Kael stood in the hollow skeleton of what once was the great ducal House.
Everything… was gone.
Not ruined. Not broken.
Erased.
The once-proud pillars lay scattered like shattered bones.
Walls melted into heaps of blackened rubble. Fires coughed and sputtered weakly in the corners where life had once breathed.
There were no screams. No groans. No voices.
No one.
Renold.
The physician.
Cerin, Rael.
Veyran.
Aerik.
Even the Duchess.
All gone.
Blasted into dust—like they had never existed.
Kael stood swaying. Cold sweat ran down his spine.
He clenched his jaw to stop it from trembling, but it didn't help.
He looked at his hand—twisted slightly at the wrist, bones cracked.
His fingers twitched, numb.
Without Venom, he realized, he'd be nothing more than another corpse among the ashes.
Kael sighed, a thin, bitter breath through bloodied lips.
"…Good," he muttered to himself.
"That I already sent Riven and Lira away yesterday."
