While Kael dealt with the living world... his girls were... on the edge of their own futures...
[With Irelia...]
The sound came before the pain.
Screams. Metallic. Human. Inhuman.
Then the smell—burnt iron, charred flesh, the sweet sourness of recent death. And finally, the pain: a dull ache in her shoulders, as if the weight of the world were being carried on steel plates attached to her body.
Irelia opened her eyes.
The sky above her was red, but not from the sunset. Red with fire. With floating ashes and clouds torn by invisible claws. The wind howled like a lost child, and each gust brought with it the memory of battles she didn't remember fighting.
She was lying on her side, half buried in mud blackened with blood and soot. As she tried to get up, she felt the creaking of her armor—not just the plates and straps, but her own flesh trying to remember how to exist.
