The swirling sky overshadowed the kingdom of Seanate. Reflecting in the freezing rain, The dark Lord‘s eyes grew misty is he charged back to the mountain station he and his army had claimed. Towards theircamp high in the blizzarding mountains they rushed, all wanting nothing but to rest yet their emperor could not say the same. His cheeks had become frosted over with the water that dripped from eyes seemingly made of ice. He feared himself and the destruction caused by his hands. In fact, his skin sizzled with self loathing. This wasn’t something he wanted. To raid land after land to avenge the lost, knowing they could never be found, Cier knew it was an act of unequal justice. To have fragments of his world ripped away from his grasp only to take that of others, his stomach tied itself into a knot. Just imaging what loved ones may say if they only could speak now, tore his dying heart and split his cracking mind into loose tangled threads, and desperately, Cier felt as though he was fighting tooth and nail to tie himself back into the man he once was. Yet such a thing was a pure impossibly. Never could he return to the peace he once prospered. 

Having made it to the stronghold he took shelter, Cier hid himself away within the four walls of a small bed chamber, sobbing and staring endlessly into the cracks of a shattered vanity, wondering how he could ever live with myself. Truthfully, he didn’t want to. Everyone he ever loved Cier had failed to protect. And now so many more lives were beyond ruined. Though the guilt of it ate away at his soul little by little, there was no way that he could surrender. Not without knowing why this was happening. Or who he would be meeting in Hell. 

Wrapping his wrists around an ivory bristled brush. The emperor repeatedly smashed it into the glass, shards falling and flying from their frame. The image of himself was simply unbearable. 

Reality did not feel entirely true. Only twelve nights ago he would have never even would have considered the idea that his whole existence would change. As if once he were someone else. Cier had been a fair and careful leader, now reduced to the lows of a vicious dictator. And there was no way he could ever be the same man neither Seddow or Seanate would remember. The storms outside only continued to rage, slowly slipping out of Cier’s control like sand dripping down the passage of an hourglass.