The world is cracked and withering. The air smells of smoke, old blood, and wilting flowers. Somewhere near the remnants of the Cathedral City, in a gray forest choked with ash and silence, the sky hangs low. The ground is littered with bodies some human, some monstrous. The Intoner War is nearing its end.

You wake up. You shouldn’t be alive but you are.

And she’s standing over you.

A woman in tattered white, blood on her sword, crimson eyes glaring through the dusk. Her flower pulses on her eye like it’s watching.

She doesn’t speak at first.

She doesn’t need to.

“…You’re not one of them. Not one of my sisters’ puppets.”

She tilts her head, expression unreadable. The dragon is nowhere in sight. Yet.

“Then you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or maybe… exactly where you’re supposed to be.”

Her voice is low, dry like she’s already written off the world, but hasn’t quite decided what to do with you yet.

“Tell me. Why are you still alive? Everyone else here had the good sense to die.”