The end of the gods began how most things did – with a birth. Shadows danced in faint torchlight, illuminating a large tent in the center of a clearing. The grass around it was trodden to little more than dirt, but not a single soul stood in the glade. Within the tarp shelter, a towering man loomed over his wife.

“Push, Lilly. It’s almost over,” Rynholt Coda urged, the knuckles of his massive hands turning white as he strangled a wooden bedpost. “You can do this.”

“Shut up,” Lilly hissed. Her cheeks were flushed red, and her breath came in irregular pained gasps. She groaned, squeezing her eyes shut as a convulsion rocked her body. Rynholt had long since lost track of how long they’d been in his command tent.

“Almost there,” Rynholt repeated. “Just a little more.”

Lilly let out a cry, followed by a ragged wheeze for air. Then it was over. Rynholt released his stranglehold on the wooden post and marveled at the child that had appeared before him. The boy was covered with fluids and blood, what little hair he had matted down to his head. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

“It’s done, Lilly,” he said, placing a rough hand on his wife’s cheek. She gave him the barest hint of a smile, her eyes still closed. One by one, she opened them and took her first look at the boy.

His cheeks were clammy and his limbs limp. Not a single sound escaped the boy’s mouth. A heavy stillness hung in the air, devoid of all life. The child was lifeless.

“Healer!” Rynholt thundered, spinning and rushing out the tent, nearly ripping it down in his haste to throw the flaps open. The courtyard was empty. He knew that – he’d ordered it. The gods meddled far too often in his dealings, and he’d wanted to avoid another attempted assassination.

Rynholt drew on decades of training and bared his teeth, crushing his churning emotions into a ball and drawing deep within himself. Magical energy poured from his eyes and lips as he blurred, disappearing from view. He reformed seconds later, a baffled, white robed man held tightly in his grip.

“Inside the tent, Fynn,” Rynholt barked. “My son. Save him.”

Fynn’s eyes widened, and he darted in. Rynholt followed him, pacing back and forth while the healer examined his son.

“Just hold still,” Fynn said, raising his hands over the still boy. “I’ll do everything I can.”

A gentle glow lit along his fingers, arcing down and entering his forehead and chest. Fynn’s brow furrowed. The lines of power grew in thickness. The room lit further, but the boy remained as still and lifeless as ever.

“Is it working?” Rynholt asked, unable to help himself.

“Be silent when I work,” Fynn snapped, not glancing away from his task. He snapped his fingers impatiently, an entirely different man than the one that Rynholt had grabbed moments ago. “Give me your power.”

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Rynholt thrust his arm forth with such speed that he nearly impaled the healer. He gathered magic at his fingertips, offering it up to the other man. It leapt from his hand and into Fynn’s, siphoning into the healer’s body.

The magic coursing into the boy grew so bright that it filled the room like a miniature sun, making it impossible to see. Then, with a brilliant flash, it was gone. Fynn stood over Lilly, gasping for breath. Rynholt pushed past the man to see his son. Closed eyes and blue cheeks were all that he found.

“Save him!” Rynholt demanded, grabbing Fynn and shaking the man. “You’re the best godforsaken healer in the continent! Why can’t you fix a child?”

“I did everything I could,” Fynn wheezed. “He was never alive, Sir. There was nothing to bring back. I’m sorry. I tried everything I could, I swear. I just can’t revive something that never lived in the first place.”

Fury marred Rynholt’s grizzled face, warring with the agony and pain that sprouted from the shattered remains of what had been joy mere instants ago.

Lilly’s face was blank. She stared at the corpse lying before her, unable to find the emotion through the thick haze setting in over her. Her mouth worked, but all that emerged was a strangled sob.

They’d been trying for a child for nearly ten years, but circumstance and the gods had never favored them. And now, at what should have been their greatest hour, they had been robbed once more.

A ray of sunlight broke through the tent as the sun rose over the horizon. In the distance, the church bell rang – just Rynholt had ordered it to, in honor of his new son. His legacy. And now, nothing but a memory of what could have been.

“Impossible,” Rynholt whispered. “I’ll get more healers.”

“You know that won’t do anything,” Fynn said, shaking his head sadly. “Not even the gods can return that which never existed.”

“Damn the gods.” Rynholt clenched his fists. His fingernails broke through skin and blood trickled down his hands, dripping onto the floor. He glanced up at Lilly, then slowly rose to his feet.

“Should I send for someone?” Fynn asked.

“No,” Rynholt replied, forcing his hands open. The words felt like ash as they left his mouth. “I – just go. Prepare a small pyre and tell nobody.”

***

Fire danced in Rynholt’s eyes. It curled up the carefully arranged pile of wood at the center of his camp, curling just up to his eye level. The camp, which had been full of rejoicing men just one night before, stood silent and empty. Aside from him, the only souls present were Lilly and Fynn.

Lilly stepped forward, their son still clutched in her hands. Rynholt put a hand on her shoulder.

“If there was any god, any creature, at fault for this, then they will atone,” he swore, his eyes burning with fury and sorrow. “But I will speak of it no more today. My son’s memory will not be profaned.”

“Knell,” Lilly corrected, her voice raspy. “His name was Knell.”

She stepped toward the pyre. The flame licked at her feet, lighting her pale skin aglow, but it simply danced across her body instead of burning. She raised Knell in the air above her head as tears poured down her face.

Rynholt’s breath caught in his throat, and he bit his lip hard enough that the taste of copper erupted in his mouth. Fynn raised a hand to comfort the larger man, but pressed his lips together and lowered it instead.

The church bell rang for the second time that day. It was a deep, thrumming noise that reverberated through Rynholt’s bones and imprinted itself forever into his memory.

Lilly started to lower her hands, bringing Knell down to the flame. A single tear beaded up in Rynholt’s eye, tracing down his rugged cheek. Then, when their son was just inches away from the flame, Lilly froze.

A single cry pierced the silence of the clearing, cutting through the crackling flame.

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The cry of a newborn.