1 Chapter 1

Mourning passes like the tide.

At first, it engulfs the land for a few hours, drowning the populace in showy tears. Most of them were clueless as to who they were weeping for. Then, when the sun's circumference is halved by the horizon, the crowd realizes that the Crown no longer stands among them. They quickly sleeve their tears and fall back to their towns in an eddy of whispers.

As they slowly filter out of the Grassbed, a boy remains fixed beneath a weeping willow. He stares at the casket; dwarfed by the statuary of prior crowns and highborns.

He watches the wind stir through the mountainside woods, lifting black flags anchored in statues' fists, and rustling flowers on the freshly lidded casket. Everything is devoid of the usual gold and pearly streaks of the empire.

Someone tugs on his sleeve, whispering him home, but he vaguely feels it. After a while, he feels nothing at all. The tugging and the pleading voice fades. Or was someone really there?

He does not turn to watch the crowd disperse. They were mere echoes falling away behind him; soulless drops of water in a tide. His eyelids lower, and the forest turns into a kaleidoscope, muffled in a bubble of tears. The world spins, and if anyone should touch him, he would crumble. He does not seem to realize how much he suffocates, until a sound wakes him from his stupor.

Timber snaps; hundreds of matches struck alight. A meteor falls from the sky, trembling the branches as it descends before him.

Thud!

Olive faced and silked in coals, she tumbles onto the casket in a spool of ashen hair. The remaining crowd winces over their shoulders. They cover themselves in vicarious embarrassment.

"... such dishonourable conduct..."

"Does she know who he is?"

"Stupid girl..."

The meteor groans and blinks unevenly. Rather than a trail of flames, tangy crimson flickers in her eyes. As her vision recovers from the quake, the upside-down outline of the boy sharpens into focus. He stood deathly still before the casket, his face obscured by dark hair and the shadows of the willow.

Only moments before, she was baffled by the darkness he seemed to pull with him like a blanket. That darkness is instantly broken by the shimmer of his wet, bewildered face. It was as if her descent had torn through the sky and left a hole for the sun to cast its spotlight. Upon meeting her gaze, the bubbles in his eyes burst and trail down his cheeks. He stood there with his mouth open, as if wanting to say something. 

The girl senses there was a twinge of something more pithy to his stare but she can't understand it. She rolls onto her stomach and smiles sheepishly.

"I fell from that tree yonder." She explains, thinking this must be why he was silent. 

They both look up to the impending branch of an elm tree, whose canopy interlaces with the weeping willow's.

Just then, the hands of a distant clocktower align at the crest. Its toll captures every ear on the streets, resonating through the walls of guild houses and academies. The massive pendulum sways six times, each trip pulsating further throughout the land, reaching down the mountainside to where two children listen.

The girl's head perks up with sudden enthusiasm. She swiftly fixes herself upright and rubs her back as she prances off of the casket. In her hurry, she stubs a bare toe on the lid's engravings, propelling herself at a miscalculated angle. She falls into a bramble with a yelp, but then stands almost instantly. Twigs protruding from her tangled hair, she spares the boy a glance before charging madly across the graveyard.

He took a step as if to run after her but stopped himself. There was no need to help the star that fell from the sky. If she could manage a descent through several layers of mourning atmosphere, she could easily crater a bush.