The Southern capital was a city built on the arrogance of sun-baked stone and the slow, humid pulse of its rivers. It was a place that did not know the meaning of a blizzard.
That changed the moment the air in the central plaza shattered.
The teleportation didn't manifest as a shimmering light or a gentle ripple. It was a violent intrusion of the North. A crack like a tectonic plate snapping echoed off the marble facades of the surrounding ministries, and a shockwave of arctic air instantly turned the humid evening mist into a hail of jagged ice.
Elric, Isella, Sirion, and Yelena materialized in a crater of cracked cobblestones.
