The city didn't sleep. It just burned quieter in the dark.
Arcadia's skyline pulsed red through the cracked glass, and every breath still carried the taste of dusted bone. I hadn't moved from the window since the call ended. The ash outside glowed brighter than the streetlights. It wasn't snow; it was the city's skin.
If guilt had a smell, it was hot metal and smoke.
I couldn't stop replaying it—the way the dungeon broke, the shaman stepping out like a god trying on flesh, the thousands of orcs pouring through a wound that used to be reality.It wasn't random. That thing had waited. It wanted out.
And I'd opened the door.
They went in four. Only I came back.
I tried to tell myself the dungeon would've collapsed anyway, that maybe the Verge was rotten from the start. The lie didn't stick. I'd watched it die, screaming through Lucien's light and Elise's fire.They bought me seconds. I spent them living.
Now the break was eating the city.
