Daedillion
Death has a certain smell. In twenty-five lifetimes, I've become intimately familiar with it—the metallic tang of blood, the acrid scent of fear, the subtle sweetness of a soul departing its vessel. As we emerged from the Veins of the World into the clean air of Cedar Creek, I could smell nothing but death clinging to us like a shroud.
The honor guards had fallen one by one. The last three had sacrificed themselves at the final threshold, buying us the precious seconds needed to escape the Abyssal Hunter that pursued us. Their bodies remained in the Veins, never to receive proper rites in the Dragon Realm. I'd lived and died enough times to accept such losses as the cost of war against the Abyss. Aiko, however, had not.
"We should have saved them," she whispered as we stood
