The sky was still tinged with bruised gray when we left the palace ruins behind, the horizon smeared with the soft glow of firelight—embers not of destruction, but of rebirth.
Smoke clung to the crumbling city like a shroud, yet beneath it, life stirred. Survivors emerged slowly from hiding places—civilians cloaked in soot, rebels with wide eyes, children clutching makeshift talismans of protection. They stared at us like we were ghosts returned from the underworld.
Perhaps we were.
“We need to move quickly,” Mira said quietly beside me. Her voice was hoarse, her face pale, but her spine straight. “With the Hollow King gone, his magic is unraveling. But so are the seals that held the rest of the Court at bay.”
“So it’s a race,” Kael growled. “They’ll come to reclaim what he lost.”
“An
