Chapter 72 - THE OATH OF ASH AND FROST.

The next morning dawned under a sky that wore the colors of tempered steel, pale gray streaked with the gold of a reluctant sunrise. The ruins of the council's fortress stood in stark silhouette against the light, their broken towers like the jagged teeth of some ancient, slain beast. The air was cold and clean now, washed by the night's brief rainfall, though the dampness only deepened the scent of scorched wood and burnt stone. Smoke still drifted in thin, ghostly threads from collapsed halls, curling upward before dissolving into the sky as if the ruins themselves were exhaling the last of their defiance.