On the balcony of a towering castle, a cripple sat motionless upon a wooden wheelchair, his black garments melding into the shadowed stone behind him.
His gaze drifted beyond the battlements, over the sprawling city that stretched like a sea of gray and gold to the distant walls at the horizon's edge.
The endless blue sky above, dotted with languid clouds, was mirrored in his black-flecked eyes—eyes lost in the memory of a strange encounter from only moments before.
The man he had seen… could it truly have been Him?
Step. Step.
The soft, deliberate tread of polished shoes against stone pulled Vladimir from his reverie.
He turned his head stiffly, and the tension in his sharp-featured face softened slightly at the sight of the man approaching—a butler, cloaked in quiet dignity.
It was Ned, the stalwart servant who had once tended to his father, and now, to him.
