The silence that followed the Sunken City's release was a different kind of quiet. It was not the muffled, possessive hush of the preserved city, but the true, empty silence of a grave long since filled. The phosphorescent glow was gone, the echoes of laughter and chiming bells extinguished. Only the wind remained, sighing through the bleached, crumbling ruins of Lythe as if apologizing for the disturbance.
They walked without speaking. There was no triumph in their steps, only a leaden weariness. They had not won a battle; they had performed a euthanasia. The weight of it was a stone in each of their chests.
Elara clutched the Shard. It was warm now, a comforting, steady heat that pulsed in time with her heartbeat. It felt… satisfied. Not victorious, but resolved. It had done what it was made to do, not by destroying, but by healing a wound that had festered for millennia. Yet, the cost of that healing was a scar on her soul.
