Luminous Dawn

The cold had long seeped into his skin, into his bones and woke him up.

Erhen lay on the wooden floor, staring at the ceiling, his breath misting in the frozen air. A hangover pounded against his skull, his stomach twisted with nausea, but something deeper gnawed at him—an unease that had nothing to do with drink. His body felt wrong, like he had been drowning all night, like something had held him beneath black waters, whispering to him in a language older than time.

The dream.

Or was it a nightmare?

He sat up, and the room spun violently. The cold embers in the hearth barely cast any light, but he could see the outlines of the house—the pristine furniture, the dust-covered shelves, the forgotten remnants of a life now dead.

His home. If it could even be called that anymore.

Erhen rubbed his temples, willing the memories of the nightmare to come back to him, but they slipped away like sand through his fingers. Green mist. Clawing darkness. A voice he should not have understood. And Tyr. His son, but not his son. Only small fragments appeared in his mind.

He exhaled sharply and pushed himself to his feet. The room swayed again, and bile threatened to rise in his throat, but he ignored it. His boots scuffed against the wooden floor as he moved toward the table, brushing dust away from an overturned glass. The silence pressed against him, thick and suffocating. Too silent.

For a fleeting second, he had the overwhelming sense that he was not alone. He turned sharply—nothing. Just shadows. Just the house, empty and ruined. Maybe not empty enough.

A thin layer of frost rimmed the windows, creeping in delicate patterns over the glass. He didn't remember it being this cold when he had stumbled inside last night.

He swallowed against the dryness in his throat and reached for the bottle on the table, but his fingers hesitated. The taste of bile still in his throat. 'No. Not today.' Erhen spoke to himself.

Today, he needed answers. He would go to the capital, Lumeris and find the Doctor who did the autopsy. That was all that mattered.

Moving through the house was like walking through a graveyard. His fingers brushed against the back of an old chair, against the edge of the table where Vanessa used to sit. He could almost see her—head tilted slightly as she read, hair falling over one shoulder, a soft hum on her lips.

But the chair was empty. The book had started gathering dust.

She's gone. Tyr is gone.

His gaze drifted to the doorway that led to the back room. Their son's room. The door was slightly ajar, the darkness within yawning like an open wound. He hadn't set foot in there since the funeral.

He didn't… couldn't even now.

Instead, he walked past it, into the small kitchen where the shelves had been left mostly bare. His fingers twitched as he reached for food to take, as if expecting the warm press of Vanessa's hand guiding his own. But there was only the cold air.

Only the silence. It should have been unbearable. But it was. That was the most horrifying part.

Erhen moved with a strange clarity now, pulling on his coat, strapping his sword to his side. He gathered only what he needed—nothing more. The past could not follow him where he was going.

But the house? The house could not remain.

It had become a mausoleum, a place frozen in time, a shell that trapped him in a loop of grief and empty days. And now, after that nightmare—after the promise of truth—he understood.

He would never return here.

He found the matchbook near the hearth, its edges worn from time. He struck a match, watching as the tiny flame flared to life, flickering against his fingertips. It cast a dim glow against the walls, making the shadows dance.

For a long moment, he simply stood there. This place had been his home. The only place he had ever let himself be happy.

And yet, it had also become his prison. With a slow, measured motion, he dropped the match onto the dry floorboards.

The fire caught immediately. The old wood hungrily devoured the flame, spreading it like veins through the house. It crawled up the walls, licked at the furniture, and consumed the books on the shelves one by one and smoke curled toward the ceiling.

And then, the first room collapsed into itself, and the fire roared.

There would be no turning back. Erhen stepped outside the cold wind hit his face, sharp and biting, but he didn't shiver. Heat licked at his back, the smell of burning wood and scorched memories thick in the air. He walked forward, past the brittle grass, past the old fence post that stood upright in welcome.

He didn't stop until he reached the edge of the clearing. And then, for just a moment, he stood there.

The fire raged behind him, a beast consuming everything in its path. Sparks rose into the night like dying stars. The house—his past—was reduced to an inferno, leaving nothing untouched.

But he did not look back.

His hands curled at his sides and his breath came slowly, steadily. The flames reflected in his eyes were not from the fire that grew and swallowed his home, but from the growing hunger inside.

As if to play further tricks, the wind seemed to have picked up her voice. He could still hear her in the wind singing that same song she hummed.

'When winter's frost steals breath away,'

'And whispers call where shadows lay,'

'I'll seek thee still, where dreams entwine,'

'Through realms unseen, my soul finds thine.'

And then reached under his shirt, pulling out a locket with their pictures inside. A small tuft of brown hair and black hair interlaced together almost fell out. He brushed his thumb across the pictures and hair, the words that he wanted to scream came but could not utter even a whisper. He put the locket back under his shirt and left the home burning behind him for the road.