June, 1797.
(Araya's POV)
The smell of iron and rain has never left me. Even now, when centuries sleep between that night and this one, I can still taste the storm on my tongue. The world was burning in silence then—kingdoms collapsing, faith warring against itself—and I was only a shadow among healers, tending to bodies the light no longer wanted.
He came to me out of that ruin, crawling through mud and smoke. His armor was blackened, a sigil half-erased by fire. When I pressed my hands against the wound at his ribs, the blood that rose was colder than it should have been, as though death had already begun to claim him.
He should have been just another dying knight. But when his eyes opened, grey and unyielding, the world stilled. It was as if the storm bent itself around his breath.
