The silence that followed wasn't peace.
It was the hush before an echo. The kind that stretched through the stone bones of the citadel, sinking into the halls, the dormitories, the training yards where students had once sparred without knowledge of what lay beneath.
Leon stood in the centre of what remained of the rite chamber. The vault door behind him had sealed shut. The crystal at its centre no longer spun. It shimmered with something softer—resonant, quiet.
Marien didn't speak. She stood at his side now, shoulder brushing his. The blood along her ribs had dried. Her eyes—always sharp, always cautious—refused to meet his. Not out of fear. But admiration. And perhaps something else.
"You're not the same," she said at last.
Leon's voice came slowly. "No. But neither will house Thorne."
