"It's alright," said Heliodora. She squared her shoulders, lifted her chin--there was no hair to lift away, nothing to clear. "Don't let me down."
In the heartbeats between her reassurance and Shun's blade opening her throat, Heliodora's eyes--pale blue, an icy near-white blue--flit up to the blue sky. She sought something out there, the rolling light of the stars, maybe an affirmation that what she was about to do was right. She'd never wanted to be one of them. She wanted to live her life, happy, and disappear, a jewel of dew in the morning. Now she escaped all of it: the people around her, the angels and the damned, the world she and her friends had tried to save thousands of years ago.
In the end, Heliodora Winters was nothing more than an oversight.
Blade Kuroda
winter's grasp
Upon arriving home from his adventure to Ashdown, Shun finds a box on his bed. It is small, and wrapped in paper that feels icy cold to the touch. Inside is a pendant of the
mark of the seal. This pendant, when visibly worn, endears Shun to the inhabitants of other ashdown. They will assist him and answer his questions more readily than they would even a noble. This pendant, when visibly worn, also allows Shun to open a path to other ashdown at will.
Occasionally, it grows freezing cold for seemingly no reason at all.
