‘Forgive me, Julia. I will delay you for a few days longer.’

  “Come out, Relia,” I said casually.

  I was outside the cave again in the middle of the night, once everyone had fallen asleep after a bath and a meal, when I summoned the restless shadow from between my clothes.

  She materialized, breathtaking as ever, and I deliberately didn’t look until she finished forming. No need to risk getting smited by my dead wife.

  After a few seconds of silence, I turned, confused by the quietness of it all, and saw Relia looking toward Christof’s grave.

  “It seems this Kingdom has gone to shit as well,” she sighed. “But what can you expect from human cruelty?”

  “Now that you mention it, I didn’t know you weren’t from here,” I said, changing the heavy topic. “Where are you from, Relia?”

  “The Twin Monarchy of Laskhar,” she replied, still eyeing the grave. “Do you know of it, Your Grace? Beautiful place. Free of any humans.”

  “Funny enough, I know the language,” I said, remembering the Passive Ability Ephe gave me. “But that’s about it.”

  She chuckled lightly before turning to me. “Most learn the language after going there.”

  “Rich diversity in my library,” I shrugged. “But is it far?”

  “The other side of the continent. Quite far, yes,” she nodded. “But once I have my full strength, I could return in moments. I have a spell for it.”

  “That’s a useful spell,” I muttered. “I wish I had that. I miss a proper bed.”

  “Weird priorities, Your Grace,” she laughed. “But would you join me? My castle has room for both of us.”

  Unsure whether that was an invitation or a proposition, I shrugged, revealing my neck. “Maybe we can discuss it later. But come on now, eat.”

  But she shook her head. “Lost my appetite tonight.”

  “Because of the humans?” I asked, frowning at the idea of having this Cataclysmic woman not eat anything.

  “Only humans could make a vampire lose appetite,” she smirked, turning and sitting on the same boulder I sat upon, only to stare up at the canyon’s edge. “Even the demon races are more pleasant than humans are. Says a lot about their values.”

  “Is it that bad?” I asked, not happy to learn demon races were apparently a thing.

  “It is,” she nodded. “One moment, humans are pleasant, the next they’re killing each other. One moment they’re venerating you, the next they’re hunting you like a trophy.”

  “And the vampire who attacked you?” I pressed my luck.

  “Ah. Him.” She sighed. “Complicated matter.”

  “When we fought, you said, ‘My kind of luck to meet two annoying bastards in one month after a millennium of nothing,’ but you now sound like you knew him.”

  “Well, the last time I saw him was eleven centuries ago. But the moment he saw me again, he attacked me. Out for revenge... The fucking bitch.”

  “Why revenge?”

  She clicked her tongue as if dreading my question. “Because he was my former husband. I made him a vampire. Then abandoned him when he bored me.”

  Truthfully? Fair. Immortality is long as hell. But still, if my wife turned me into a vampire and then dumped me because I wasn’t entertaining anymore? Yeah, we’d be throwing hands.

  “I see,” I said diplomatically, not actually mentioning any of my real thoughts. After all, we have to remember, I am talking with perhaps the closest thing to a real Demigod, so best be safe, I guess.

  “And get this,” she continued, fully invested in her rant, “The fucker became a Vampire Lord before I did. Earlier! What did he do for a millennium? And why attack me on sight? No, ‘My love, how I’ve missed you’? Nothing! Just straight murder! Forced me to hide in this shithole of a Kingdom. Fuck, I hate him.”

  Easy now, living nuclear weapon. No detonating in my vicinity, please, just keep on spilling the tea.

  “A bastard indeed,” I agreed, sweating.

  “Right?! I knew you understood me. With you here, he won’t touch me.”

  Hold on. I had zero intention of entering a millennia-old marital conflict between two cataclysmic beings. Handle your own immortal divorce drama, ma’am.

  “Haha, right…” I said instead. “Anyway, if you’re not hungry, I should sleep. Another day of rawdogging the ground awaits.”

  “What is rawdogging? A sexual position? Sounds sexual,” she asked.

  “No... actually, yeah. Sure. Whatever you think it is,” I surrendered.

  “Kinky,” she grinned. “Tell me more.”

  “Maybe later,” I said, heading back toward the cave.

  Her quiet laughter faded as she melted back into shadow and slipped under my clothing just as I entered the cave, searching for the softest rock to sleep on.

  There was none.

  Gods, I do love having stones massage my cranium as I sleep. But it was still more comfortable than whatever was waiting for Stevin.

  So, with another deep sigh, I whispered my goodnight to Ephe and let the darkness take me once more.

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