The battlefield hung in eerie silence.
Hundreds of dragons, frozen mid-flight. Their wings still beat the air, caught in the rhythm of defiance that no longer mattered. Their eyes wide with confusion, rage, and fear—expressions that now belonged to statues carved from time itself.
Atlas stood atop one such beast, its scales still warm beneath his boots, its body straining against invisible laws it could no longer resist. His breath came ragged. His heart pounded like war drums trying to remember peace.
He turned slowly to Aurora, who hovered just above the chaos. Her golden hair, unaffected by gravity or reason, rose like a halo against the burning sky. Her expression wasn't smug. It wasn't even proud.
It was calm.
It was beyond.
"You just... stopped them all," Atlas whispered, voice raw from exertion.
Aurora tilted her head slightly, a small, tired smile forming at the corner of her lips.
"I did more than stop them," she said. "I rewrote the sky."
Then she raised her hand.
