Third Person POV
The cottage should not still be standing.
Now there was even half of the veranda hanging by a literal thread of splintered wood, swaying faintly in the Alaskan wind. It leaned into the cold like something that had forgotten how to die.
He hated this place.
And yet, he was alive because of it.
Pain pulsed through his leg in slow, deliberate waves. The rotula had shattered when he fled—bone cracked under his own weight, arrogance punished by gravity and blood loss. The wound had festered quickly. His magic did not always heal when he was starving. After that f*****g half goddess destroyed his castle and burned to death half of his court he had to flee. using the silver cage, using the magic portal his real beloved had created for him long ago.
Something that he hadn't
