The sky was grey once again, and ash fell from the clouds like a slurry of deadly, barren snow.
Every day that had come anew came with new disasters, and every night that fell brought about new terrors. Life seemed to have become as bleak and frightful as the sky above, without hope for a sunny dawn or peaceful, star-studded nights.
What had once been normal was now only a distant memory, and what had once been filled with love and laughter had become hollow and grief-stricken.
Queen Iva Taszha turned her face away from the window with a heavy heart. Faced with the consequences of her own impotence, the devastation that lurked above them, and the invincible evil, there was a dark despair that threatened to consume her every time she opened her eyes.
She looked at the basin of gold on the altar. The water that sat in it, once so full of life that it was glowing, had dimmed to a dull shine. It no longer looked like the crystalline gift from the heavens.
