The valley did not welcome the setting sun with warmth, for the light that stretched across the ridges fell thin and distant, as though even the day itself hesitated to linger where old things remembered too much.
Roberto De Luca stood at the edge of the overlook, his figure still against the vast quiet below, his hands clasped loosely behind his back, though the tension in his shoulders betrayed a weight he did not show.
The wind moved through the tall grass in soft waves, brushing against his coat, whispering against stone, yet even that sound seemed careful, as if unwilling to disturb what lingered beneath memory.
His gaze did not wander across the valley as a man admiring land might do, but fixed instead on something unseen, something layered over the present like a shadow cast by the past.
"…it's begun," he said.
His voice carried low.
