Her eyes were wet with tears, and the anxiety of the farewell was choking her throat. At fifteen winters old, she had seen hundreds of soldiers leave and only a few return. They always departed in the same way: mounted on sturdy horses at the break of dawn. Married men had their wives tie their scarves around their necks, symbolically accompanying them on their journey and in battle.

She wasn't yet a woman, not at her young age, although in other lands, she would be considered a grown female. She wore her copper-colored hair in an improvised braid, and the pale skin of her face contrasted with the freckles that covered it and her rosy, split lips, victims of the chilly morning. She wasn't lacking in beauty for being a simple provincial girl.

"I'm leaving at dawn," he had told her the previous evening after releasing her from that warm embrace he had given her by surprise.

"What are you talking about?" Her trembling words got stuck in her agitated chest and lit up her cheeks. "Where are you going, Ledt?"

"I got my father to accept me among his ranks." She saw the excitement in his eyes. She knew more than anyone how much it meant to her friend to gain his father's approval. "Tomorrow we'll head north to the frontier."

"Do you realize what that means?" Her gaze got lost in his hopeful eyes. "You'll be on the front line, you haven't even seen how the Legacy's men return after their campaigns."

"With the victory on our shoulders." He smiled and watched the infinite horizon turn red, the final thrusts of the sun before dying in Himea's jaws. "Besides, Farthian soldiers cover our rear. There are no better warriors than them, that's well-known."

"Come back, Ledthrin, son of Ehrim." This time she threw herself into his arms. And so the slender boy and the redhead remained, embraced until the stars claimed the sky, and the rhythm of their hearts became one. "I'll pray for you every night until I see you bring victory on your back. You blockhead."

"It's a promise, Hiddigh." He kissed her forehead. "And I always keep my promises."

"I'm already praying for that to happen, or the Legacy itself will have to deal with me." A smile tried to warm her nervousness. "How dare they recruit children into their ranks?"

"Don't speak ill of my father." He frowned, then smiled with that warmth that characterized him. "Besides, I'm not a child. Look..."

And there he saw her that morning, sitting in the shade of the birches on the outskirts of the citadel, waving goodbye. The cold of dawn penetrated to the bone, yet she was there bidding him farewell without knowing if she would ever see him again. All of Ismerlik seemed withered and sad.

The Legate had departed with his troops to the north, where the snowy mountains mark the end of the imperial territory and the gates of the kingdom of Barbaria, where the Mountain Giants and the hordes coexist. The territory that not even the winged Guardians dare to conquer. 

In those days, the barbarian troops had begun skirmishes in the highlands, and a weak alliance with neighboring nations provided the empire with an opportunity for conquest, which the Pretor and Legate Ehrim, "Iron Hand," would not ignore.

The rain of arrows was the welcome, he did not know how many men fell to his left or how many more to his right; the thick, white fog covered everything.

 "Ambush!" was heard in the distance. 

He looked at his father who was a few meters ahead of him, deciphered it by raising his sword; the scene was blurred. The whistling of the arrows through the wind was heard again. 

"Retreat!" was the Legate's order. 

The beasts' hooves crushing the mud and snow, the neighs and tugs of reins; everything else, deep moans and blasphemies, mixed with the sound of the mountain and the agonizing fading of the voices of the fallen. They retreated at a brisk pace, with curtains of arrows falling behind their backs. The fog gave no respite further down. 

"We're surrounded." Just hearing it made his skin crawl, "I'll die, Hiddigh." 

He couldn't see a meter beyond his nose, only heard the group's screams, unsheathing of swords; he breathed in dampness and blood. His face wet, his eyes cloudy, he had been shivering from the cold for a while; now he did it out of fear. 

"But if I must fulfill my promise." 

They charged blindly. Finally, he distinguished some figures among the thicket. They were not men, but beasts with male bodies. They wielded swords like iron maces. He saw them cleave in two the horse of one of his troop's riders. It happened very quickly. In one moment he was on his mount, in another he found himself dodging the hooves that trampled the snow and water on the ground. 

"I'll die," he crawled among the beasts' legs, covered in mud from head to toe. "I'm so sorry, Hiddigh."

 He distinguished his father on foot, surrounded by shadows, and then saw his head roll in the mud. He tried to stand and fight, but a whip caught his ankle, and another caught his wrists. He closed his eyes. "I'll die, Hiddigh."