Emberwatch no longer burned.
It smoldered.
Smoke curled lazily from broken towers. Rubble littered the once-proud courtyards. Ash drifted down like black snow, silent over the wounded and the dead.
But the sun rose.
For the first time in days, the sky above the keep wasn't choked in voidflame. Just morning light, thin and pale.
We'd survived.
But survival came at a cost.
---
The Names of the Fallen
A thousand names.
Carved into a wall of obsidian.
Children, soldiers, elders—flameborn and mortal alike. Kaela read each one aloud that morning, her voice steady, even as her hand trembled on the parchment.
I stood beside her, wings folded, the Sunshard Core burning low in my chest.
I held Vaelus's soulstone still—what little remained of him. I'd given him peace, but not forgiveness.
Not yet.
That would come later.
If we lived long enough.
---
Solin's Warning
In the Hall of Light, Solin knelt before a scrying flame.