A desolate smile touched
lips.
“Do you know, Damien?”
“There is no father on this earth
“And there is no father who
would
thought, if my child could know
who would kill his own child with his own hands.”
his
own child burned to ash.”
This from beyond the grave, he would never want a
Damien’s eyes were completely red.
father like him.
All pretense of dignity and composure was gone. He looked at me with the eyes of a beggar.
“It was my fault. I was wrong. I should never have taken my hatred out on the child.”
“Elara, don’t jump. Please, don’t jump, alright?”
I shook my head, craning my neck to look down at the ground far below.
“Damien, I am so, so tired.”
“Between us… let this be the end.
With that, without another moment of hesitation, I threw myself from the Stargazer’s Spire
05.08
www.w
90
06
I met Damien Vaughn in the thirty–sixth year of King Theron’s reign.
That was the year of my sixteenth birthday, and my mother took me to the old Abbey on Whisperwind Peak to pray for blessings.
In the solemn, hallowed hall, I shook a fortune stick from a bamboo tube and gave it to
The Abbot took it, but only let out a long sigh.
My mother’s heart leaped into her throat, and she pressed him for an answer.
The Abbot looked at me with his ancient eyes, but his words were cryptic and profound.
I grew bored and slipped away to the hills behind the Abbey.
The hills of Whisperwind were famed for their “sea of cherry blossoms.”
the Abbot.
It was early spring, and the blossoms were in full, glorious bloom. I wandered happily through the sea of pink and white
And I accidentally ran into Damien Vaughn, who was there in quiet contemplation.
