Dawn revealed Brasswick not as a city, but as a wound.
Where towers once cut the horizon, only broken spines of stone jutted into the fog. Streets yawned open into chasms where molten brass still hissed, their heat curling through the morning mist. Gaslamps lay toppled, their glass shattered into teeth upon the cobbles. The river boiled with chemical runoff, its banks littered with debris of homes pulled into the automaton's body.
And yet—amid ruin—there was movement. Survivors staggered from the rubble, covered in soot and blood. Mothers carried children whose eyes stared blankly into the distance. Old men dragged themselves with shattered canes, whispering prayers of thanks to saints they no longer believed in. Soldiers, their uniforms charred and torn, propped one another up on broken rifles, forming lines not for battle but for comfort.
Selene watched from a collapsed balcony, her cloak ragged, her face smeared with ash. Her shadows still clung to her, but weakly, fluttering like dying moths. "We killed a god," she said hoarsely to Elric. "And this… this is what's left. Ruin."
Elric adjusted his coat, his cane leaning heavy against the fractured stone. His gray eyes scanned the broken skyline, and for once they softened. "Ruin can be rebuilt. Gods cannot. That is enough."
Below, the rebels—what few survived—raised their banners not as emblems of victory, but of endurance. The cloths were torn, bloodied, some little more than strips of fabric tied to bayonets, but they stood. For the first time in years, there was no hymn to perfection. Only the quiet murmur of the living.
Evangeline stirred beside them, pale and weak. Her eyes fluttered open, catching the dawn's red light. Her lips parted. "Did we… win?"
Elric looked down at her, then out at the horizon burning with smoke. He did not smile. "We survived, Evie. Sometimes, that has to mean the same thing."