52
Aihi
Dusk settled on the Cedar Palace, and for as long as Aihi glared out the open shoji into the attached garden, dawn never seemed to rise. Hours must have passed, or days, with her watching Mika’s shivering shape beneath her many blankets. Most were now stained with blood from an untreatable wound.
Mika’s veins pulsed purple and then black as the corruption spread through her body, visible as a faint glow beneath the flesh. The most prolific healers in all Nagasou had been useless against the contamination now in her blood. She lived, for now, but it slowly drained her life force.
Aihi unclenched her fist, finding the silver and sapphire ring that Mika had given her. She peeled the band from the indent in her flesh and rolled the piece of jewelry between her fingers.
Not once in
