The ruined square still reeked of blood and smoke. Ash clung to the stones where Broken Men had died, their corpses dragged into the shadows to rot. Yet silence never truly returned. Whispers lingered like an infection, curling through the minds of the chained as if the dead themselves breathed into their ears.
Kael sat on the crumbling fountain, unmoving, while his new followers twitched in restless sleep or sat in broken wakefulness. He studied them in turn, measuring how the System’s curse reshaped them.
The soldier clenched her fists in her sleep, teeth grinding, shoulders jerking as though she fought invisible battles. Sweat rolled down her scarred brow, and sometimes she muttered, begging comrades long dead to hold the line. When she woke, her eyes were bloodshot, but she still sal
