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Kayn was Rhaast’s vessel. He was nothing more. He used to be nothing more.
When the boy picked up the scythe Rhaast was trapped in for the first time, he was told to destroy it, as Kayn explained to Rhaast. Instead, he kept him to win over the power Rhaast withheld, Kayn also said then. Rhaast couldn’t say he was sorry. He needed a body to take over and corrupt, one that could take all the power he held and not collapse. A body that could free him from his prison, his agony.
Kayn’s body.
It was all based on mutual interests. This is what he used to think.
This situation of them ended up balancing in a short time. Neither of them was able to defeat the other back then. Rhaast recalls that moment very well. He reminisced the anger growing inside him as he failed to fully take over the mortal, only being able to corrupt half of his face and shoulders. His fury didn’t last too much though, when he caught on the view of the corpses, the sky, and the tress for the first time in a millennia. He saw the real world. Rhaast quickly realized it was not the scythe’s eyes he was seeing through. It was Kayn’s.
And he cannot understand the thing he felt back then.
After all, the Darkin is free from the scythe and he is stronger than ever. It’s been many winters since he took over. He won. But whenever the snow falls, a strange, bitter feeling is also traveling with it. Rhaast denies the fact he knows. He says he never understood why he is grieving, even thinking over the dead man he was guilty of, and secretly, he doesn’t want to understand why he keeps recalling these moments. Ah, yes. These moments. Perhaps he is regretting his decisions, as Varus stated in the past. Rhaast remembers laughing at him when he brought that up.
“Do you regret?”
…
“Me? Who do you think I am?”
This was the answer that he found fit enough, which Varus rolled his eyes in response.
It never crossed his mind if he’d ever miss his ‘walks’ with Kayn where all they did was talk over a trifle and no, he never presumed somebody like Rhaast would ever miss the pop quizzes about ten reasons why he should give up the control or the time Kayn called him his friend. The fun Rhaast made of him after that and Rhaast thought he would never miss the times when they chatted at night. He was supposed to forget how Kayn was up to ears when Rhaast started to talk about his early life as a soldier. Rhaast did not pay attention to it back then but now, only now he understood he was happy with the way Kayn adored him and he made obvious plans on how he could use that against him. Not in the way he yelled in pain.
He remembers the cold. The screams and importantly the feeling when he finally succeeded.
More importantly, the way he asked him.
“Why?”
And the way Rhaast answered.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
He used to brag to his brothers that he wished he had given the vessel a more painful goodbye.
Now he knows he did by ignoring his question. Kayn’s soul will never be able to get the answer as to why Rhaast would betray him like that. But not even he knows and Rhaast can only hope that the cold dulled Kayn’s pain in his last moments.