He was the mountain that wouldn’t move. The blade that never bent.
“No—he’s alive. You didn’t find his body, did you?” I choked out.
“There were no bodies left intact, my lady,” the guard whispered. “Only ash. Craters. Melted steel.”
I screamed.
I screamed like the sky was collapsing around me.
Thunder cracked.
Outside, sunlight vanished. The clouds rolled in thick and fast, like black smoke pouring from the heavens. The birds stopped singing. The world held its breath.
And then—
The first drop of rain.
It hit the palace courtyard like a tear. Then another. And another. And suddenly, the storm broke.
Rain crashed down in sheets. The kind that flooded streets and drowned prayers. Lightning split the sky with such force the ground shook beneath us.
And far in the distance, from th
