Dust had become another name for time.
Aelor didn't know how far he had walked. The only thing he knew was that every step left behind the echo of another life. The sky was grey—not the dark grey before a storm, but the dull grey of endless stillness. There was no color. No smell.
Only ash.
And footprints…
Aelor Varn, the man who once killed gods, was now a ghost walking through the empty streets of the world. A ghost, yes… because he no longer breathed. He didn't feel hunger. He didn't sleep. He had left behind everything needed to live, but he never agreed to die either.
Death had stopped speaking to him centuries ago.
The armor he wore was rusty, but still strong. Time had not broken it. The leather notebook inside his coat had fallen apart, but its pages still followed him, even if torn and dirty. He didn't remember what he had written in it. Maybe he never wrote anything. Maybe he carried it just to carry it—like how people once carved letters into necklaces so they wouldn't forget their names.
Everything was meant to be forgotten.
So was Aelor.
But being forgotten and being gone were not the same thing.
What made him different was that he accepted his forgotten state. He had erased his fame, his enemies, his friends—even the names of the gods he had killed. If memory was a burden, then he had stopped being its owner long ago.
Now, he only walked.
He had no goal, no direction. He went wherever his feet took him, as if he still had somewhere to reach.
Sometimes he stood on a mountaintop and listened to the wind.
Sometimes he looked at the stone statues inside ruined cathedrals and felt envy—because they still had some kind of order.
He did not speak.
He didn't think much either. Thoughts were dangerous. They could take him somewhere. But Aelor didn't want to go anywhere. To him, existence was only continuing. Like a river—never stopping, never asking, just flowing.
He couldn't remember what once gave meaning to his steps. His memories spoke of a war. Maybe of revenge. Or of a vow. But the words were gone now. Only feelings remained: emptiness, tiredness, and a very old anger.
This stayed with him most: tiredness.
The kind of tiredness that felt like the whole world sat on his shoulders, that carried the pain of a thousand battles in a single breath, that had not rested in centuries.
Still, he kept walking.
Because stopping wasn't an option. And turning back… wasn't a path anymore. Moving forward was no longer a direction—just a state of being.
He was the last witness of a world buried under ashes.
Sometimes the shadows of the past touched his steps.
He would hear a voice—was it a woman? A child? A friend from long ago? He could never tell. It only echoed, like a cry hitting stone walls—unclear but stubborn. Sometimes the first sound of a name appeared in his mind: "Va…" The rest was silence. It came to his tongue, but never found meaning.
It wasn't forgetfulness. It was a defense. To remember—what would that give a half-dead soul, except pity? Aelor knew: some memories didn't keep people alive. When the pieces came together, they didn't make a whole. They made a bigger emptiness.
Sometimes he wished he had forgotten his own name.
But the name Aelor Varn was the only thing that hadn't rotted with him. The world no longer whispered it, yes. No poets sang of him. No prophets spoke of him. But deep under the ground, in the frozen tombs of gods, the name still echoed:
Aelor Varn.
Godbreaker.
The one who began the Age of the Faithless.
And failed to end it.
With him, thousands of temples had fallen. People had forgotten how to kneel. But after that… what happened?
Nothing.
No new age began. No new order rose. Only a deeper silence entered the veins of the world. Yes, the gods had died. But what had filled the space they left? Aelor never found out. Because when the gods took their last breath, the world ended for him too.
Maybe there were still believers somewhere—at the edges of the world, in hidden temples, looking for hope in old texts. But Aelor had no belief left. There was no space in him for belief anymore. No hope, no mercy, no forgiveness.
He walked. In this walk that looked like an endless prayer, there was no cleansing.
And no end.
In places where time had stopped, even the moonlight was an old lie. The nights were just another face of darkness for Aelor. And the days were the moments when the sky shone without shame.
It was night again. A starless, silent, ash-covered night.
He stood on the side of a hill. Below, a ruined village.
Abandoned.
Looted.
Gone.
But this destruction wasn't new. It looked like it had happened centuries ago. Still, there were new footprints in the soil.
Fresh…
Aelor knelt and touched them. The fingers that once killed gods now carefully studied the lines in the earth.
Maybe it was just the wind. Maybe something else.
But it didn't matter. Because Aelor no longer followed anything.
And sometimes… nothing is where everything begins.
The footprints were fresh, but not rushed. Aelor could now tell what kind of person had walked by just from how they moved. The prints of someone running in panic were deep; the toes tore into the ground, fear ripped the earth. But these were different. Balanced. Careful. This walk came from someone who was watching. Maybe a scout. Maybe an explorer.
Or something worse:
A rememberer.
Aelor believed that remembering was a curse in this world. Those who forgot could go on living. But those who remembered? They either went mad—or woke up old evils.
He stayed a little longer before going down the hill. With his left hand, he reached into his coat. He touched the edge of the leather notebook, let his fingers trace its hard corners. He didn't open the pages. He didn't remember what was written inside—if there was ever anything written at all. Still, it had to be there. In a world where everything was broken, the fact that some objects were still "there" was enough. A small proof of being.
Then he stood up.
And went down.
The village was quiet, but not empty.
Among the stones buried in ash, one building was still standing. It had a round dome, broken walls, but a strong central pillar: some kind of altar. But it wasn't for gods. Aelor knew the style of their temples. This belonged to something else. Not a religion, but a memory—like someone, long ago, had built it not to remember something, but to forget it here.
He came closer.
He saw signs on the fallen stones near the altar. A dead fire. Dried blood. Black stones placed in a circle. And in the center… emptiness.
But sometimes, emptiness is a presence.
This emptiness said many things.
Aelor slowly reached his hand to the center of the altar. He expected nothing.
But he found something.
Warmth.
It was foolish—something like warmth still able to affect him... but it was there. A touch on his fingertips, a feeling that reminded his blood how to move again. This warmth was not divine. In fact, it was older than gods. More wild, more deep, more... alive.
And then he understood.
This place had been used—by someone or something—to awaken.
And these footprints… carried its sign.
He closed his eyes in the ash. The world was dark, but for a second his mind shook with a vision:
Not a shape, not a sound, but an intention. Like his own—without goal. But not born from emptiness. A chosen kind of aimlessness.
For the first time in a long time, he did not want to meet someone.
For the first time, the idea of another "being" in this world made him uneasy.
Because if something was still walking through these ashes with clear purpose... it was either a piece of a god... or something worse than a god.
Aelor stepped back. But it was not fear. It was preparation. Something was beginning. He didn't know what. It had no direction, no goal. But he could smell life moving again beneath the ashes.
And Aelor Varn walked on.
This time a bit more careful.
A bit more... ready.