Chapter 57: The snow fell slowly
The snow fell slowly. Each flake was a gentle blade, too white to be clean. The world was mute, the sky faded, and the air... sweet. Almost too sweet. Like the smell of something dying in silence.
Hagan walked among the bodies with careful steps. His feet sank into the snow, but the warmth emanating from his body melted it the instant it touched the ground. His fingers trembled—not from the cold, but from memory.
They were all there. The disciples. The tamers. The beasts. And her.
Her.
The dark-haired girl was kneeling in the center of the field, as if she had chosen that place to die. Her clothes were burned, her face stained with dried blood. Her eyes had been gouged out, and yet... she stared at him.
"You promised..." her voice whispered, issuing from unmoving lips.
Hagan fell to his knees. The weight of his coat seemed to multiply on his shoulders. The bells around her neck jingled with the wind.
"I tried, Liora. I swear by everything that still pulses in the world... I tried..."
"You expected redemption from those already corrupted," she said. But it wasn’t really her. It was the memory. It was the reflection of his guilt sculpted in flesh.
Around them, the monsters of his colleagues were twisted. Some had been killed by their own masters. Others had devoured them before collapsing under poorly made contracts. Broken bonds. Soulless pacts. The scene was a painting of ruin crafted by hands that had believed in the love between man and beast.
And he... had hesitated.
In the moment he could have broken the ritual, he did not. Because he still believed that everyone deserved redemption. Because he still believed there was purity... in any creature.