[Elythia]
"This is simply the consequence."
The voice slipped through the cracks of his sorrow, drifting into his ears, gentle. It was the kind of voice that could bring comfort to the suffering, ease to the restless, serenity to the tormented. But not him. Not now.
Not when the weight of his grief was so absolute it crushed the breath from his lungs.
Aelfric's frame trembled, his body wracked with violent, erratic spasms as despair swallowed him whole, his mind screaming denial, his soul clawing beneath the unbearable reality before him.
Despite the devastation anchoring him to the ground, despite the way his broken, bloodshot eyes refused to part from the gruesome, twisted remains of the only two people who had ever mattered—they did.
His gaze, sluggish and unfocused dragged itself upward.
A shadow, descending.
