In the shattered remains of the great hall, at the farthest edge of the ruins where the air itself felt thick with malice, Leonidas lay pinned.
The crushing weight of Rex's gravity had held him to the marble floor since the moment he had arrived, a physical manifestation of a power that rendered his legendary strength irrelevant.
He was shaking. Not with fear, but with something far more volatile.
He had been forced to be a spectator to his own apocalypse.
From where he lay, cheek pressed against the cold, fractured stone, the gap in the collapsed rear wall offered a perfect, unobstructed view across the garden.
He had seen every atrocity. He had watched the duel from its first spark of hope to its final, bloody conclusion.
He had seen Helena's magic, that beautiful, transcendent art, rise in magnificent spirals only to be snuffed out like cheap candles.
He had seen her phoenix wings flare in a desperate, final storm, only to watch them dissolve into ash.
