"You must live. Please, that is all I've ever asked of you."
There were no more games between them. No more pretense, no more unspoken secrets. What remained was a hollow gap, widening with every passing moment drawing closer still towards the sunrise.
The shortening shadows on the papered windows, the dark thinning into ink and the cobalt blue, would only bring the parting closer.
Seol had never sent a man to war before.
She had grown up in a family made and unmade in war. She had known and seen them riding to battle, she'd seen her mother do the same thing for her father a countless time. Always with her head held high, her hands steady and a reassuringly serene smile playing at her lips. Seol wonders now, how much of it was for her own inner peace and how much had been to keep the children appeased.
