Chapter 49: The Port Breathes Again
The shadow master was ash.
The cult was broken.
The cold, choking darkness that had strangled Zamorde Port for months had lifted at last.
When the morning sun spilled gold over the rooftops, no one flinched. No one locked their doors early.
No longer did mothers pull their children close at the sound of footsteps, or merchants peer fearfully into every alley.
Hannah stood in the sun-warmed courtyard, folding clean linen blankets for families who'd lost everything to the cult's cruelty.
The air smelled of fresh-baked bread from the manor kitchen, salt from the distant harbor, and soft wood smoke winding upward.
Somewhere in the distance, a child laughed — a bright, unafraid sound.
Mimi sat beside her, levitating dried healing herbs into small cloth pouches with tiny glimmers of blue water magic, her movements calm and unhurried.
