The morning after the dragon's display, Ironmark remained quiet.
Smoke drifted from chimneys as it always did, and the clang of the forge carried faintly over the windswept highlands. But under the surface, something had changed. A tension in the air. The kind that lingered after a storm you knew hadn't passed—it had only paused.
Inigo didn't linger inside the barracks long. He slipped out before breakfast, boots crunching softly over the frost-lined path leading out of town. No one stopped him. Not Cedric, not Lyra. Perhaps they understood. Or maybe they were too afraid to speak the words weighing on everyone's mind:
That thing could end us.
He walked without a word, rifle slung over his back, cloak wrapped around his shoulders as he hiked through a woodland trail to the southeast. Sparse trees lined the outer rim of the Emberreach, still green despite the choking ash that occasionally blew from the highlands. Here, the air felt cleaner, and the earth wasn't scarred.
