"We can't stay here any longer, Solania might go on a full lockdown… the damned pope couldn't have chosen a worse time to just eat the dirt," Joana said.
Her voice carried a clipped urgency, sharper than the winter air that scraped across the mountain. She stood with her arms folded tight, eyes flicking down toward the valley where the distant sprawl of Solania crouched beneath a lid of low clouds. The cold pressed hard against her cheeks, reddening the skin, but her words had little to do with weather. She was already imagining gates sealed, soldiers posted at every street corner, and frightened citizens penned in behind walls.
"Why should we care? We didn't kill him, wasn't he like a hundred and some years old," Kassandra said.
