It was night in Rainhold, if what remained could still be called that.
Smoke still curled from the scorched earth where there had once been proud towers. The skeletal remains of stone and wood reached skyward like fingers clawing at the heavens.
Fires had long since died down, but the embers still glowed among the rubble, feeding on whatever scraps still remained.
The full moon hung high above, a pale silver coin in a sky smudged with ash. Its light was weak, barely enough to filter through the smoky haze.
And through that haze walked Nero.
He adjusted the lion-shaped mask upon his face as he passed through what had once been Rainhold's central avenue.
His hooded cloak swept behind him like a shadow given form. Darkness coiled around him from his resonance, writhing from his body like an ancient horror as it sifted through the debris, prodding chunks of stone and blackened corpses.
Eventually, he found it.
