Aven released his clawed grip. Sergrud staggered back, hands clutching his throat as blood welled through the fingers.

  Vertigo struck as the split mind resolved, and both halves of Aven’s thoughts had to come to terms with the spear impaling him. Aven collapsed to the ground, hands clutching the spear. The fake Aven dissipated with its purpose fulfilled.

  “You-” Sergrud choked out, blood bubbling up from the wound. Voice turned to a rasping gargle, “Damn-”

  “You wanted to kill me,” Aven said through gritted teeth. “You did. Congratulations. You won. And I wanted to kill you. So I won too. Victory for both of us.”

  Sergrud fell to his knees, coughed blood onto the snow even as his hands vainly tried to staunch the flow. Maybe he was still trying to speak. One hand on his throat, the other fell to the snow, pulling himself forward. Grasping out towards the spear still impaling Aven. Sergrud’s hands found his spear. Grasped the shaft. Pulled.

  Aven clutched the other end, holding it still in his body. Letting the spear come free would only hasten Aven’s own bleeding out.

  Sergrud convulsed. No more words. Only hatred, rage as he stared at Aven for the last few fatal seconds. His eyes unfocused. Breath stopped. He collapsed face first, dead on the snow.

  The dead man’s hand still grasped the spear. A few more twitches. Even in death, trying to rip the spear out.

  Finally still.

  Aven’s own breathing came shallow. Sergrud was dead. And Aven was only dying.

  The spear...how far had it reached? He felt the burning pain through his entire body. Slowly, he reached back. And felt the cold metal tip sticking out from his back. Hells. It had gone right through. Taking it out...even with control over his own body, but didn’t have that much control. Not enough to stop the flow of that much blood. Right now, the spear was holding him together.

  Moving was also impossible. Even with battle-thrill leaving most sensation distant, the slightest movement sent pain screaming through him. Enough pain that even trying to split it away from the rest of his mind was like trying to drain away a flood into buckets. No piece of his mind could hold that much.

  Sweat stung Aven’s eyes. Sweat? That was strange. It was cold, frigid. So why was he sweating?

  “I thought I knew what dying felt like,” he murmured to himself. Or maybe not to himself.

  “All deaths are unique,” a voice came back.

  Aven turned to look at the goddess beside him. Still wearing Mother’s face. Seated in the snow, eyes on the forest rather than on him.

  Aven groaned and immediately regretted it, because causing his abdomen to vibrate hurt. He tried to speak as quietly as he could. The pain was a little less that way, “Thought...you could only come in the void.”

  “I am with you, when you are most alone,” the Watcher turned to face him, eyes full of sorrow. “In the void, when no one else is present. Or in death.”

  “Here so I don’t die alone, then?” Aven asked. He risked a faint chuckle. Still hurt like hell. “You’re better company than Sergrud at least.” He winced. “No chance you’re wrong? That I could just walk this off?”

  “You are dying,” she said. “Such a wound is fatal without intervention. Which I...cannot give.”

  Aven focused on his body. He’d built this body from nothing. So he should be able to put it back together, right? Apparently not when a hole had been punched all the through it. Pouring the void in his soul into the wound barely helped. Making multiple of those illusory bodies...there simply wasn’t anything left.

  “How long do I have?”

  “I cannot see the future any better than any mortal,” the goddess said. “But I have witnessed many deaths. Perhaps you have hours. Perhaps less. If you remove the spear, much quicker, though still tens of minutes.”

  “Heh.” Aven grinned at Sergrud’s corpse. “Couldn’t kill me properly, could you?” Back to the goddess, “What happens to people like Sergrud after death?”

  “I cannot say.”

  “Cannot? Or will not?”

  “Cannot,” the goddess said. “Some knowledge is forbidden to mortals. Final, decisive answers on life and death and what comes after...cannot be spoken. After death, most spirits pass Beyond. Some few linger. But lingering is no kindness, to themselves nor anyone else.”

  “And me?” Aven asked. “Being voidtouched hasn’t damned me has it?”

  The goddess shook her head with a soft smile, “The void has not changed who you are.”

  “Good!” Aven said. “If I’m damned, it should be for my own actions, not the void.”

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  “You think yourself damned?”

  “Am I not?” Aven asked. “I’m a murderer. The best things I’ve ever done have been killing the right people. Or the right monsters. Janaya has been quite clear on what afterlife she feels I deserve.”

  She put a hand on his. A hand with no weight or pressure, and no chill of the void. It felt...normal. Almost warm. “Janaya’s words are not the final say on what one deserves. Nor are your own. And I think you’ll find that in the Beyond, just as on the mortal worlds, what one deserves is not always their fate. For worse or for better.”

  A kind thought, Aven supposed. Being prepared to die wasn’t a new sensation, but...did it have to take so long? Part of Aven wondered if it would be better just to rip the spear out and hasten the process.

  Then the goddess’ attention shifted. Her head snapped to the side, looking off into the woods. “...though the road of fate is often more winding than one would expect, even when the road seems to reach its end.”

  And the goddess was gone. Simply absent. No rush of wind or vanishing into smoke.

  “Watcher?”

  Silence met Aven. He was alone.

  Or...maybe not alone.

  Whistling reached his ear over the wind. A merry tune carried through the rustling branches. The crunch of snow beneath boots behind Aven. He couldn’t turn to see, not without making the spear wound worse.

  The footsteps stopped.

  Sunshine’s voice spoke, “Well, sod me, I missed the show!”

  Aven managed to turn enough to see the boy skip up to Sergrud’s body and give it a poke with his staff. Then another. When it became clear that the corpse wasn’t reacting, Sunshine put the end of the staff beneath Sergrud and flipped the corpse onto its back. Sunshine kicked it in the stomach, “Well, dead is dead. Good job killing the bastard! Shevi was awful panicked when I saw her run past, but I guess you have things under control.”

  Aven barked a laugh, “This was the best I could do, unfortunately. Even with hours upon hours thinking it through, every path led to me dying. I just managed to find one that killed him first.”

  “Well, don’t give up yet!” Sunshine knelt by Aven’s side and clasped his hand. “Where there’s life, there’s hope, you know! Let’s see what fate has for you!”

  The red-haired boy slipped up the bandages to reveal his hidden eye. Huh. Almost as grotesque as Aven. The scars around that eye, the white-shot pupil...almost an inverse of the black-veined marks of Aven’s void.

  The eye peered deep. Aven felt as if the gaze went past the mortal world, beyond the physical, into the realm of spirit, and deeper still.

  “Well, damn,” Sunshine said. “Looks like you’re dying.”

  Aven sighed and slumped, gesturing to the spear piercing right through him, “Think...I could have figured that one for myself. You don’t happen to have been hiding miraculous powers of healing, have you?”

  “’fraid not,” Sunshine shook his head. “My own particular skills are no more miraculous than your own. Although,” he fished into a pouch at his side. And pulled out a vial of black blood, “Might have something that could help here.”

  Aven stared at the vial. Voidblood. Not just common blood of the weak spawn they fought daily, though. Deeper. Darker. More powerful. He could feel it resonating from here. A stronger resonance even than that of the deathsinger. The void’s hunger pulsed from the vial. Calling.

  “What...in the hells is that?” Aven asked.

  “Oh, a gift from your mam,” Sunshine said nonchalantly. “Only supposed to give it to you when-”

  “My-” Aven froze. “My Mother?”

  Sunshine chuckled, “Calm yourself, friend. Aye, your mam gave-”

  Aven lunged forward, heedless of the wound, grabbing Sunshine by the collar and yanking him in, “Who the hells are you-”

  Sunshine leaned back, and somehow the outer cloak slipped off, leaving Aven only holding it while Sunshine danced back freely. “As I said, I’m a friend. Sent by the esteemed magistra Elesmara Genthus with a gift for her darling boy. That’d be you, would it not?”

  Mother. Mother had sent this...whatever Sunshine was.

  “I want nothing she has to give,” Aven snarled, falling back and clutching the spear in his stomach. Damn. Lunging at Sunshine had opened up the wounds.

  “Well, that’s hard luck, then,” Sunshine shrugged. “Guess you’ll die.”

  Aven forced himself to focus. To shove down the anger, the confusion. Which was difficult while impaled. Gods, if the spear would just stop burning, if he could just breathe normally...if the dizziness would just settle...

  “’Course, your mam would be awful peeved at me if I let that happen,” Sunshine approached again, flopping down into the snow beside Aven and dangling the vial in front of him again. “That’s the predicament, though. See, I’m only supposed to give this to you when you’re ready, and there’s little way of knowing if you are yet. No one we’ve tried to give blood this strong has quite survived. Least not with their mind intact and body able to function. You, though...well, there’s no one like you in all the empire, is there? No one who’s had voidblood injected in them as long. No one who’s descended into the pits and formed a body made of void itself. So maybe you are ready. Maybe you’ll survive it. Maybe not.”

  “What have I got to risk?” Aven asked. “I’m dying.”

  “Plenty!” Sunshine beamed. “See, death isn’t the end. Oh, I’m not talking about afterlife and all that. I leave that to the gods. I’m talking about legacy!”

  What legacy could possibly await a patricide and a monster?

  Aven’s skepticism must have shown on his face through the agonizing pain, because Sunshine continued, “If you die right here and right now, I get to spread the story of how the brave hero Aven Arvanius gave his life to defeat the vile Sergrud. And that’s the end. That’s who you’ll be. A hero of Hellfrost. Might even have earned yourself a parade, a few songs. Some tears from fair maidens at the loss of such a specimen of manhood. Maybe one fair maiden in particular will have special tears for you.” He cackled with laughter. “If you live, though...who knows what will happen. This might turn you into a real monster. Might make you a real voidspawn. Or even something worse. Something beautifully, wonderfully terrible. Who knows?”

  More laughter. Aven didn’t join in. It was hard to think straight. There was a lot of blood dripping from the wound. The snow was turning black and steaming. Not much time to choose.

  “So, what do you say, Aven?” Sunshine asked, offering the vial. “Will you die a hero? Or will you live and see what happens next?”

  The vial called to him. Void called to void. The well of power in Aven resonated. Mother had turned Aven into this. Taking the vial would follow the path she wanted him to. Again. Just as he had before Father sent her away.

  No...she’d only guided him on the first steps of this path. It was his path. Mother hadn’t made him kill Father or go to Hellfrost. Mother hadn’t made him crawl out of the void. Mother couldn’t control what he would do after this.

  Aven snatched the vial from Sunshine’s hand.

  Sunshine smiled, eyes glowing like his namesake, “That the spirit. Now-”

  Not waiting for further words, Aven ripped out the stopper, and poured the thick, black blood down his throat.

  Sunshine’s eyes widened, “I was going to suggest one sip to start.”

  Aven didn’t remember anything more except screaming.

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