The fortress was gone.
Where once there had been tunnels carved by greed and desperation, only a crater remained — blackened stone glowing faintly from dragonfire.
Smoke coiled into a sky newly cracked open after months of choking cloud. Rain hissed over the ruins, turning ash to mud.
Yara stumbled across the uneven ground, the world still shaking around her ears from the battle. Each step felt unreal, as though she were walking through the aftermath of a fever dream.
Her ribs burned where Aira's blade had grazed bone, her magic a frayed thread — but she was alive. They were alive.
Val lay a few paces away, half-curled, wings splayed across the broken ground. His scales were cracked, molten gold seeping between them like slow blood. Even broken, he was magnificent — power and ruin made flesh.
Sky stood beside him, smaller but just as fierce, keeping his brother steady with the edge of his wing as if shielding him from even the memory of harm.
