There was fire everywhere.
"Papa! Papa!"
Lilian ran as fast as her tiny legs would carry her, ignoring the burning fragments crashing down around her.
There were screams, angry shouts, steel clashing, people being cut down from left to right. Blood splattered across the stone, banners were ripped, but Lilian continued to run forward, refusing to look back. She had to find her father.
"Papa!"
Tears streamed down her cheeks. A blazing shard of wood crashed down beside her, grazing close enough that the heat singed her skin. The pain made her stumble, and she fell hard onto her hands, her breath knocked out of her lungs.
For a moment, she could only stare through watery eyes at the nightmare before her; her father's men cut down one after another, her home engulfed in flames, everything she knew collapsing into ruin. Her legs trembled violently from the sight, going numb from terror, and she curled into a ball, sobbing into her scraped palms.
"Papa!"
She was deeply terrified.
