A tale of heroes and gods

The trees stood silent behind me, holding the night's violence in their roots. My hands still twitched with the last sparks of adrenaline, like ghost-echoes of the fight refusing to let go. The scent of blood, smoke, and broken pine clung to me like another skin. I couldn't tell if it was the wind or my own breath that sounded so loud in my ears.

Each step I took back toward the camp felt heavier — not from exhaustion, but from everything I'd left behind.

They were dead now. All of them.

I should've felt something. Satisfaction. Peace. Relief. But instead, my chest was a quiet storm. The kind that brews in silence, gathering strength under still skies.

The campfire glowed faintly through the trees ahead. A pulse of warmth in the cold dark. I slowed as I neared the edge of the clearing — not from fear, not anymore — but hesitation. My feet dragged like they didn't want to cross that line. Like stepping into the light meant stepping back into the world. A world that hadn't seen what I'd just done.

Aelira sat near the fire, hunched and tense, her cloak wrapped tight around her shoulders. She looked like she hadn't moved in hours, eyes locked on the dark beyond the clearing. She wasn't resting. She was guarding. Waiting.

Her head snapped toward me the moment my foot brushed a twig.

"Aaron," she said, shooting to her feet. Relief cut through the steel in her voice like sunlight through frost. Then, softer: "Gods, where were you?"

I stepped into the light.

She froze.

Her eyes dropped to my hands. Blood soaked the gauntlets down to the wrists. My knuckles were scraped raw beneath the metal. I didn't even remember the last kill. Just the sound of bone giving way, the heat roaring in my arms, and the ringing silence after.

"You're hurt," she said, stepping closer, eyes searching me for wounds.

"I'm not," I replied, voice low.

She didn't ask more — not yet. Just reached out and touched my arm gently, like she needed to feel I was really here. Like maybe part of her still thought I wouldn't come back.

I sat down by the fire. My legs were starting to feel the weight of it all now — the run, the fight, the aftermath. The heat, the cold, the quiet. My fingers trembled as I pulled the gauntlets off, setting them beside me with care. The metal was still faintly warm. The blood on them was tacky. It stuck to my palms.

Aelira knelt across from me, her face shadowed and sharp in the firelight. "Where did you go?"

"Followed the ones who ran." I looked into the fire, watching the flames coil and snap like serpents. "Tracked them back."

"And?" Her voice was steady, but her fingers twisted the hem of her sleeve.

"They're gone."

She stared at me. "You went alone? After everything? Gods, Aaron, you could've—"

"I had to."

Her mouth tightened. "Why?"

I looked at her, really looked this time. Her eyes were red-rimmed and tired. She hadn't slept. She probably hadn't even blinked since I left. Her worry was stitched into the lines of her face, threaded through her breath, the tension in her jaw. It lived in her — same as it lived in me.

"For Helios," I said. "For the people they've killed. For me."

Silence stretched between us like a drawn bow.

"You should've told me," she whispered. "I would've come."

"I didn't want you to stop me."

"You think I would've?" she snapped, her voice rising like a wave. "After what they did to Helios? Don't you dare pretend I'm not with you in this!"

"I didn't mean—" I stopped. Took a breath, slow and deep. "I didn't want to risk you."

That silenced her. Not out of agreement. Out of pain.

Her voice, when it came, was quieter. "I waited all night. I imagined every way you could've died. Do you know how that feels?"

"I do now," I said.

She blinked. Her anger wavered, softened, turned into something older than rage. Something sadder.

I looked at the gauntlets beside me. The blood on them had begun to dry, flaking at the seams.

"I have a name for them," I said suddenly, as if naming them might make everything feel less raw.

She tilted her head, confusion flickering behind her exhaustion.

"The gauntlets," I said again. "I've been using them all this time without naming them. That changed tonight."

Aelira sat down slowly. Her anger was still there — quiet now, simmering — but she listened.

I lifted the gauntlets with both hands, letting the firelight dance across their scarred surface. They were dented in places, the metal dulled by blood and ash. But they'd held. They'd answered me when I needed them.

"Emberhands," I said. "That's what I'm calling them."

She nodded slowly. "It suits you."

I looked down at my hands. They were raw and red beneath the grime. "They heat up when I focus. Not enough to burn — just enough to wake something up in me. Like they remember the forge. Like they want to keep going as long as I do."

The flames between us popped, sending sparks upward into the trees. Helios lay nearby, still breathing shallow and steady under the blankets. He hadn't stirred. Not once.

I looked at him, and a knot inside me — one I didn't even realize I was holding — finally loosened.

"I'm sorry, brother," I whispered. "They won't hurt anyone else."

Aelira didn't speak. She just reached out and placed her hand gently on mine — the one still smeared with blood. She didn't flinch. She didn't look away.

"Next time," she said softly, "don't go alone."

"I won't," I said.

I didn't know if that was true.

But for now, it was enough.