The woman’s name was Lira.
As they moved through the broken city together, Lira's memory blossomed in fragments — flashes of faces, songs half-remembered, old oaths whispered in secret corners. Each memory made her stronger, steadier, like a river slowly returning to its course after a long drought.
But they were not alone anymore.
From the hollow doorways and shattered windows, figures cloaked in pale gray watched. The Silencers — agents of the old dominion — moved like ghosts, unseen by most, but Aelir could feel them. Like cold fingers brushing the edges of their mind.
The first attack came just before nightfall.
A whisper of sound. A blur of motion.
Aelir barely shoved Lira aside before a tendril of darkness lashed out — a whip made not of rope, but of forgotten memory, sharpened
