Cevian is not the first to be killed. Cevian is far from the first to be killed. And she, too, is far from the first to scratch the sinister mark of the scythe with her dying breath into unforgiving rock. To smell the gnawer coming, feeling the lethal blow of the tail upon one's head before it happens, knowing that you will not be the last. You will be far from the last.

No, Cevian is far from the first to be killed. But she is the first to be found by a human.

As the gnawers ravaged into the jungle, tearing vine and shrub beneath their feet, carrying lies of same old, same old in their snarls while the nibblers bent their heads in hopes that if only they complied, they would live, as Cevian ran from their troops with the crown in her mouth, stopping only to cough up blood and check that she was not off course, she had known that she would not live. She had known that she would die. That her final place of resting would be upon cold rock far from an abandoned home, with the mark that all beings should know and fear as her last word.

This is where the queen whose crown was returned to her finds Cevian. This is where the first human finds the first dead nibbler. This is where the first mark is found, where the tale of the rot and the horrors begins.