The first thing I truly understood was the smell. It wasn't the sharp, clean scent of rain on hot stone, or the metallic tang of blood, or the sterile, electric smell of Astra's light. It was something else entirely. It was the smell of damp earth, of crushed green leaves, of a flower that bloomed only in the dark. It was the smell of life, so thick and real I felt like I could drink it. I knelt on the cool grass, my hands sinking into the soft, damp soil, and I breathed it in until my lungs ached. It was the first real breath I had taken since the throne room.
Shi stood beside me, a silent, unmoving statue of a war-torn god. He wasn't looking at the sky or the grass. He was looking at his hands. He turned them over and over, staring at his palms as if he'd never seen them before. He had cleaned the gash on his chest with a scrap of his tunic, but the bent arm still hung at an unnatural angle, a stark reminder of the price of our escape.
