Prince of The Abyss

The guardian was dead... after so long, they had finished their job.

Sena walked up to him with a big smile on her face. "You’re insane, you know that. I never would have expected that you would just climb onto it and rip its wing."

Aether sighed. "I had no other chance, and do any of your men have any bandages? Night hasn’t come yet, so I can’t heal my wounds."

Sena nodded, lifting her arm in the air, as one of the men threw some bandages at her, but he missed, hitting her in the face. She turned to him, a deep frown on her face, but she didn’t do anything; after all, she knew he hadn’t wanted that to happen.

Getting the bandages from the ground, she turned to Aether. "I’ll wrap you up, so sit down."

"If you say so." He said, slowly lowering himself down, watching as Fate started to bandage his shoulder.

"What are you going to do about him?" Sena asked.

But Aether didn’t understand, tilting his head. "Huh?" But then his eyes wandered back to the boy, who was crying his heart out; he looked to have really loved the guardian, just like probably everyone in the village, and the guardian also loved them; he saw it when it tried to protect the kid.

...

But what was he going to do with him? After all, if he let him go, and he stayed to cover before going to the village, he might tell everyone, and that was exactly what he didn’t need to happen, because if the village found out, they would probably tell the other regions about it, and then they won’t be welcome into the villages anymore, maybe they would even try to kill them, and plus they needed the information...

So he couldn’t let that happen.

"I can order one of my men to take care of it, if you don’t want to kill him-" But before she could finish, Aether was already getting up.

He limped towards the boy, who seemed terrified to see him come, trying to crawl away, but the men controlled by Sena were there to remind him that he had nowhere to go.

’Have I... killed anyone as young as him before? And I mean with my blade, since I have caused the death of too many in Frozen Crown. With my own blade, have I ever taken the life of someone... this young?’

Aether stopped in front of the boy, staring into his eyes.

He couldn’t be older than nine years of age... how could he go through such a traumatic experience at such a young age... well, he had gone through something similar. After all, he had almost been killed at this age too, and by his own people. Luckily, there was someone to protect him that day, and he managed to get away.

That was the difference between the two of them.

Both of them were the same age, both had someone wanting to kill them, and both had someone to protect them.

Yet only one stayed behind.

You could call it abandoning, but in such a situation, what could you ever do? You’re an inconvenience, and if your protector loses. This happens, this exact situation.

Aether lifted his blade, seeing the boy’s desperate crying intensify. He was scared, probably out of his mind, more scared than he had ever been.

...

He wasn’t going to lie and say it wasn’t hard to do; after all, he wasn’t one to normally take the lives of those young... he had been lucky that the village before didn’t somehow have any people this young. But what will come? How did he know that there wouldn’t be another life this one?

...

’They... are just characters in a story...’

He said to himself, before his blade came down, to cut the boy’s head off his shoulders.

[You-]

"Don’t want to hear it; it doesn’t even matter since it doesn’t even give me any shards anymore."

Sena approached, resting her hand on his shoulder. "Tough job?"

Aether shook his head. "The job is not done."

...

...

...

It was... just another day for her. Just taking care of her child while her husband was away providing, and she... liked it that way; she loved spending time with her child, what mother didn’t. And her husband was amazing, the most wonderful man she had ever met; the only bad thing was that... he wasn’t here all that much...

She was cooking dinner when she heard a knock on her door.

"Who is it?" She said, but already knowing who it was,

"Come on, sweetie, you know it’s me."

She chuckled, grabbed their daughter, and headed to the door. But once she opened it. Her husband looked... strange, awfully soulless; his eyes had lost a lot of color. "My poor husband, was work that tiring?" Her hand moved to cup his cheek, but then she saw a figure behind him; it seemed to be a boy, with blonde hair and blue eyes... holding a blade...

Her eyes widened. Was the figure... making her husband do something?

A blade rested in the hand of her lover; only now did she notice it.

"Kill them," the figure said from behind, and before she could do anything, her husband raised his blade and stabbed her...

...

She was killed by the man she loved most... but at least... she knew that he was forced into it.

...

...

...

Aether sighed, watching the man, even while controlled by Sena; they probably saw what they were doing, which was torture. Imagine having to watch yourself murder your family for no reason... which is why he had come with him... If his wife believed the reason behind him killing her and his daughter was because of him, he could take all the blame. And the men could at least... suffer a bit less. He couldn’t take his suffering, but at least he could make it so his family didn’t hate him.

After all.

Every death that was going to happen tonight was his fault. And he took the blame.