Ashes of her name

The city never saw him return.
They only saw the aftermath.
Where his feet passed, marble cracked. Where his shadow touched, light dimmed. He did not speak. He did not weep. His heart had turned to embers, and his silence burned louder than any roar.
The first to fall were the ones who killed her.
Elirein’s family—noble, proud, and rotted inside.
He arrived at their manor on a windless night. No guards raised alarm. No lights stirred behind the windows. They were already dead by the time the moon touched the roof.
They said he left a message, carved into stone with the tip of his flaming wing:
“She smiled. You didn't.”
From there, the kingdom tried to hunt him.
They called him monster. Traitor. Abomination.They sent angels from the high churches, knights from the gilded paladins.None returned.
One by one, the city’s holy relics dimmed. The gods’ symbols cracked.The heavens—once bright above the capital—were veiled in ash.
He had become something more than vengeance.
He was grief made eternal.He was the flame that heaven feared.
But even wrath needs a home.
He wandered for years, though time no longer meant anything to him. And on the edge of all things, past the rivers that bled black and mountains that moaned in sleep, he found a barren field.
There, he buried a ring.
No grave. No name. Just stone and silence.
And then he knelt.
For years.
For centuries.
Watching.
Waiting.
Not for forgiveness. Not for mercy.
But for her.
If soul met soul again, if the world ever turned kind… he wanted to be there. Not as a god. Not as a demon. But as a man kneeling before the woman who once saw him—not as a soldier, not as a sinner—but as someone worth loving.