"We started searching for Sylvia the minute you called." The butler led him to the corner of the ruins, his voice trembling. "We... we found this."
A curled, unrecognizable charred corpse came into view. Julian's body went rigid, his knees buckling as he crashed to the scorched ground with a heavy thud.
Around the corpse's neck glinted a familiar sapphire necklace—the very one he'd given Sylvia years ago.
He squeezed his eyes shut, and the last image of Sylvia flooded his mind: she'd collapsed on the ground, staring at him with desperate, silent eyes, the sapphire pendant swinging wildly as she reached for him, blurring his vision.
He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that this was her. Sylvia was truly dead—burned alive, but could this really be happening?
His mind went completely b
