With no tell, the executioner was kicked back where he tumbled around. The girl was standing atop the ledge near him, and another figure, gigantic, but cloaked, picked him up like a bag, and tossed him around his shoulder.

“Stop this instant!” the second prince shouted.

“Shira, go,” the female figure told the giant.

She boarded his other shoulders where she sat. He looked around, as if to identify something.

“I don’t see it,” he said with a low, grumbling voice.

Everyone was apprehensive now, seeing the giant of a man that stood before them. The guards pointed their swords and spears at him, yelling to surrender. Neither the woman on his shoulders nor he paid any heed to their words. They were gazing around, looking for whatever it was they needed.

“There!” She pointed to the sky.

Lucian’s eyes darted to the direction of her fingers and he saw it.

A large black hole gaping through the sky. It was tearing the sky itself and distorting the area around it.

“That asshole, putting it up there!” she groaned.

The man leaped into the sky, and for a split moment, Lucian looked down. Time slowed and he could see everyone’s faces in slow motion—the look of curiosity in the crowd, and anger from the nobles.

For that brief moment, he was floating in the air, just for that moment. Like rain, they dropped after the initial jump. The sensation of falling from the heights invoked a different type of fear in Lucian. The man was not concerned.

Are they crazy???

Up above, all the guards, men, and women alike looked down at the trio with utter bafflement.

And then, it stopped.

Lucian felt warm. There were feathers on his face. He looked up in confusion to see that the giant man's cloak had given way to a pair of massive wings. The feathers were a deep, iridescent black, shimmering in the sunlight. With a powerful flap, the giant ascended higher, his wings cutting through the air with ferocity.

The legionnaires on the ledge pushed the guards and took charge. Spears were hurled into the air, sharp and deadly, aimed straight at the giant and his passengers. Lucian's heart pounded as he watched the spears hurtle toward them.

But the giant man, now fully revealed as a winged being, moved with astonishing agility. He twisted and turned midair, dodging some of the spears effortlessly. Those he couldn't dodge, he deflected with his wings. The spears bounced off the feathers with a metallic clang as if striking a shield of steel.

“Hold on!” the woman shouted, her voice barely audible over the rush of wind and the clamor below.

Lucian tightened his grip, his mind reeling from the revelation. Who was this man? What kind of power did he possess? And how was any of this possible?

As they soared higher, the gaping black hole in the sky loomed closer, its edges rippling with a strange energy. The sight of it filled Lucian with a mix of awe and dread. The sky around it seemed to warp and twist, reality itself bending under the hole's influence.

With another powerful flap of his wings, the giant propelled them upward, heading straight for the black hole. The air grew colder, and an eerie silence fell over them as they approached. The edges of the hole crackled with dark energy, and Lucian could feel a strange pull, as if the hole were drawing them in.

They entered the black hole, and for a moment, everything went dark. Lucian felt a sensation of weightlessness, as if he were floating in a void. There was no sound, no light, just an endless expanse of nothingness. He clung to the giant man's cloak, feeling the feathers brush against his skin, grounding him.

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Then, as suddenly as the darkness had enveloped them, it receded.

Lucian’s eyes took a while to adjust from the darkness but when it did, he saw the ground beneath him. Stone and rock. It was cold against his bare skin.

“So this is him?” an unfamiliar voice said.

Lucian peered ahead, where the ground gave way to wayward stones that were shaped to be seated. There were 7 of them occupied with figures in the same hoods that the woman and the giant wore. Three were empty.

“He doesn’t look anything special,” another one replied and laughed. “What do you think Shira?”

The giant hooded man shrugged. The woman disembarked from his shoulders and walked towards them with the man following her.

“It’s not up to us to decide,” she said. “Only they know.”

Lucian lay there, even more confused than he was before. What were they talking about? Who are they? What is this place? Why did they save him?

“Look at that dumb look on his face,” the same voice that taunted him before said.

“Stop.”

Lucian looked back. He walked, but no sounds could be heard from his steps. A tall figure approached the 9 that sat on the seats. He looked down at Lucian, and for a brief moment, Lucian caught a glimpse of his eyes. It was a clear grey, almost cloudy.

“We have done our part, thanks to Shira and Yuni,” he said. “Now it is up to fate to decide his place.”

The man sat in the center of them. He rested his face on his hands and observed Lucian.

No one else spoke.

“Do not take life so softly,” he finally said. “There will not be a next time if you decide to die.”

The man stood up and pointed to Lucian.

Wha-

Lucian felt himself off the ground, floating. The man moved his fingers behind and Lucian slowly floated backwards.

“He’s weak right now, let’s feed him at least, and prepare him!” another voice, soft, and young, cried out.

“Quiet!” the man scowled back. “We’ve interfered enough!”

He flicked his hands and Lucian fell back, rolling around. He could see it now. The hooded figures were inside a tower, shaped like a hand. It was around three stories high, and they sat in the center of it. The door was open where he fell out of.

Despite falling, he felt no pain. Rather, it was almost comforting and soft. And cold.

Lucian focused outside the tower to the white snowy ground that enveloped him underneath, like quicksand. It’s piercing cold sent his fingers into a state of near frostbite immediately. He twisted behind and saw the snow spread around, without any end to it. Mountains in the distance, capped with snow all around.

Thirsty, he stuffed his face into the snow and ate some of it, allowing it to melt in his mouth. Lucian turned again to where the tower was, and it was gone. Just like that, as if it was never there.

Lucian sat there in the cold, body almost numb to the cold.

He was not dead, no. But he might as well have been, being thrown here.

With the little energy he regained from the melted snow in his mouth, he forced himself to stand, albeit barely. Bare-chested, and almost blue from the cold, he trodded forward towards the mountains in the distance.

Every step he took sapped more strength away from him. The snow’s depth was at least up to his knees. He could not give up. He did not want to.

Die like a man, trying.

Every negative thought that came to his head, he shouted “No!” to it every time.

Every step seemed to be his last, but he mustered the strength every time to put the other feet forward. He would often stumble and falter, but never give up. Every step led him closer to the mountain. Or so, he thought,

When he walked long enough so his bare feet was frozen and stiff, and the cold snow could no longer provide him any energy, he stopped.

It’s over, the same voice that told him to take the fall said.

Lucian hated it. He spited his own voice and dug his almost frozen hands into the snow and crawled forward, eyes bloodshot red.

As the day waned and the pale light of the sky began to fade, Lucian’s vision blurred. The mountains in the distance, his beacon of hope, faded. He felt the numbness creeping up his chest, but he pushed on, dragging himself forward.

Then, in the distance, a flicker of light. At first, he thought it was a trick of his mind, but as he crawled closer, the light grew steadier, warmer. He could make out the silhouette of a small structure, a cabin or a hut, nestled against the base of the mountain.

Lucian’s heart surged with a renewed vigor. He crawled faster, the thought of warmth and shelter driving him on. When he finally reached the cabin, he used the last of his strength to pound weakly on the door before collapsing into the snow.