The aftermath of victory was not a triumphant roar, but a quiet, hollow echo. We returned to the Aeridor mansion under the cloak of pre-dawn darkness, two ghosts slipping back into a world that had no idea of the war we had just won in its heart.
The grand halls were silent, the air still and heavy with the scent of old books and sleeping flowers. We were specters of violence in a house of peace, our clothes stained with the grime of the sewers, our souls heavy with the weight of the lives we had taken.
We did not speak. There were no words for what had passed between us in the drowning dark of the city below. We had seen the ugliest parts of each other—my cold, brutal efficiency, her sharp, alchemical lethality—and had not flinched.
