Maquia When The Promised Flower Blooms -2018- B... -

Maquia didn’t understand loneliness. Not yet.

One winter, a new threat rose. The last Renato, feral and grieving, descended on the city. Ariel—now a gray-haired general—led the charge. Maquia watched from the battlements, her ageless heart pounding.

Then came the crimson dragon—the Renato—shattering the peace. Its roar tore the sky, and with it came the armored knights of Mezarte, desperate to capture the last of the ancient bloodlines. They wanted the Iorph’s immortality, their ageless bodies, to graft onto their dying king. Maquia When the Promised Flower Blooms -2018- B...

At fifteen, Ariel began to pull his hand away when she reached for him.

She threw herself into the flames, her small body lifting the beam that ten men could not move. “Get up,” she whispered, dragging him to safety. Blood streaked her face. She looked exactly as she had the day she found him. Maquia didn’t understand loneliness

“Goodbye, Ariel,” she whispered.

Maquia watched from the forest’s edge as Ariel became a soldier, then a captain, then a husband. She saw him marry a gentle woman named Dita, who laughed like a bell. She saw him hold his own daughter—a tiny, squalling thing with his fierce eyes. The last Renato, feral and grieving, descended on the city

“Maquia,” he whispered, using her name for the first time in decades. “I’m sorry.”