Several months had passed since the Council meeting. Winter's chill was setting in, a reminder that time waited for no one, not even those recovering from war. Lumi was nearly six now, her baby features giving way to something sharper, more defined. She'd started asking questions with more complex words, noticing patterns Sera had hoped she'd miss.
The morning Magnus died, the world didn't know.
That was the strange part. That a monster could cease to exist and the sun would still rise, the birds would still sing, the world would continue turning as if nothing had happened. Sera had expected something dramatic — a c***k in the sky, a tremor in the earth, some cosmic acknowledgment that darkness had lost its champion. Instead, there was only silence. And the slow, ordinary light of a new
