The wind cut through the ruins like a sigh. Charred trees bent in surrender, their blackened branches reaching for a sky stained crimson by dusk. The old training field lay in silence, a ghost of what it once was grass long dead, the scent of ash lingering like memory.
Liora stood at the center of it, arms folded, her hair whipping around her face. Power simmered faintly beneath her skin, faint sparks of light racing along her veins.
Behind her, footsteps approached, slow, steady, deliberate.
Gonzalo stopped a few paces away, his cloak brushing the dust. He didn't speak at first. He just stood there, watching her like someone staring into the past. "You remember this place?" he asked quietly.
Liora didn't turn. "It's ruins now. What's there to remember?"
His voice softened. "This was where you shifted for the first time."
She stiffened.
