Dawn came grey and breathless, dragging its light across a sky that looked bruised. The mountains no longer felt still. Every gust of wind carried the faint tremor of something vast shifting beneath the earth, as if the world had begun to breathe again after too long asleep.
Damian stood at the edge of the courtyard, his sword sheathed but his senses sharpened. The air still reeked faintly of ash and old power. The stones beneath his boots held the memory of last night's light—the shockwave that had erased the Echo Beasts as though they'd never been.
Lyra stood in the center of the yard. She hadn't spoken since the explosion. Her skin was pale, her eyes hollowed with exhaustion, but the mark across her collarbone burned like molten silver.
"You shouldn't be awake," Damian said quietly.
"I couldn't sleep," she replied. "Every time I close my eyes, I hear it again. The bell."
He glanced at her. "That bell hasn't rung since the First Age. You shouldn't have heard it at all."
