Vaeronyx watched the young king crumple over his wife's still body, the grief striking him like a reflection carved out of centuries, a perfect horrific mirror of the moment he too had knelt beside a woman whose light had once softened the heavens.
Leroy clung to Lorraine with shaking hands and trembling breaths, whispering her name in broken pieces, his entire being collapsing in on itself like a dying star, and for a long heartbeat Vaeronyx could not move, stunned by the sheer familiarity of that sound.
It was the sound a man makes when the soul he had anchored his existence to slips away, leaving him with nothing but the echo of memories that suddenly feel too heavy to bear.
