Ruins of Autumn

Prologue

    "I was swimming."

    This was the first sentence she planned to say if she didn't make it.

    She had been swimming when suddenly the sea's glacial cold seized her body. She couldn't bear it or move to break through the merciless waves and reach the shore alive.

    It was an argument that would be easily believed. After all, why would people suspect that she had deliberately tried to kill herself? They might guess it was because of Amarildo or another man, but she didn't care as long as they didn't know the whole truth.

    Her death would be talked about for a few days and then fade into oblivion. That is, if the plan worked out as she had thought. If not, she would use the prepared excuse.

    The others would be easily convinced—she knew that—but he wouldn't. With a single look, he would understand the unspoken truth.

    He had earned that kind of authority since the day they had first met, when he had understood her intention towards him at a glance, and since then, that position had only been strengthened, no matter how much she had wanted to take it from him and not allow him to become such an important part of her life, a part of the level at which she had fallen from a treacherous hit, and she still felt like she was falling.

    But before her downfall began, Anila Idrizaj had risen very high.

A.N. The events and the characters in this book are work of artistic fiction. Every similarity is coincidental.