The Heron

From publisher blurb:

The Heron is the oldest figure in Elysia. She might even be older than the Black Monk. Neither of them has kept track. Neither knows when the land began. But the Heron keeps to her work. She keeps to herself. She makes no complaints about the state of things. And she accepts her fate.

Except. She doesn’t. When she’s alone, the crying starts. It’s not something she can even control anymore. But always in her ear, words follow, whispering like gossamer wind, “Patience. Patience…”

In The Black Monk, the characters are people living in a desolate, but vibrant world where time seems to have lost meaning. Living for decades, perhaps longer, in isolation from others, the people of Elysia toil in work, only to be visited once a year by the Black Monk.

In between these visits, their lives are interrupted by sometimes trivial and other times confusing events. Everything seems to fit together like an elongated jigsaw puzzle, but no one can see the starter pieces stretching across the horizon.
But they don’t complain. There is always more work. The village needs workers.

Then one evening, the sun stayed in the sky all day. When there should have been night, the sun remained. And now it feels as though it’s been years since the Black Monk came. But perhaps it was yesterday. Nothing is right…

Is that blood?