Prologue.

Legend has it that if a heart of rock beats again, it's because a gargoyle is in the same realm of closeness with its destined mate, regardless of species or gender. Being destined for a gargoyle can mean one of two things: the death of one's mate or the agony of living alongside it.

Just as a dragon doesn't descend from the skies just for a stroll, a gargoyle doesn't find its mate just to love them...

There are more complex, harder things that can be difficult to bear: walking on a cliff can be a little more comfortable and safer than living in the emptiness of a heart of rock; Trying to escape death doesn't make you smarter, just more vulnerable, because the guardians of life and death can easily cross both borders.

 And if you can't adapt to the stone legion, no matter how much sulfur rains down, your pain will not cease. Even if you ask for it, it will only intensify, and if you don't ask for it, it will only grow. There's no science to asking and not asking. You can't be indecisive, knowing that one false move will crush you into a body of rock thirsty for the same intensity with which it surrenders.

They will feel neither the cold nor the heat because in Umbragray no heart will beat unless it is destined to do so, for the stone guardians who are forgotten, even by the supernatural, are still present, waiting, guarding their dwelling, and meeting one of them and not being their destined one can be confusing, because either they will look like a finished statue, or they will feed on your living entrails, because throughout their existence their diet has been based on humans…

Therefore, the fact that you beg and plead will change absolutely nothing, it will only make your pathetic existence diminished by fear, because if you are not willing to die, you have to stop being willing to venture into places that have been forgotten and that only someone who has survived would give you their address, and if they do, they would not do so with good intentions, but because they know you would be doomed to die, and even though you continue to complain, there will be no stone figure to come to help you, nor will there be any God to save you because perhaps God does not exist, and if he does exist he forgot that he is God…

For all this, you must prepare yourself, spread your wings, and if you have the guts, fly as far as you can. And even if this doesn't make sense, hide, even in the depths of the sea. Hide, because sooner or later the legion of stones will find you.

 And when that happens, there will be no escape. You will have to agonize in their arms and pray that you are someone's destiny and that they cannot kill you, because their life will be linked to yours, and the harm they may cause you may be justified…

Or perhaps they will do it from their innocence, because a stone guardian cannot measure the strength of their corrupted love. Because they were only created to guard the border between life and death, and in Shadowgray, love is as scarce as sunlight on their forgotten stone walls…