Chapter 73 - EMBERS IN THE WIND.

Two weeks had passed since the fall of the council's stronghold, yet the echoes of that battle lingered in every stone, every whisper of the wind through the broken city. Time had dulled the roar of combat into memory, but it had not yet mended the scars. The walls still bore blackened wounds from fire, streets were pitted with the craters of magefire strikes, and the air retained the faint bitterness of smoke. Yet in the quiet intervals between duties, the people of the South had begun to breathe differently — not freely yet, but as though learning the rhythm of hope for the first time.