AND I KNOW THAT ROME WASN'T BURNT IN A DAY
BUT IT COULDN'T HAVE BEEN MORE THAN A WEEK
BUT IT COULDN'T HAVE BEEN MORE THAN A WEEK
A
ndras follows her tracks through the woods: a single, meandering series of hoofprints pressed into the snow like a cup. He wonders why he expects them to be red, red, red as the poppy field or the moon seen through films of ash or--He is a dark spot on the bleak winter sun, carving his way through the last browned leaves still clutching on to the canopy and watching them fall in his wake. The shadow he casts looks like a vulture, just another savage thing on the increasingly long list of savage things out here in the woods before sunrise. He follows her tracks, the path they slice through snow, and finds her just before the sun peeks the ends of its fingers over the distant mountain peaks. It will still be some time, he thinks.
There are no red prints the whole journey long. There is no blood-- and that's what he's expecting, blood on blood on blood--frozen to the bases of trees. There is no pit in the heart of the woods full of rare bones and furs.
He hates that a part of him is almost disappointed, a crawling feeling in his gut. He hates that he finds her, quiet and still in the woods, smiling fondly to herself, and Andras wishes for something more. He cannot quite tell if he craves the nightmare that was the past year, or if he is so used to it at this point that to see some face not twisted in misery feels strange and upsetting in a way he can't handle. The ferocity with which this strange mix of sadness and fear and anger hits him is alarming.
The warden lands in a cloud of snowflakes and lightning that sticks to his glasses, his back, and his face. It is smooth but not graceful."Where are you going?" he asks through clenched teeth. It feels like tepid anger. It feels like a blunted sword. When he follows her eyes toward the rising sun, it feels like something more rotten than he wants to remember.
He hates it.
"--and, who are you?"
ANDRAS, WARDEN OF DELUMINE
they made you into a weapon
and told you to find peace.
