Words follow him. Words not his own. He feels them in the wind and air, through wheat fields and battle fields and snow dusted mountains and full-leafed forests. He hears them whispering to him through the chatter of Granny's Diner, snaking their way like dragon tails around the scent of his coffee. Five words that make him wake and keep him waking in the dark night when mold and limestone and the smell of wet dirt close in on him in his dreams. Five words. Of all the words - of all the sounds - he's heard spoken and whispered and sometimes merely thought in all his lives. Of all the things he's witnessed and done. Five little words.
He was cruel to her.
Not she's dead, though at times, random and unguarded, they too stroll in through all his spells and locks. But only when he allows his mind to dwell on time spent elsewhere.
But those five words hound him. Will keep hounding him, he knows, until he's deep in the earth with all his life and love and magic bled from him. And even then, they'll find him there too. They'll burrow down under the soil and nestle right under his still and withered heart, purring and breathing fire against his ribs.
He was cruel to her.
And when he wakes at night in physical pain, body tense and tongue bitten through, he tells himself it's just old age and a lame leg and the hollow place in his bones were his power used to be.
(where she used to be)