---------------
The storm had long passed when I returned back to the ruins.
The black hall stood like an abandoned shit no one cared about, ceiling scorched, the scent of smoke and old blood clinging to the air.
Every step I took sounded like a ghost through what had once been our temple.
Most of us were gone, dead and decayed.
My hands still trembled, not from the battle, but from what I had seen in the boy's eyes before I left.
That defiance.
That flicker of a flame I had seen in the eyes of that Shadow King.
I should have crushed the boy.
I should have ended him.
But I couldn't.
Because of her.
I turned towards the cracked altar in the center of the hall, where I had laid her down, the girl with silver hair and blood that belonged to gods.
Pixie.
Her chest rose and fell softly, skin pale against the darkness. Her presence alone stirred the ashes around us, as if even the world recognized who she was.
The long-awaited heir.
