Ash fell like black snow.
The capital of Eirenos no longer had a name, only cinders and silence where cities once sang. Streets had melted into a river of despair, palaces gutted to skeletons, towers leaning like burnt matchsticks against the bloodied ground. The stench of scorched flesh clung to the wind, heavy and threatening, curling through the ruins as if the air itself mourned.
From above, a shadow uncoiled.
Wings wider than stormfronts beat once, stirring the smoke into whirling tempests.
The Black Dragon.
It's scales, a cloak of darkness, descended through the cloud of its own making. The heat rose off its flanks in quivering waves. Beneath its claws, the broken remnants of Eirenos steamed.
The dragon tilted its horned head, exhaling a low growl that rippled through the cha
