[Present]
[???]
The memories resurfaced like festering wounds, ripping open the scars, drowning him in a torment he could never escape. No matter how long the centuries dragged on, no matter how much he tried to convince himself that he had surpassed grief, that he had turned it into strength, it always came back to this. Calliope. Aviva. His wife. His daughter. The ones who had given his existence meaning. The ones who had turned the bleak, hollow void he once called life into something warm, whole.
Now they were nothing more than ashes in his mind, fleeting whispers of a life stolen from him, faces burned into his memory on that cruel, merciless day—the day she took them. Octavia. That Goddess. That wretched deity.
And now, fate had the audacity to mock him.
Aelfric's teeth clenched together so hard it was a wonder they didn't shatter under the force. His fingers curled into fists, nails biting into his palms. Before him stood a vision so similar, so painfully identical.
