9
Kiria
The sachion trees in the wide palace hallways had been stripped to skeletal sticks. Pictures hung askew. Broken glass littered the ground near the walls. Beams of light crisscrossed madly through the windows, casting green and blue light. The end of the corridor looked as blackened as the depths of a well.
Kiria picked her way barefoot through the debris, observing each piece of wreckage as if it held the clue to a mystery. Confusion, more than fear, filled her at the sight. The blackness of the hall, though, unsettled her more than anything else. Monsters could be lurking there and she wouldn’t know until they sprang out, like creatures of deep water.
The shadows beyond converged into a figure made of smoke. She squinted at it, but it just regarded her as a wild animal would.
