Ash drifted slowly through the air, catching the light like dying embers that had forgotten how to fall. The ground was cracked and blackened where Eleyn's fire had touched it, scorched so deeply that even the ether lingering beneath the soil recoiled from the heat. The scent was wrong. Burnt metal. Burnt flesh. Something older than either.
Judge lay where he had fallen, his body twisted at an angle no living spine should allow. His fractured face was half-buried in the dirt, blood darkening the earth beneath his cheek. The faint glow from the cracks in his skin had faded, leaving him still in a way that did not invite hope.
Eleyn knelt beside him.
For a brief moment, she did nothing.
