The morning after the battle was a quiet one.
Not peaceful—never that—but quiet in the way that ca after catastrophe, when the world simply didn't have the strength left to scream.
The sun rose pale through a veil of ash. It touched the broken towers of Delwig, the charred remains of walls that had once withstood sieges and storms.
The fortress city, once a monunt to order, now lay open to the world—bleeding and still.
Damien stood at the city's edge, gaze fixed on the distant horizon where the Verdant Verge still smoldered faintly.
His coat fluttered in the cold wind, the edges burnt and torn. Lin stood beside him, tails curled neatly around her paws, silent as the graves surrounding them.
Behind him, Arielle stirred.
Her voice was faint, a rasp barely stronger than a whisper. "You… ca back."
Damien turned. She lay propped against a half-collapsed wall, color slowly returning to her face. Her armor was cracked, her shoulder bound hastily with strips of cloth.
Beside her, Lyone was barely sitting upright, his left arm still trembling from nerve damage. The boy's usual energy had been burned out of him, replaced by a hollow exhaustion that matched the ruins around them.
"You're both lucky Lin was with ," Damien said quietly. "Another hour, and you'd have joined the others."
Arielle managed a weak smile. "We've heard worse from you."
He almost smiled back, but didn't. There was no humor left to share.
Lin moved closer, her fur shimring faintly with pale light. One of her tails brushed against Lyone's chest, and the boy gasped softly as warmth spread through his limbs.
Color began to bloom across his skin; the burns that had blackened his side lightened, closing like fading scars. Arielle watched, awe flickering in her eyes as Lin turned to her next, repeating the motion.
The healing wasn't fast. It wasn't pretty. It was work—slow, thodical, like nding torn cloth by hand. But an hour later, both of them could stand again, unsteady but alive.
Apnoch watched from nearby, leaning heavily on his spear. His armor was dented, his face streaked with soot. "I'll be damned," he muttered. "That beast of yours heals better than any of the healers I've been able to emcounter."
"Better," Damien said. "Healers have a limit. I don't think she does. Her only limit would be magic essence."
When Arielle and Lyone were stable, Damien gestured toward Apnoch. "You're next."
Apnoch blinked. "What—no, I'm—"
"Sit," Damien said flatly.
The captain sighed and obeyed. Lin padded over, touching his chest with her paw. The faint light shimred again, and Apnoch hissed through his teeth as old wounds from battle and the recent blast sealed beneath his armor.
When it was done, he flexed his fingers experintally, then gave a low whistle. "Feels like I just shed ten years."
"Don't get used to it," Damien said, already turning away. "She won't be staying."
Apnoch frowned. "Why not?"
"They're draining ," Damien said. "All of them. Every summon I have is feeding off my core to recover. If I keep them active much longer, I'll collapse before sunset."
He knelt, resting a hand briefly on Lin's head. "You've done enough. Return."
The fox blinked once, as if understanding, and then dissolved into motes of red and white light. The bond between them dimd, retreating into the recess of his soul.
For the first ti in hours, the air around him felt lighter—though emptier too.
"Back to work," Damien murmured, straightening. "We've got a city to clean."
The next three days blurred together.
They moved through the ruins from dawn until nightfall, digging, lifting, clearing. The survivors—barely a few dozen—joined the remaining guards. Apnoch coordinated what was left of the city's command, while Damien's summons did the labor no human could endure.
Aquila was the first to recover, wings slicing through the air with weary strength. Under Damien's direction, the griffin carved a massive crater into the outskirts of Delwig—each wind strike pulverizing the blackened stone until the pit was wide enough to hold thousands.
Luton followed soon after, its amorphous form gliding silently through the rubble.
Where debris was too heavy, it consud it, storing it within its vast inner dinsion. It even took in the bodies—those they could find—preserving them in that slowed space where ti's decay could not reach.
They found the corpses in every imaginable state.
Burned beyond recognition. Shattered beneath stone. Twisted into grotesque shapes by corrupted mana.
So still clutched weapons; others held each other, locked in their final monts of terror. Soldiers, civilians, children. The line between them had long since been erased.
By the end of the first day, no one spoke while they worked.
By the end of the second, the silence had beco ritual.
Damien said nothing through it all. He carried bodies with the sa quiet precision he'd fought with.
Arielle handled the identification marks—rings, badges, shards of armor—while Lyone dug alongside the others despite his lingering injuries. Apnoch oversaw the sorting of what remained of Delwig's defenders.
The sll of ash clung to everything. Even the air tasted of smoke and salt.
At night, they gathered around what fires they could make. The few survivors—once rchants, scholars, and guards—sat together in grim silence, their eyes hollow.
Occasionally one of them would break down, whispering a na into the fire, and the others would lower their heads.
Damien never joined the weeping. He sat apart, sharpening his blade, watching the embers drift into the dark sky.
Lin's absence was felt but nothing could be done at the mont. The connection between them pulsed faintly inside him—a quiet heartbeat of shared awareness—but he left her where she was. She deserved rest, just as much as they did.
On the third morning, the burial began.
Aquila circled overhead as the survivors lined up around the crater. Thousands of bodies had been laid within, their forms wrapped in sheets of faded cloth, so no more than ashes gathered into small bundles. The hole stretched wide enough to swallow a large mall; the earth itself seed to mourn what it contained.
Apnoch stood at the edge, armor polished clean for the first ti since the fall. His voice was rough when he spoke. "We can't na them all. But we can honor them all."
He looked out over the faces—exhausted soldiers, soot-stained civilians, children too young to understand—and then lowered his gaze. "Delwig was a fortress built to last a thousand years."
"Today, it becos a mory. May those who remain rember what was lost, and those who died find peace beyond the Veil."
The wind stirred gently. The sll of burned wood mingled with the faint scent of damp soil.
Arielle stepped forward, holding a torch lit with faint blue essence. She didn't speak. She just looked at Damien, waiting.
He gave a small nod.
Together, they threw the torch into the crater.
The fire caught quickly. Blue and gold flas licked upward, consuming the cloth-wrapped forms one by one. The light reflected in the survivors' eyes as they bowed their heads.
Damien didn't bow. He stood still, watching until the smoke began to rise. For a mont, the sight blurred—not from tears, but from exhaustion. His body ached, his core still sluggish from overuse, but none of it mattered.
This was his doing, in part. His mission had brought him here. His enemies had followed. His choices had helped decide how many survived.
Apnoch's voice broke through his thoughts. "You've done enough, Damien. We all have. When the Empire learns of this, they'll—"
"They'll do nothing," Damien said quietly. "Delwig's gone. The only thing the Empire will care about is why the Gate flared."
Apnoch's mouth tightened. "Then what do we do?"
Damien looked toward the city center, where the ruins of the inner keep still stood in jagged silhouette against the morning sun.
Even from here, faint wisps of dark mana drifted upward like smoke. The residue hadn't faded, not even after days.
"We go there," he said.
Arielle turned toward him, frowning. "You think sothing's left?"
"I know sothing's left." He pointed toward the faint distortion hovering above the keep—barely visible, but enough for a trained eye. "Mana doesn't linger that long unless it's being anchored. Ivaan's ritual left a scar, and that scar is still bleeding."
Lyone swallowed hard. "You an… the Gate?"
"Or a piece of it," Damien said. "Either way, we can't ignore it."
Apnoch hesitated, then nodded. "Then we'll go with you."
"No," Damien said. "You stay. Guard the survivors. Rebuild what you can."
Apnoch frowned. "And what about you?"
Damien's eyes stayed fixed on the distant shimr. "I'll see what Ivaan's attempt left behind. Alone."
Arielle started to protest, but he cut her off with a glance. "You've both done enough. Rest. If sothing goes wrong, you'll need to be strong enough to get them out."
The argunt died in her throat. She looked at him for a long mont, then nodded slowly. "Just… co back."
He didn't promise. He just turned toward the city center and began walking.
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