Ashes Where Her Name Once Was

The sky was fractured.

A dimension on the verge of collapse—its gods long gone, its people scattered like ash in the wind.

But for a brief moment… there had been peace.

And he had known her.

Vaelen stood at the edge of a broken balcony, overlooking the hollow remains of what once was a thriving realm. His armor hung loose at the shoulders. No weapons drawn. No spells charged. Just silence… and the scent of lavender smoke still lingering in the air.

He hadn't spoken her name in centuries.

Not because he forgot.

But because even whispers could summon the weight.

Then—just as the winds shifted—a slip of parchment floated down from the cracked sky. Glowing faintly in a pink-and-purple aura. Carried by magic older than time, older than guilt.

He caught it without looking.

Read it without blinking.

I loved you loud, and you left me quiet.

I gave you peace, but you craved the riot.

I stayed through storms you wouldn't sit through,

Held the weight of your world till it broke me in two.

The words bled ink and heartbreak. They weren't just written.

They were carved—into space, into memory, into him.

I wrote you poems you never read,

Dreamt of us while you slept with regret.

You said forever—I carved it in stone.

Funny how promises crumble alone.

He felt it then.

The burn in his chest. Not pain. Not power. Something… worse.

Regret.

You called it love, but it felt like war.

Each 'I miss you' hit harder than before.

Now I whisper your name like a prayer gone cold,

A story unfinished, a hand never to hold.

The parchment began to burn at the edges—softly. Like it, too, couldn't bear the weight of memory.

I won't beg. I won't chase.

But God, I still see your ghost in this place.

A final message beneath the verse:

My dearest,

Even in death, your memory stays with me…

Forever yours.

He clenched his fist.

The note turned to ash.

Behind him, the realm cracked—another tear in the fabric of a universe beyond saving.

He could fix it.

He could burn it.

But love?

He had no spell for that.

And so, as the dimension collapsed, Vaelen turned away. Cloaked in loss. Eyes colder than any void.

He didn't cry.

He never did.

But the next world he walked into—he burned.