The End of All Eras

Rot didn’t miss red.

Six kings had fallen since The Blotting, and still, he grieved all the colors—all but that of his namesake. Seeing only black pour from battlefield victims made it easier to grant them peace. Made it easier to do Emethara’s bidding as Heir to the Plague.

The Shepherd of Mercy.

The grayscale suited Rot. In his first years, every sight of red brought bile to his throat—a terrible irony considering his origins as a butcher. There were nights that he wept by his scythe, hating himself for taking up this abhorrent mantle. Now, he barely sighed as he slit the lieutenant’s throat, watching the broken man’s eyes bulge in relief as Emethara claimed him for Herself. The man did not struggle. Few did. Marrow-deep instinct drove them to accept release. The lieutenant’s throat gaped open like a second mouth, spilling only thick, black ichor—the blessing of The Blot.

“Seek the Nameless Shores, friend,” Rot muttered, barely audible in the chill of the morning. A weak rattle met his words in reply. The last sufferer now eased, Rot wiped the glistening oil off his blade with the sleeve of his cloak. Though he’d wielded this scythe for far longer, he missed the sure weight of his cleaver—an honest tool meant for cleaning and quartering beasts.

A wet cough echoed across the savaged plain. Rot’s eyes snapped to its source. He had silenced all the wails of the fallen. Had he somehow missed one? It was too bright for looters. The suns now hung overhead, casting a light bereft of warmth. Another cough.

Frustrated with himself, Rot melted into mist and coalesced over the man who’d coughed: a massive warrior covered in tattoos and scars. About a half dozen spears were lodged inside him, yet he was smiling. How had Rot missed this hulking creature? Better yet, how did the man still draw breath? Emethara would not be pleased with him if he left any remnant to drown in their own blood. 

Rot raised his weapon.

The man’s eyes flickered open: golden brown.

Rot froze. Color. There, amid the carnage, two eyes glowed like the ember of a dying fire. 

“Emissary of Emethara,” the downed man croaked with a thick accent. Rot’s insides coiled. This impossible survivor should not have been able to see him—yet somehow, Emethara’s power waned in his proximity.

A viscous chuckle emanated from the man as he burned Solglyphs, searing the colorless air with the golden glare of his tattoos. He shifted as if to rise, then paused—almost confused when the cluster of pointed sticks denied him this liberty.

Rot angled his blade against the man’s throat. “You’re not supposed to be here.” The gray of the man’s body did not match his eyes or the sigils drawn into his skin—an unnatural consequence of The Blotting.

The foreigner grimaced. “Tell me something I don’t know, Child of Decay.”

Rot stiffened. He pressed his scythe against the Pyrothian’s neck. A not-black liquid pooled at its base. The foul taste of bile returned to Rot’s tongue. He hadn’t tasted it in decades.

“Sending me to the Nameless Shores before I even get a chance to speak?” The warrior rasped.

“I can’t sense your goddess or mine,” Rot hissed. “What are you?”

The foreigner coughed again, more violently this time. “I’m a… messenger.” He hesitated with the last word as though it was unfamiliar to him. Worry blossomed in Rot’s chest. Emethara should be present for this, but that thought did little to quell his curiosity. He pulled his weapon away from the foreigner, leaving behind that forsaken color.

“And your message?”

The man’s eyes took on a new light. “The End of All Eras.”

Rot tightened his grip on the scythe. Gristle, dead before all six kingships, used to recite this false prophecy to Rot in the dark of their room instead of sleeping. He told his little brother stories about worlds without calamities like Plague or Scorch. The End of All Gods. An empty hope.

“You’re lying,” Rot growled more to himself than the foreigner.

“I’m not,” he promised. “We’ve trapped our goddess.”

Emethara’s sister? Rot thought, then shook his head. No one had the power to contest a goddess, much less trap one.

“That’s not possible.”

“Tell me how I’m here then,” the man challenged him in turn, wheezing as he did so. One of the spears had impaled a lung. Rot could remove it, but he needed assurances first.

“How?” Rot demanded, nearly pleading.

“There are more like me. We’ve been looking for you. Waiting at places of death–”

SILENCE.

All light faded from memory. Rot fell to his knees upon recognizing the voice of his Master. Her cloak billowed past him like a darkening cloud. What little color the Pyrothian brought with him was lost in Her stifling presence.

“What have you done to Aeorá?” the goddess asked politely, though her tone made the ground quake beneath Rot’s knees. The Pyrothian closed his eyes as though shielding his last vestige of color from her.

SPEAK.

“The same thing we’re going to d-do to you,” he spat, though his voice quavered. “Demon.”

Rot closed his eyes. He winced when he heard the crunch of an exploded skull. Droplets sprayed his face. He would’ve vomited had his Master not been nearby.

“You hesitated to kill him,” Emethara spoke into Rot’s ear. “Why?”

“I don’t know, Milady,” Rot admitted, tasting iron as he opened his lips to speak. He didn’t dare to open his eyes. How much had she heard of the conversation? Did she mistake his sympathies for treachery? In his youth, Rot would pray for protection in times like these—a habit that seemed laughable now, considering the only deity who ever answered him wore a crown of human bone and called him Mercy.

There was a moment of dire quiet. Rot prepared for the Nameless Shores.

“Continue your work. Don’t let it happen again.”

The sunlight returned. Rot opened his eyes and found a scene of gray and red waiting for him. Nothing remained of the Pyrothian’s head but a mass of disintegrated flesh. Within seconds, the crimson darkened to oil. But for the first time in years, he remembered the difference.

Scythe in hand, Rot took a shaky breath and rose to his feet. He could sense another battlefield on the other side of the continent where he was needed—men and women alike this time, drowning in trenches. He would have to move quickly to find another messenger. And he would have to hope that they, too, could shut out Emethara. If only temporarily.