The road had already stripped me of almost everything—coins, strength, even the small thread of hope that once clung inside my chest. I had wandered through towns, begged, searched for whispers of how to bring back the dead. Every time the same answers. Laughter. Pity. Some men told me I was mad. Others said the dead are long gone—look for the living instead.
I still see their faces when I close my eyes. My wife smiling as she held our son in her arms, the weight of that promise—I will… I promise you I will.
The promise is the only thing that keeps my legs moving.
By the time I stumbled into the northern hills, I had nothing left. My body screamed for rest, my stomach gnawed at itself. That was when I saw them—people who looked different, spoke a tongue I did not know.
At first I thought they would cast me out. But when I asked in the common tongue, they turned, surprised. They could speak it. Yet among themselves, their words were strange, sharp, not of this land.
"Why do you speak so differently?" I asked one elder, my lips cracked and voice rasping. "What is your origin?"
The man's face tightened. His eyes carried weight. "Our ancestors," he said slowly, "spoke these words. They found them in a book long ago. The book is nearly gone now—only a few torn pages remain."
A ruined book. Pages that whispered of old magic.
"Magic?" I repeated, the word clawing into my bones.
"Yes. Rituals, once performed. But those times are lost."
He showed me what remained. Fragile parchment, blackened at the edges, symbols barely clinging to the fibers. I stared at it as if my life depended on it—because it did. I could not understand the script, but I traced each line with my eyes until my head ached.
If there was even a sliver of power left in this world, I would carve it into myself.