Vermillion seeps along the ridges and between the pebbles of the paths that weave through the town. Flames lick against the walls and roofs of the houses, devouring, charring, killing. The majority of the town is ablaze, and they’ve turned the people into slaves. The sky has been polluted a deathly leaden color, soot and ashes encasing the entire kingdom.

He is soaked in blood, both his and his enemies’. There is no more he can do. He is injured, the town he’d sworn to protect alight and dying. His hazy mind drifts to you. Where are you? Have you been slaughtered with no mercy? Have you burned to death? And the daughter you’ve blessed him with, no more than a month old. What is left of her?

He trudges past the corpses that litter every inch of the town, toward the house you share. He stops before it. It is not aflame, and he thanks the Lord for it, but his tension does not ease by the slightest. He bursts into the house, panting and bloodied.

He calls to you, but no response is returned.