The room was small and cold, the kind of cold that seeped into your bones and stayed there no matter how many blankets you piled on top of yourself.
A single candle burned on the windowsill, its flame small and weak, struggling against the darkness that pressed against the glass from the outside.
The light it cast was barely enough to reach the corners of the room, and the shadows that gathered there seemed to watch the little girl who knelt on the wooden floor, her small hands pressed together in front of her chest, her lips moving in a whisper that was meant for ears much higher than her own.
She was seven years old, maybe eight, with black hair that fell across her face in tangled strands and amber eyes that were squeezed shut against the tears that wanted to fall.
Her parents had left three days ago, called away to a war that she did not understand and a duty that she could not comprehend.
