No gift could be ungiven. This law of the System I understood, and I forged onwards anyway. There was a shudder deep within, a distinct void that overrode my senses in the departure’s wake.

But I gave freely, and would never regret this.

And now I knelt amid the rubble, to wait and see if my sacrifice would bear fruit. So that even a single life might be saved amidst this carnage. Under a dark sky, I battled grief and hopelessness as I watched Valencia’s body remain still.

Moments passed from one to the next and tiredness clawed at my every limb. Even upon my knees, I could barely withhold exhaustion. My fingers were burnt, my body battered and bruised. Yet I was alive, and she was not.

I had gambled that I could reverse death’s finality through sheer desperation, and the fruits of my effort lay bare. Valencia laid unresponsive, cold as the grave. I refused to accept this. I was in denial, I recognized. And I would stay there until proven otherwise.

My eyes never left here form as time dragged on. What else was there to do? Stand, go find a spot amongst the rubble and sleep, then wake and journey back home all alone. To leave only destruction behind. A bitter, empty victory. Rest whispered to me, only to be shoved aside.

Why did I care so much?

This thought haunted me. Asked me what compelled me to care for Valencia. To give a damn about a person who had brought harm to me and mine. Had hated me for who I was. Tried to trod me under her boot. Questioned why I did not walk away now that she was gone from this world.

For all her evil, she had done good. Ishila lived because of her. My enemies lay broken only because she had chosen to aid me. The destruction of all that was mine at their hands had been waylaid by her might. Two voices raged inside me.

One cycnical part of me spoke to celebrate a great evil being felled now that she had passed. The other grieved for a light snuffed out without finding peace. To never have known hope.

I let them rage within me as I waited for something, anything.

Denial turned to anger. Rage at this world, at these Gods. For how they had let her suffer. Cast her aside and never acknowledged her. But at the same time, there was a bitter part in me that spoke of other things.

Gods needed not acknowledge anyone. They were far above this world, unbound by any mortal rules or laws. All here was created in their image. I had seen that if they chose to, they could snuff out anyone in an instant. But they chose to watch from afar, reward those they saw fit.

I had known that there was little fairness in this world since I had come here. It would have been a foolish hope to hold onto, to deny reality to its uncaring face.

Perhaps another in my spot would have tried to fix this world, use their powers to reshape it in their image.

I had no such lofty aspirations. Instead, I merely wanted to make the lives of those around me a little bit brighter. Happier. Help them fulfill their dreams. Keep them safe and warm and hold back all the cruelties that came with this forsaken place.

And now, after all this time, all these efforts, I had finally lost someone.

Was this grief birthed of my caring for Valencia, or from the crushing reality that no matter how strong I was, I could not protect everyone?

Did it matter?

The corpse shuddered, and all thoughts I had were dispelled. Hope flaring inside, I waited with bated breath for whatever happened next.

She blinked, and joy awoke within me. The smile that spread across my face was the widest I had ever shown as Valencia sat upright and stared at me. I was not prepared to have her arms wrap around me in a hug, nor for how tight she squeezed.

After several moments, she let go and stood on trembling limbs, still without a word said.

Fists raised victoriously above her head, she leaned back and screamed defiance for all the world to hear. Emptied her lungs until her breath itself gave away and the sound echoed all along the canyon.

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And only then did my body give out and exhaustion took me.

I woke some time after, my body in pain and every single cell both sore and drained. Not of my own volition, I sat propped against a stone slab, fire crackling before me. I had slept for some time, I reckoned.

The dreadknight sat across from me, eyes boring into my skull, gaze shadowed.

“You’re awake. Finally.” She grunted.

Awake and still dead tired.

“How long did I sleep?” I grumbled in return. Gods, there was a foul stench all around us.

“A day and some change.”

There was venison in her hand, and I caught a strip tossed over the flames at me. I sniffed again and nearly gagged at the stench that pervaded the air all around us.

“Gods Above, what is that?”

“Bodies being burnt.” She gestured, and I blinked to find a smoldering pyre across the field of rubble. There were hundreds of burnt corpses stacked high, burnt to a crisp. Every last defender and invader of the fortress, I realized.

“Undeath already in half of them. Needed to weed it all out before it spread.”

The necromancer had initiated that, I remembered blearily. Left unattended, there would have been several thousand undead roaming around by now.

“Any other survivors?”

There was little hope in my tone, and she quashed it anyway.

“Not a one. Only we remain. Only you made it out alive.”

That brought forth a tense moment of silence as neither of us moved to broach the topic.

“How was it?” I asked with morbid curiosity. “Death, I mean.”

Valencia shrugged.

“Can’t remember anything. One moment, I was facing the herald. Then there was darkness, then light again. I know I died. I know you did something to my soul. And now I’m alive again. With something inside me that keeps me that way.”

Silence, for a while.

“Are you a necromancer in secret, minotaur?”

This I denied. Instead, I chose to tell her the truth. I had already invested so much in saving her life. Why hold back anything now?

I talked, and over the low fire, she listened. Her expression changed throughout as I tried to lay everything in front of her. My skill, my reasoning, my hopes. And though I was nervous she might lash out about something, Valencia listened.

I finished, the words left hanging in the air as I explained to a monstress how I hoped she might become a better person.

I remained quiet, trepidation in my gut as she stood and strode around the fire. Valencia sat beside me and put one hand on my arm. She thought for a moment, words carefully chosen before she spoke.

“Garek. My story should be over. My life snuffed out, my soul consumed by the Gods Below. In every other life, this is where my tale would have ended. Arrogant enough to challenge heaven’s wrath and think that I would not feel its wroth. But in this life, I met you. And because of you, I live.”

“Because of you, my soul is intact. I am free of the grasp of my masters. All my life I have fought and battled and killed and tried to impress the Gods Above so that they might acknowledge me. Grant me a place in the System and set me loose from the shackles on my soul.”

“In the end, it was you. A single, good man. Not the Gods, not the System, not this power I have chased with every waking breath. You.”

She tilted her head to look up at me, something in her eyes.

“You’ve called me a monster. You’re right. I have taken countless lives, and destroyed just as many. I have wrought destruction in the pursuit of what I thought was mine. Yet I have never forgotten the worth of a life. And now, I am the one in your debt.”

She refused to hear my arguments that I owed her as much after all she had done.

“My life continues because of you. My heart beats only with your sacrifice.” She spoke, her tone deathly serious. “Think on that. You have cheated death to slip me from its grasp. Through you, I remain on this world. Another chance at life, where it should have ended.”

“Even if you do not see the value in that, I do, and I always will.”

“I saw the shape of the void, and it terrified me. Endless nothingness. It showed the sum of all that I had wrought, and there was naught there. All the blood I have spilled, the lives I have taken, the Gods I have appeased. The power I have built.”

“All made,” She whispered quietly. “Null and void. A darkness without end. And I think back, and realize; how much of my life did I draw satisfaction from? What times was I truly happy in?”

Those words trailed off as I let her ruminate on her thoughts, her presence at my side.

“What now?” I asked, still exhausted.

“Nothing. That is tomorrow’s issue. For now, I will sit with you and be glad that I still live.”

And I was fine with that.