Chapter 61
The City of Blood was silent.
It pulsed with life—crimson veins of energy coiling through its obsidian towers, bio-metallic spires weeping slow droplets of red light into canals that never overflowed. The sky above it was a void, colorless and cold, stars dimmed by the weight of another world.
And at the heart of it, on a throne carved from the skull of a forgotten god, sat Kiro.
Alone.
The six hundred who had survived the collapse of Velmora were scattered through the city's lower sanctums, huddled inside the breathing halls of the Blood Keep. They rested. Healed. Rebuilt.
But not Kiro.
He sat unmoving, hunched over his knees, his fingers curled into the armrest of the throne until his knuckles bled. The blood vanished into the chair, as though the city was always hungry for more.
Time didn't pass here. Or if it did, it passed cruelly.
"You've brought them here, Kiro," came Adim's voice, soft like rot. "They are alive because of you."