Cyrus stumbled across the wasteland, blood dripping from his wounds, the shard of Sorrow flickering dimly in his palm. Wrath's fire had nearly consumed him, and his body felt like little more than ashes held together by grief.
Each step was agony. His mind reeled with memories — not just his own, but those of the fallen whose sorrow he carried. The clash with Wrath had stirred them violently, voices overlapping in unbearable chorus.
He collapsed beside a cracked monument, its stone etched with words long eroded. For a moment, he wanted nothing more than to lay there, let the voices drown him, and vanish.
But then he heard it again — the soft voice of the woman he had loved. Not as a scream, nor as a ghost, but as a whisper. "Cyrus… keep walking."
Tears stung his eyes. He pressed his forehead against the cold stone. "I am broken," he whispered. "I am nothing but pieces."
Yet even broken pieces carried weight. Even shattered, he could bear them.
Slowly, painfully, he stood. His body was scarred, his soul burdened, but his will did not bow. He was not whole — and perhaps he never would be.
But sorrow was not about wholeness. It was about carrying what was lost, even when broken.
The pilgrim walked on, shattered but enduring.