She moved through the carnage like a solitary flame in a world reduced to ash untouched by the blood that churned the earth to mud beneath her bare feet. Her hair, a river of obsidian, streamed behind her, whipped by an acrid wind that carried the stench of death on every current. The battlefield stretched to every horizon, a charnel house of mortal folly, littered with the shattered remains of men and beasts who had once believed their cause worth dying for.
Smoke stung her eyes, but she did not blink. She could not blink. Her gaze moved desperately across the sea of fallen, searching, always searching, while carrion crows cawed their grim hymns overhead and wild dogs feasted on the unwanted meat of heroes and cowards alike. They did not approach her. Nothing ever did.
I need to find him.
The thought was a scream trapped in the silent, ancient vault of her mind—a mantra of desperation that had echoed across centuries until its edges had worn smooth as river stones. It had become part of her, this searching. As essential as breathing, as automatic as a heartbeat.
Where are you? My love. Where are you?
The promise was a blade in her own heart, twisted with every step she took through the slaughter. It was always like this—the frantic search, the dawning dread, the cruel twist of fate that always, always snatched him away at the very precipice of their reunion. She had lost count of how many times she had walked through fields like this one, through plague-ridden cities, through burning villages and sinking ships. Each time, the same desperate hope. Each time, the same hollow ending.
A shadow fell over the sun.
Not from the smoke, which boiled upward in greasy columns. Not from the wings of carrion birds, which circled in patient spirals above. This shadow came from within—from the place where hope finally died and left only the cold certainty of failure behind.
The world swam. The cacophony of death—the groans of the dying, the distant clash of remaining combatants, the wet sounds of feeding animals—faded to a dull roar, and then to nothing at all.
The world blacked out.