Excerpt: The Tenebrous Son

The pane of the window clicked shut, as he exited. He had nothing, save the clothes on his back, and it was terrifying.
A swift wind kicked up, as he paced across the space between the palace and the town. It buffeted the sand of his heart, which withstood, like a wall, in its last moments of resistance. The cold flayed the thoughts from him, words howled out like wolves in the night. For a moment, he was on a horse, in a forest. Only now, he ran to the trees, rather than fleeing them. The path he ran turned him, turned around him, and no matter where he went, he was no closer, no further from either town or palace. He stumbled in the expanse. The ground met his cheek. His strength was gone. The heat, and the sadness left him. He let out a great breath, closing his eyes, the frost on his back matching the frost beneath him. The coldness crept in. He shivered, and turned, waiting, calmly, for the nothing outside to match the nothing he felt inside, for the dark cloak of sky to fall and cover him. The great, seeing moon eye floated across the sky.
The numbness seeped in, robbing him slowly of his sense. A part of him laughed, exultantly, then it, too, was gone. He lay on a bed of frozen needles, on the edge of a sea-bound cliff. He kissed the edge of life in parting, releasing it with a gentleness, to the cold and the welcoming sky.