Prologue: Death

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Death is silent.

Puffs of condensation came less and less often as the sound of wheezing weakened. Every sound; the chirp of birds, the rustling leaves, the last breaths of a child, crystallised in the night air. Slowing, evermore, unto death. Until silent.

Death is cold.

The tips of shivering fingers changed hue. First red, peachy and full of life. But in a northern winter no peach tree could survive. Then they were white, white as the falling snow and just as cold. Now they are blue. Slipping, unfeeling, into death's embrace. Death's cold embrace.

Death is kind.

This child, abandoned and castout, had known death longer than many adults. And knew her better than any. To most she came in the night, slipping under doors and breezing through windows, her work not seen till the light of day. To Magnus she was a close companion, walking but a step behind. She had saved him from an abusive father, a crooked guardsman, and a king of squalid rats. He had stopped moving, fallen in the shelter of the pine trees, and she had caught up. She sat beside him now, offering her warm embrace. The smile of a mother he never knew. A kind smile.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

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Warmth surged through the young boy's frame. He wouldn’t die. Not like this… he hoped… No! His head spun. The world spun, falling snow on moonless black streamed and turned to little more than alternating lines of monochrome. But he stood, once more, and walked.

Each step shuffled, each inch agony, each breath torture. He had rallied but to what end. There was still no place to go, still no one to trust, still naught but cold and ice and snow in an endless forest.

Rage boiled inside. Why? Why must he suffer? Why did a world, filled with nothing but pain and suffering, death and regret birth him; only to die? To die frozen and alone? Kicked from the only town in a hundred miles for what? Petty theft? Stealing stale bread so he wouldn’t starve deserves exile? Damned if he did, damned if he didn’t.

It became too much and the anger bubbled over, the questions fueling its flames. Heat rampaged out from his centre, flooding his every vein, artery, follicle, and pore; bleeding out of him, pushing back the winter's night, tinging the air red. In a hoarse voice he croaked then cried out to the heavens, the earth, and the stinking, worthless people who thought the world a better place without him.

Who would send a defenceless orphan, of no more than thirteen winters, out, alone and helpless? And to say that they have done something worthy of praise, of commendation. Who could return to their warm and cosy home and sleep a dreamless sleep afterwards.

The sounds which left his lungs, throat, and tongue were harsh and guttural, filled with the fire of vexation. The words, both unknown yet familiar. He crescendoed, building to a climax, the final word roared with such strength and vehemence a lion might be proud.

The scene stilled for but a moment, a heart beat, and when that heart did beat again light filled the forest night, blinding, bright, and unyielding.

Magnus felt the cold once more, for the first time in he-knew-not how long. The feeling was both refreshing and agonising, though short lived. The temperature about the boy grew and grew. It grew beyond comfort, beyond reason beyond sense and soon he felt pain anew, pain of a different sort. A burning fire singed every inch of flesh as he fell once more to the ground. Face up, eyes open. The strength that came upon him suddenly and violently, left him with just as much haste.

He stared up at the dark sky spotted with white. Crackling broke up the deafening silence made by snow. Warmth blanketed him anew, both painful and soothing. The harshness of reality swam, in what remained of his thoughts.

She had left him, for now, but she was never more than a step behind.