Aetherion Academia #1: Shadows of Rebirth
The window looked out over the Academy's eastern gardens, where students still wandered in the twilight, where the closing ball's decorations still hung like memories of celebration.
And on the pilow, positioned with deliberate care at the exact center where morning light would strike first, lay a single white lotus.
Its petals were pristine, perfect, the white of fresh snow.
Except for the edges.
The edges were stained crimson, as if dipped in blood and left to dry. The stain was recent - Lumira could smell it, that metallic tang that had drawn her back to this room. Not paint. Not dye. Blood, or something chemically indistinguishable from it.