The wind hissed through the broken trees as Aeron stared at the blood-stained scroll in his hands.
For a long moment, he couldn't bring himself to open it.
His fingers hovered over the seal like they touched a venomous serpent.
He had received countless messages across the centuries—orders from kings, threats from cults, half-mad prophecies scribbled by dying mystics—but every instinct in his body screamed that this one was different.
Older.
Heavier.
Closer to the gods.
Aeron exhaled sharply through his nose.
"Just open it," he muttered, more annoyed than brave.
The parchment cracked as he unfolded it. The dried blood tugged at the fibers, tearing one corner.
And then he read.
**"To General Varkos of the Crimson Dominion—
The Deathless One walks the western roads."**
Aeron's heart lurched.
Deathless One.
That name was older than most countries.
A cold pressure tightened around his ribs. He hadn't heard that title whispered aloud in three hundred years.
"Fantastic," he mumbled. "Someone's been digging up old nightmares."
He kept reading.
**"He seeks no throne and carries no banner.
But the gods marked him, and he bears their curse still.
Capture him alive."**
Alive.
Aeron swallowed hard. The word tasted like iron.
Alive was all he ever was.
All he ever could be.
A sour twist of annoyance flared beneath the fear.
He hated that people assumed immortality made him useful. He hated it even more when they were right.
He scanned the next lines, and the world seemed to tilt beneath him.
**"The Seer of Embers has spoken:
'When the immortal bleeds, the sky shall open.
When the immortal kneels, the lands shall burn.
When the immortal dies…
a god will be reborn.'"**
The words punched the air from his lungs.
Aeron staggered back a step before he could stop himself.
"No," he whispered. "No, no, no—there's no way I'm tied to another prophecy. Not again."
But the script was clear.
The message unmistakable.
They believed his death—
the one thing he wanted most—
would bring a god roaring back into the world.
His fear sharpened into something colder.
Tighter.
Almost suffocating.
If they were right…
He wasn't just cursed.
He was dangerous.
Aeron's hands trembled. The parchment fluttered.
"Perfect," he said bitterly. "Absolutely perfect. I can't die, but apparently if I do, I end the world. Wonderful. Truly brilliant."
He forced himself to read the final line.
**"Bring the Deathless One to me.
His life is the key.
His death is the door."
— Varkos, Warlord of the Crimson Dominion**
The scroll slipped from Aeron's fingers.
The wind caught it and dragged it across the dirt like a fallen leaf.
Aeron stood frozen.
Fear gnawed at his spine—raw, animal fear that he rarely felt anymore.
But underneath it, simmering like the last coal in a dying fire, was irritation.
"Varkos…" he muttered. "Of course he'd be involved. Why wouldn't a power-hungry warlord with more muscle than brains use me as his next toy?"
He raked a hand through his rain-damp hair, the motion shaky.
"I swear, if I ever meet the gods again, I'm going to punch at least one of them."
He looked toward the eastern horizon, where the Iron Monastery monks had vanished.
He had options.
None of them good.
Run?
They would find him.
Hide?
They always did.
Fight?
Against an army, a prophecy, and a god waiting behind death's door?
Aeron exhaled, fear contouring every line of his face.
"…I really hate my life," he whispered.
But he began walking anyway.
Because if the Dominion was hunting him—
—he needed to understand why the gods cursed him in the first place.
And why they were not done with him.