The air smelled of fresh stone, resin, and lingering ozone—the scent of creation clawing its way back from ruin, sharp and metallic on the tongue, like biting into a storm-forged blade.
Atlas moved slowly, deliberately, as if each step carried the memory of what had been lost and the weight of what must be rebuilt, his boots scraping faintly against the uneven ground where shards of marble still lay half-buried, cool and unyielding beneath his soles.
The ruins of his home were no longer mere skeletons of walls and shattered tiles; magic twisted around him like threads of living light, glimmering, reconstructing, reshaping every splinter, every shard of marble and wood with a low, resonant hum that vibrated through his bones.
It was a quiet symphony of rebuilding, but in its silence roared his resolve, undercut by a quieter doubt: Was this truly rebuilding, or merely covering the scars?
