Rune Runner: The Serpent's Sorrow

Rune Runner: The Serpent's Sorrow

Before she became the World Breaker, Kul'sheda was something far simpler: a woman who loved. For half a million years, she watched him die: Thir'yan, reborn into a thousand lifetimes, always hers for a few decades before death claimed him again. She was eternal. He was not. And the cycle that governs all existence refused them mercy. When the Myr'ides-masters of the magic known as Prismyr-gave her a chance to break the rules, she seized it, making him immortal like her. But immortality is a poison for one not made for it. The Serpent's Sorrow is the origin story of Den'nere's destroyer and villain. This short story is a meditation on love becoming an obsession spanning many lifetimes, the dangers of grief held by beings whose magic can be manipulated by it, and the price of trying to hold forever what is only meant to be held for a single moment in time.