Sonder staggered forward, half-expecting the Irath King to reappear and strike her down for daring to breathe.
The air was brittle with silence, broken only by the occasional groan of stone and the crackle of ruins shifting as the throne room collapsed around her.
A ceiling beam gave way behind, crashing into the shattered marble floor.
The echo rang, and the dust stirred up.
She dropped to her knees beside Vell. His eyes were shut, his lips paler than they had ever been before, and his skin cold beneath her touch.
His staff, broken in two, lay beside him, and a burn mark was where his satchel had been.
Every trace of that vast power he'd wielded was burned out of him, and for one dreadful moment, Sonder thought he was gone too.
But a shallow breath answered her. Weak, but alive.
Relief washed over her. She pressed her forehead against his shoulder, trying to fight back tears. The dust coating his robes smeared against her brow.
With effort, she slipped his arm over her shoulders. The weight of him surprised her. He was heavier than he looked; limp but unresisting.
Step by step, she forced herself forward. Her legs wavered, her arms burned, but she refused to let him fall.
Through rubble and ruin she dragged him, past the jagged fault lines carved by their battle, past the broken throne that no longer had a master.
And, at last, the fractured palace doors opened before her to the outside. She crossed the threshold into the light.
And stopped.
The Irathy lands were no longer the blighted wastelands she had seen on their march.
Gone were the black storms that had smothered the horizon. Gone were the twisted mounds of flesh that had stood in their way. Gone, too, was the dead earth.
Instead, the world was green.
Meadows rolled out in every direction, alive with swaying grasses that rippled like waves beneath the wind. The sky stretched impossibly clear, its blue vast and unmarred. Birds circled in lazy arcs overhead, feathered and white.
The land smelled of damp soil and flowering herbs.
A river glittered in the distance, a ribbon of silver cutting through the land. Wildflowers clung to its banks, spilling their colors across the meadows, all too vivid after so much dullness and death.
The breeze carried their scent, fresh and almost too sweet.
Sonder's knees gave out. She sank into the grass, still clutching Vell against her. The earth here was soft, damp with life, so unlike the dust and rot she had expected. Her heart pounded with confusion. Relief and dread were at odds within her, each breath pulling her deeper into the strangeness of this reborn land.
The army, too, was gone. Every banner, every soldier, and the thousands who had marched beside them all vanished.
No corpses remained. No weapons. No sign they had ever existed. As though the earth itself had erased them.
Her eyes lifted once more to the meadows, bright and inviting, stretching out endlessly beneath the sun. It was too perfect, too serene.
She clutched Vell tighter, her body trembling. Her breath came heavy, each one tasting of flowers and grass.
And then, with no strength to do otherwise, she forced herself up once more.
One step. Then another.
Into the meadows she carried him, the ruins of Irath fading behind her.