Chapter 18: Ashes and Echoes
Two weeks passed since the gate collapsed.
The world did not end. No dragons ate the sun. No god descended to collect the pieces. The world merely sighed instead.
The stillness remained in the air. Birds returned to the charred trees outside Daltigoth. Rivers ran clean again. But underlying all this was a strange stillness — not peace, but a holding of breath, as if Krynn breathed not at all to see what would come next.
Lira had not spoken much since then.
She stood often on the city's ruined walls, looking out toward the horizon. The scar on her palm sometimes made her itch, especially at night. The nightmares hadn't returned. That frightened her more than they had.
Kaela visited every day, always with something new: tea, rumors, absurd stories that Lord Bakaris had eloped with a merchant's daughter (not true), or that Thalen had been seen drunk-instructing wyverns to juggle (questionable). Lira smiled whenever she could.
Thalen, on the other hand, had transformed half of the ruined citadel into a workshop. Magical sigils inscribed themselves across the air. Kerris helped him, though his eyes continued to dance with darkness. Whatever had happened between him and the Queen had altered him.
One morning, Kaela delivered bread and said nothing. They shared it together, watching the clouds change shape.
"She's still in there," Lira said finally. "Somewhere. Pieces of her."
Kaela didn't respond right away. Then: "Do you think it'll come back?"
Lira nodded. "Not the same as it was. But yes. Something always does."
Kaela tore a strip of bread in half and passed it to her. "Then we deal with it when it does. Together."
Lira smiled faintly. "You always know what to say."
"I've been practicing. In front of the mirror. Between destroying monsters and intimidating nobles."
That night, Lira returned to the ruins of the inner citadel. No one trailed behind her.
The staff had not returned. But something else had grown there -- a tree. Spindly, dark as obsidian, but it was alive. It shone with a faint glow, like it remembered lightning.
She touched it, bracing for pain. Warmth spread from her fingertips instead.
It was not evil. It was not pure. It just *was*.
She sat in its shadow.
You weren't a monster," she said to the darkness. "You were broken. And I held your shards. Some of them belong to me now."
The wind toyed with the leaves — as sharp as razors, as insubstantial as ashes.
She did not cry. Not anymore. But she lingered there for a very long time.
—
When morning came, she found Thalen debating with Kerris on whether dragons could be brought into the city unlicensed.
"I'm just saying, if it breathes fire, it requires registration," Thalen growled, exasperated.
"And I'm saying your paperwork addiction is where dictators are made," Kerris snapped back.
Kaela snorted at wiping her sword. "If either of you tries to register my wyvern, I'll register you right into the river."
Lira laughed, a full, hearty laugh. The others paused, then joined in.
It didn't solve anything.
But it felt like a beginning.