The cannons had gone silent.
For a month they had roared without pause, the thunder of Dawnhaven's steel unmaking stone, shattering wards, and rending the pride of Ignarion.
But now only silence lingered, broken by the groans of collapsing towers and the low, ceaseless crackle of fire.
Emberhold smoldered.
The once-proud city of obsidian spires and Crucible flame lay in ruin.
Whole districts had been reduced to heaps of blackened ash, their avenues choked with rubble and corpses alike.
Where the great barrier had once gleamed like a second sun, only smoke now hung, rising in choking plumes to blot the sky.
Casualties were beyond count. Thousands had perished in the firestorms, burned alive in their homes, or crushed beneath falling towers.
More had fled to the streets only to die when the next barrage tore them open.
The great market, once the beating heart of Ignarion's wealth, was a blackened crater.
