The once-proud forest that had guarded the castle for centuries was no more. Trees that had towered like eternal sentinels were slowly being devoured by flames, their trunks split and blackened. The air was heavy with smoke and ash, a suffocating veil that turned the night into an endless twilight.
Most of the vampires that protected the castle weren't present anymore. Only the sounds of the roaring of flames remained... And a faint breath.
And at the center of the devastation, where earth had been torn apart and nature reduced to cinders, stood Rose.
Her once-immaculate gown of white silk and froststeel was shredded and burned, little more than tattered rags clinging desperately to her scorched skin. Bruises marred her arms, her pale skin blistered from the heat that clung to her like a curse. Her long blue hair, though dirtied with soot and ash, still spilled like sapphire fire in the wind, her beauty that was her pride, had dwindled with her current fearful expression.
