“Pinky promise, I will never abandon you, Your Highness.” More of those odd words of hers, but they meant something to me. Everyone I held dear had left me. I’d lost them and secluded myself, yet this creature… no, this woman, promised me something I had begged for. Such simple words, such a simple act, had fractured something in me and shifted my world. I stared at the empty night sky, watching her dark wings beat across the sky, her sleek form disappearing into the roiling clouds. Away from me. “You promised,” I whispered as the sirens continued to wail.

