The night was as dark as ink. The Beast Graveyard lay on a desolate stretch behind Pyralia's rear mountain, the final resting place for generations of the Phoenix Clan's Fallen Beasts, or sin slaves.
Bodies were tossed here at random, left to be picked apart by crows, vultures, and other birds until nothing but a heap of white bones remained, bleached by time, becoming nourishment for the earth.
Ruby's corpse had been carelessly thrown here as well. Her once-lovely face was now ashen and ghastly, filled with the aura of death.
As the night deepened, flocks of crows and vultures came swooping in from all directions, and within moments, Ruby's body was picked clean.
No one noticed—out of Ruby's bloody, mangled belly, five jade-white Phoenix Eggs rolled free. Their shells were so thin as to be nearly transparent, streaked with blood and mucus, and faint red firelight glimmered from within.
