He had no one left to punish. No one left to scream at. Just silence.So he went home.
He reappeared in his home.The realm was still.The house waited, silent and warm, Arbor nowhere to be seen, as if even it sensed the gravity of his grief.The bed was unmade. Her scent lingered in the pillows. Her book sat, pages dog-eared, abandoned mid-chapter.Malvor did not speak.He walked to the center of the room.And knelt.No chaos. No spell. No storm.Just Malvor.Broken.His hands trembled.And for the first time in all his long, chaotic life…He did not have an answer.Only rage.And grief.And the vast, echoing void where Annie used to be.
A moment passed.
Then another.
Then he moved.
Not with purpose. Not with grace. But like a man walking through a nightmare, desperate to find the door out.
He stood. Staggered forward. Threw open the bathroom door.
Nothing.
He searched the dressing room. Her closet still held the white dress she wore to Luxor's party. He ran his hands across the fabric as if it might still be warm. As if it might breathe and tell him something. Anything.
He tore it from the hanger.
Searched the drawers. Under the bed. Behind curtains. In the cupboards. He snapped his fingers and opened every hidden passage Arbor ever created, searching like a madman for a version of her he might have missed.
He screamed into rooms that could not echo her back.
He looked in the kitchen. Her favorite mug. Cracked from when they were play fighting. Still stained with morning coffee.
He touched the mug like it was holy.
Not in the garden where they kissed under illusionary moons.Not in the library where she mocked his taste in books.Not in the parlor where she'd laughed so hard she couldn't breathe.
She was nowhere.
She was gone.
He ended up back in the bedroom, chest heaving, eyes wild.
His knees buckled.He collapsed at the foot of the bed, hands digging into the rug like he could tear a hole in reality.
And then—
The sobs came.
Violent. Animalistic. The kind of grief that cracked divinity down the spine. Chaos spilled from his skin unchecked, the walls groaning under the weight of his heartbreak.
"Annie—"
He choked on her name and slammed his fist into the floor, leaving a crater."I should have known. I should have felt it."
He curled inward, trembling, his body fracturing with every breath.
She was gone.And it was his fault.
He had smiled. He had danced. He had kissed someone else.And while he laughed, she was taken.
"I left you," he whispered. "You needed me, and I was gone."
The guilt hit like divine poison.
He slammed his forehead to the floor. "Stupid. Selfish. Arrogant."
A crack split beneath him. The realm groaned.
"I promised I'd be better than them. I promised."
Then, softer, softer than anything he'd ever spoken:
"You were the best thing that ever happened to me."
Silence.
He stayed there, face pressed to the floor, fingers curled around nothing.
"Please… come back."
But the walls said nothing.
And her scent was already fading.
The lights dimmed. The air thickened. Even Arbor did not stir.
Malvor sobbed.
Not with godly fury. Not with divine drama.
But with the wreckage of a man who'd lost everything.
The sound that left his chest wasn't a scream, it was ripped from the deepest part of him, raw and ugly and endless. Her name fell from his lips again and again, each time more broken.
"Annie…"
He dug his nails into the floor until they split."I'd trade it all," he whispered. "The tricks. The chaos. I'd burn it to ash for one more second."
No one answered.
He rolled to his back, eyes red, staring at the ceiling like he expected the stars to scream with him.
But even the heavens were quiet.
He saw her in everything. The way she curled her fingers around a mug. The way she'd started to believe he could be good.
He could have been good.
With her.
But she was gone.
And he had let her go.
Another sob ripped from him, one arm flung over his face, the other still reaching for nothing but guilt.
And in that moment—Malvor broke.
Not with thunder.Not with flame.But with silence that buried him.
You lost her.You let her go.You were not enough.
And just as the grief began to close its jaws—
There was a knock at the door.