Lilia woke coughing, lungs burning with ash. Her fingers scraped against shattered stone as she clawed her way upward through the rubble. The air was thick, heavy, every breath tasted of dust and smoke.

  Her nails were bleeding. She didn’t care.

  It was dark. So dark she couldn’t even tell if her eyes were open.

  But then, after what felt like forever, her hand broke through into air. She dragged herself up, gasping.

  The world above greeted her in a cold, fractured light.

  Her dress was torn, her eyes stung, and blood rimmed the edges of her nails where she’d clawed through stone. A sharp ache pulsed through her shoulder where the arrow had struck. Ash clung to her skin like a second layer, but it wasn’t any of that that made her tremble.

  When she finally lifted her gaze, her heart turned to ice.

  The city was dead.

  What had once been towers of pale stone now lay broken and half-buried under mounds of ash. Streets she used to walk were split open, swallowed by craters and collapsed walls. Smoke still rose in thin, gray columns, curling into a sky choked with soot.

  The walls, once vast and gleaming, stretching high above the skyline, had been shattered. Massive breaches gaped where whole sections had collapsed inward, scattering stone and steel like gravel. The battlements were gone, reduced to jagged remnants jutting out against the night.

  The banners that once crowned them were nowhere to be seen, likely burned to ash with everything else.

  The air was heavy, dry, every breath tasted of dust and ruin. The city’s great gates were nothing but twisted metal, and the once-white marble walls were reduced to piles of rubble and blackened debris.

  There was no sound. No birds, no voices. Only the distant crackle of something still burning beneath the wreckage.

  Above it all hung the moon, fractured, its dim light spilling over the ruins like a shroud.

  She tried to push the thoughts away, but fragments of memory bled through: the roar of collapsing stone, the blur of Ryn’s fight, the deafening rush of light that swallowed everything after. She remembered reaching out, screaming something she couldn’t recall, and then… nothing. Just darkness.

  Now, standing amid the ash and ruin, she couldn’t tell how the city had turned into this.

  Lilia’s breath hitched.

  No… don’t think about it. They’re alive. They have to be.

  The thought barely held her together.

  The silence pressed in again.

  She forced one step forward, then another. The air was thick with ash, falling in slow, endless flurries that clung to her lashes and hair. Each breath burned. The world around her was gray and silent.

  She kept walking. Through the ruins. Through the smoke.

  Her feet ached, her legs trembled, and still she didn’t stop. Not until her knees threatened to give way, not until her lungs screamed for rest.

  And then—

  She saw something.

  A glint of gold beneath the ash. Hair—familiar, unmistakable.

  Ariel.

  She was half-buried in soot, her white dress gray with ash, streaked with dirt and blood.Faint golden cracks traced along her skin, glowing dimly beneath the grime, like veins of light trying to escape a shattered vessel. Dried tears cut pale lines down her face, her eyes unfocused, staring at nothing.

  Lilia’s heart lurched. She ran.

  Her knees hit the ground hard as she reached her, arms wrapping around the princess without a thought.

  “A-Ariel!” Her voice cracked. “Ariel, it’s me—it’s Lilia!”

  She held her close, clinging to her. Relief flooded her chest, wild and desperate. She was alive. She was really alive.

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  But Ariel didn’t move.

  She didn’t even flinch at the contact.

  She just lay on Lilia's shoulders, gold light flickering faintly along the cracks in her skin, tears still falling soundlessly. her eyes were glazed, as if she couldn’t see anything at all.

  But Lilia didn’t care.

  She shifted her grip and hoisted Ariel onto her back, careful despite the sting in her own shoulder. Ariel didn’t resist, she only sank forward, her face pressing weakly against Lilia’s aching shoulder, tears still slipping down her cheeks in silence.

  She was warm.

  Lilia took a breath, steadying her trembling legs, and began to walk. Step by step, through the shattered streets of Solvara.

  The city that had once gleamed with silver and song was now nothing but ruin. Towers lay split like broken spears, streets buried beneath ash and stone. The scent of smoke hung thick in the air.

  And through it all, the two of them moved—small, fragile shapes against the ruin of a fallen kingdom.

  There was Nothing left.

  By the time they reached what remained of the main square, the horizon had begun to pale.

  The sun was rising now, bleeding faint light over the wreckage.

  Lilia turned; they had to keep walking.

  But when she did, the sight before her made her stop cold. Her breath hitched, and she stumbled back a step.

  A figure stood in the street ahead.

  Tall. Still. Watching them.

  His dark hair was matted with ash and blood, his eyes sunken and glassy, the faint red in them catching the morning light. His armor hung in tatters, shattered plates barely clinging to the straps. Beneath it, his clothes were torn and blackened, the skin beneath marked by burns that climbed up his right arm,raw, blistered, and half-charred.

  The arm itself hung limp at his side, twisted at an unnatural angle.

  Cuts and bruises covered the rest of him, every inch of his body painted in the aftermath of battle. He looked like something dragged from the grave, barely human, barely standing.

  And yet, somehow, his hand still gripped his sword. The blade was cracked and dulled, its edge blackened from heat, but he held it as if it were the only thing keeping him standing, knuckles white, trembling, refusing to let that go.

  Lilia’s voice cracked, barely leaving her throat.

  “...Ryn?”

  Ryn didn’t respond. Lilia didnt think he could

  He just stood there, staring at Lilia and the princess for a long, wordless moment. His breathing was shallow, uneven, each rise of his chest looking like it might be his last. Then, without a word, he turned and began to limp toward the edge of the ruined city.

  Lilia froze, watching the slow, dragging motion of his steps. Blood marked his trail with every droplet staining the ash at his feet.

  She couldn’t understand how he was still moving, how someone so broken could keep walking

  It didn’t comfort her. It terrified her.

  But still… she followed.

  The three of them moved through the city’s remains, their footsteps muffled by ash and dust. The pale light of dawn stretched over the ruins, catching on the broken stone and twisted iron like faint reflections of what once was.

  No one spoke. There was only the faint drag of boots over stone, the brittle crunch of debris breaking beneath them. Sometimes the wind would shift, stirring gray dust into the air like the breath of something dying. Other times, there was nothing… only the quiet pulse of their breathing, fragile against the weight of so much ruin.

  They walked for what felt like hours, though it could have been minutes. Time had dissolved here, scattered with everything else.

  They walked in silence, past streets that no longer had names, until the shattered walls of Solvara came into view.

  And beyond them, the bridge.

  It rose from the wreckage like a relic of another world, its pale stones unharmed, every arch and line intact. Not a single crack ran through it. As though the destruction that had consumed the rest of Solvara had simply refused to touch it.

  Beneath it, a wide river wound its way through the valley, blackened by ash yet still moving — slow, silent, carrying fragments of the city out. Shattered tiles, scraps of banners, glints of light where the sun met the current.

  The water hissed softly against the stone, a faint, steady sound.

  One step.

  Two.

  Three.

  Lilia crossed the bridge with Ariel on her back, each step echoing against the white stone. The city of Solvara ash behind them, its ruins fading beneath the pale light of dawn.

  Ariel’s weight was heavy. Her arms hung loosely around Lilia’s shoulders, her face pressed weakly against the side of her neck. The faint shimmer of gold cracks still traced along her skin, dimmer now.

  She hadn’t spoken a word since Lilia found her. Not a sound.

  Beyond them, the world opened into rolling mist and endless green, everything Lilia and Ariel had once spoken of with quiet wonder. And now, she saw them at last, not in awe, but through half-lidded eyes, her cheek pressed weakly against Lilia’s shoulder.

  When they finally stepped off the bridge, the sunlight met them, soft, warm, and painfully calm.

  Lilia turned once, just enough to look back. The city was gone. The place they’d called home was nothing but dust and smoke.

  Her breath caught. The air trembled in her chest.

  And then, at last, the tears came—quiet, unstoppable.

  She kept walking.