For a few breaths after the Demon King vanished, Solania did not know what to do with itself.
The field outside the city walls was ruined. Ice had been torn up in long trenches, melted, refrozen, shattered again, and left in jagged ridges that steamed under the cold air. Far in the distance, the mountain struck by Ludwig's final attack continued to groan, whole curtains of snow and broken ice pouring down its sides in avalanches that rolled like white thunder across the peaks. The air still carried the taste of wrath and black flame, bitter enough that even the guards on the wall felt it on their tongues.
