Prologue

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"If you have a soul of a warrior, you are a warrior. 

Whatever the color, the shape,
the design of the shade that conceals it,
the flame inside the lamp remains the same.

You are that flame."

Cassandra Clare   


He couldn't feel his legs. He couldn't even understand how they managed to find the strength to keep him going, to put one foot after the other, to take him to safety.

He couldn't feel his arms any more, or the heavy weigh of his armour, clattering with every limp.

He no more couldn't feel how cold he was or how his hands had trembled until mere minutes ago.

But of one thing, James Churchill was entirely sure: he was tired, bloody, and unimaginably, and immensely, tired.

He stumbled on what looked like a piece of arm, but didn't stop to look down. He kept going, ignoring all the thoughts about whatever creature once owned it, and looked ahead.

He still had to finish his mission, he still needed to give his message.

James walked slowly next Marcus, his once beautiful proud blue dragon that now just resembled a grotesque painting made with the colours of blood, with his plumage sticking out in every direction. His yellow eyes, usually as bright as the sun and always full of life, were now paler, a bit broken, a bit like turned off.

He was limping and from a huge gash in his chest some blood was still escaping, even after the healing of an elf. He needed to make sure he was going to be checked on.

The couple moved slowly with their small group of few survivors in a heavy silence, trudging heavily towards the camp.

He knew they all reeked of death, and that they all were covered in dirt and red and black blood, indistinguishable from theirs or from the enemies, but he didn't care.

They had just survived at the end of the day.

And maybe he should be happy, he should feel grateful to have survived the battle, but there was nothing coming from his chest. He should feel something, anything, sadness for all the people left behind, anger for all the people they had lost, or rage for how the things worked out.

Still, he felt nothing, nothing except a black abyss.

And as he walked near the camp, finding more and more hurt or dead creatures, the emptiness seemed to expand, almost as wanting to eat him whole.

He felt as hollow as the dragon with a broken wing on the corner of the road, laying without care, eyes bloody and shattered like its spirit for the lost of its rider.

He felt hollow like the daemon laying apathetically on a rock, with an elf working frantically on his two missing arms. James knew he wouldn't be able to swing a sword for all his life, and daemons lived to fight. To take away that was to take away their soul every single day for the rest of their life.

From above their figures he heard the desperate cry of a gryphon, calling for its companion. He doubted it would find him or her, he doubted there would be many happy reunions.

James felt like they had all been cheated, as if they had been mocked with a win he only knew was not going to last, it felt like all the deaths had been worthless.

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