The ruin reeked of burnt iron and clotted blood.
Every breath carried smoke into the lungs, every exhale clouded the air with dust still drifting from the ceiling. Ash fell in lazy spirals, settling on broken stone and splintered corpses as though the ruin itself were shrouding its dead. The faint light seeping through cracks in the shattered roof painted the carnage in thin silver beams. In that fractured glow, the aftermath felt heavier than the battle itself, a silence that pressed like a hand on every throat.
Leo stayed where he had fallen. Knees dug into cracked flagstones, hands braced around the shard-blade buried in the floor. He clutched it as though it alone kept him from sliding into the abyss yawning inside his chest. Each breath dragged fire through his ribs, his muscles trembling with exhaustion. The shard no longer screamed, it pulsed faintly, like a second heart sleeping. Its silence felt no less dangerous than its hunger.
Sofia was the first to move.
