[color=#b97703][i]That could be because they’re all dead,[/i][/color] Cas thought, grimacing at the morbidity of his own conclusion. For Iris’s sake, he kept the observation to himself. If she hadn’t thought of it yet, there was no reason to tell her and make her even more depressed than she had been yesterday. As they walked, he continued to look around the ruined city, taking in the devastation that now defined the eleventh district. He hated that he was probably right in this case, but it was hard to imagine any other reason why they didn’t see any other people in the area. As far as he could tell, they were the only living things in the city for miles.

A dusty breeze blew past them, and he shivered, rubbing his left arm with his opposite hand. The chill he felt had more to do with his discomfort walking through Bel Bicis than it did with the weather. It had been easier to remain separated from the destruction of the civil war when he’d been safe inside the walls of the capital, but now that he was quite literally in the middle of it, he was sickened by the outcome. Sure, there had probably been rebels in this district, but there had almost certainly been civilians as well, people who didn’t want anything to do with the fight between the crown and the Scourge. It saddened him to think that many of them must have died during the fighting.

[color=#b97703]“I’m fine,”[/color] he murmured in response to Iris’s question, half distracted by the carnage before his eyes. The answer he gave was actually sincere this time. He was lucky that Regis hadn’t injured his legs, because the wounds on his upper body didn’t hinder him from moving very much. He would most likely be sore by the time he got back to the capital, but he was sure he could handle the long walk to get there. If it meant they could leave Bel Bicis sooner, he would even speed walk if she preferred.

For a while, he fell quiet, the pit in his stomach growing with every crumbling building they passed. Movies glamourized warfare, but the real thing was heavy to absorb. When he got back to the capital, he planned to work with the military right away to look into ways to end the fighting as quickly as they could. If they kept killing their own citizens like this, they were going to destroy their own kingdom. That wasn’t what he wanted at all, and he was sure his father would balk too when he told him what he’d seen in Bel Bicis.

Caught up in his thoughts, Cas stiffened in revulsion when a nauseating stench suddenly reached him on the wind. He gagged and lifted a hand to cover his mouth and nose, tears stinging the corners of his eyes. He’d never smelled anything like this before, but some primal part of him deep down knew that it was the scent of dead bodies. The thought made the color drain from his face, and he slowed his pace slightly, nervous about what they were about to walk into. Seeing the ruined buildings had been hard enough. He wasn’t sure if he could handle the sight of human victims.

Unfortunately, almost as soon as the thought passed through his mind, they came upon the plaza. He froze, wide-eyed as his gaze landed on a mass of corpses littering the ground. The entire area was stained with blood, as if a manic painter had dipped his brush in a can of dark red paint and started flinging it wildly about. The bodies were male and female, young and old, silently telling onlookers that the war spared no one. They were contorted permanently as if they were still in writhing in pain. The whole thing made him lightheaded, and he pressed his hand down harder over his face in a futile attempt to block out the deathly odor.

[color=#b97703]“Oh my god,”[/color] he exclaimed in a low voice, his voice slightly muffled behind his palm. His heart pounded against his ribs, and he turned to Iris, overwhelmed with the urge to get away from the grisly scene. However, when he did, he saw that she was rooted in place. Too late, he realized that the bloodbath was probably even harder for her to see than it was for him. These had been her people.

[color=#b97703]“Iris, we should get out of here,”[/color] he urged her, reaching out to tug on her hand. [color=#b97703]“We need to keep moving before anyone from the rebellion finds out we’re here.”[/color]