A City Reborn
The ascent felt lighter.
No longer burdened by hidden chains, the stairwell seemed to breathe with them, carrying Aelir and Lira upward on invisible currents of renewal.
When they emerged from the ruined Library into the open streets of Willowdeep, they froze.
The city had changed.
The gray stones, once heavy with silence and sorrow, now shimmered with faint hues of green and gold. Moss crept lovingly along the walls, not as decay, but as adornment. Flowers bloomed in the cracks of broken pavement.
The people — the survivors — stood together in the square, faces upturned, mouths open in wonder.
They had felt it too — the great release, the shuddering breath of a memory restored.
Children laughed without knowing why.
Elders wept for names they hadn’t remembered in dec
