[POV: Auren]
He watched her walk away, and it was like watching a part of his own soul turn to ash and blow away on the wind.
Elyra did not run. She did not storm out in a tempest of fury. She simply walked, her back straight, her head held high, a queen returning to her own, distant, frozen kingdom. The sound of the chapel doors closing behind her was a soft, final thud. The sound of an ending.
Auren stood alone in the cavernous silence, the scent of burning gold a bitter, acrid perfume in the air. He stared at the brazier, at the glowing embers where his wedding ring, the symbol of five years of love and duty and a slow, creeping sorrow, was now nothing more than a misshapen lump of cooling metal.
You are free, Auren.
Her parting words. They were meant to be a release, a final, cutting gift. But they felt like a sentence. He was not free. He was adrift. A ship without a rudder, its captain having just set fire to all the maps.
