Meanwhile, a few kilometers away from Jelo, Mira stepped out of the portal.
The transition was jarring, disorienting in the way all portal travel was, but it wasn't as violent as what Jelo had experienced. Mira stumbled slightly as she emerged, catching herself before she fell. Her hand instinctively went to her head, checking for the telltale signs of portal sickness—the nausea, the dizziness, the splitting headache that sometimes followed.
But there was nothing. She didn't have a headache, so she was clearer-headed than Jelo. Her mind was sharp, focused, already processing her surroundings and trying to make sense of where she'd ended up.
Unknowingly, she was in one of the safer zones of the place they were in.
The area around her was still ruined, there was no mistaking that, but it wasn't as desolate as where Jelo had emerged. The buildings here, while damaged, weren't completely destroyed.
