Chapter 41: Ashes and Oaths
The city didn't speak of what happened in the palace.
Not yet.
But it felt it.
The people were quieter. Streets once filled with shouts and clatter now echoed softer, as if the stones themselves were listening. In the capital's outer ring, smoke curled from the chimneys of the clinic. The familiar sign—Elric's crest now slightly scorched at the edges—hung steady in the breeze.
Inside, Cai sat awake.
His eyes tracked the ceiling slowly, as if reading invisible lines written in light.
Veyra wrung out a cloth nearby. "He's back, you know."
"I know," Cai murmured.
Sylas looked up from his workbench. "The Root hasn't touched him."
"It touched everything else," Cai replied.
The front door creaked open.