The faint aroma of ash lingered in the air.
This was not new. The wind had a smell, now. Seven years of war will do that.
All across the barren landscape, distant columns of smoke rose toward the dawn sky like ghostly arms grasping for some invisible lifeline.
The day was young, its sun just a bright half-circle painting the sky in pink and orange hues from behind a dark bed of horizon. The distant sound of thunder echoed faintly from the east, as though it came from the half-hidden sun itself.
The sun’s beautiful morning glow bounced off the sky only to fall upon burnt homes and mass graves and rivers which ran red with the blood of soldiers and villagers alike, all casualties in a rebellion against the tyrannical rule of a mad warlord.
Seven long years of this.
Too many.
Today, those seven years of clashing blades, of cutting lives short, of spilt crimson? All of it felt like a distant memory to Shiro…
Because today, Aiko stood before him.
Aiko.
No longer the teenage girl he remembered, Aiko was a woman, now. More beautiful than all the colours in the morning sky, her black hair long and finer than silk, her eyes deep and dark and vicious with…
