Rotten

She was dead then.

Gone as a wisp of smoke on the cold wind of January.

They were all gone. Wife, children, and town turned into smoking ashes rising high in the black, moonless night like some sick epitaph. Azec gazed out across the smoldering town, searching for any twinkle of triumph in the rubble like a heron seeking fish in a toxic lake.

Caustic grief tore through him but it mingled with cloying fury and left his blood thick, his tears thin, and his body empty. What was the purpose of movement when bone-white death poked out of the world around him? Where was he even to go now?

He dropped heavily onto half of a stone wall that once belonged to the northern face of his home.

Invar was gone. Thousands upon thousands of people lived in Invar and from the warm pedestal of his house, he could see the full touch of the killer's cruelty. Nothing was spared. Invar, a town of berries and blossoms and oaks, was silent.

Azec clenched his jaw as a wobble of sorrow unsteadied him.

Specks of red lifted below him, rippling up the sloping hillside on the breath of the wind as it raced past him.

Nostrils flared with a deep breath, Azec abandoned his perch.

Hands shoved in his pockets, he shuffled off into the forest, pausing at the line of trees to look back.

Invar burned because of his eyes. Because of him.

One white iris and black sclera, one black iris and white sclera. Red embers reflected in both.

He would kill them then and it would ruin his soul. His soul was a forfeit thing anyway, wasn't it? Heroes didn't leave ruined towns at their backs. That was the job of a villain. A rotten soul.