From wooden plaques to stone rings, from tears to laughter——every step is proof of the path they’ve walked.

As the festival begins, the chosen enter the courtyard.Between sorrow and steel, some walk away——others learn to bear it.

In a bowl of vegetable soup, they felt the weight of legacy for the first time.

With mud as witness and fire as offering,the pigs protected one another——and learned to say goodbye, and to remember.

At the edge of extinction, some decisions were never choices.In the darkness, they learned what it meant to be one another.

They ran through the mud, and left behind their tears. The body may break, but no one will be forgotten.

Prologue

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