Sixty Three
The dawn came blood-red. Not the soft blush of morning, but a bruised, violent smear across the horizon, like the sky had been cut and left to bleed. Zaria stood at the lake’s edge behind the estate, her boots half-sunk in dew-dark grass, her cloak snapping in the wind. The water should have been still this early, glassy and calm. It wasn’t. The lake churned like something trapped beneath it, restless and furious, its waves slapping the shoreline as if trying to escape its own boundaries. Much like her thoughts. She hadn’t slept. Not truly. Not after the infirmary. Not after the man’s voice, hoarse and cracked with seawater and shock, had said the words that refused to leave her skull. Still standing... River had faced the fall of the Isles with steel in hand and fire in his heart b
- Writer
