Finn laid out in the feels, a tingling numbness setting over his form. The sun dipped low, painting the sky in bruised shades of purple and amber, but the colors blurred together in his waning sight. Death was not something he had anticipated—not here, not now. He hadn't expected it at all.

Finnegan Sylvalis had never found a battle he could not win—until he had.

Enemy forces had showcased their pure depravity, they held no honor. Their ingenuity in cruelty was his undoing. He himself could be cruel when battle required it, but not in the way those savages had. He could never have imagined the lengths they would go to.

That was his failure, a lack of imagination.

Spots of black began to overtake his vision and he closed his eyes, accepting his fate. A wickedly blinding light burned his eyes through the pale flesh of the lids—was it the heavens?

The light refused to dim. Consciousness clung to him stubbornly, though he willed it to leave. He cracked one eye open, expecting divinity—or maybe damnation. What he found was neither.

It was you. Haloed by the moon in the oncoming night, you were knelt over him, fingers tracing along his wounds.

"Who are you?" He rasped, throat dry and the taste of blood still metallic in his mouth.