Asher stood on snow, watching the sky weep snowflakes.
They had expected the snow to stop in the first or second month of the third year since the war, but it didn't. It kept falling. Sometimes in a lazy, silken drift that kissed the land with peace. Other times, it fell like the sky was trying to bury the world beneath its sorrow. Six months now, and the snow had not ceased.
His thick coat, dark as mountain stone and padded around the shoulders with heavy white fur from the Icefang Bears of the Northern Rim, draped him like a silent sentinel. His leather-gloved hands gripped the pommel of his Kingsword, the ancient blade driven deep into the snow before him, its wide, crimson blade catching flakes like a steel altar. He stood alone. No BloodBlade. No Paladin.
Just him. On the snow. Watching.
Before him stretched a scene of stubborn resolve, thousands of masons, smiths, and helpers labouring beneath the pale sky to birth the great wall of Ashbourne.
