By morning, Falmouth no longer felt like a city under siege.
The southern gates were open again.
Not fully.
Not without guards watching the road.
But open.
That alone changed everything.
For days, those gates had been sealed under fear. Farmers who once lived outside the walls had slept inside crowded storage halls. Merchants refused to send wagons out. Guards stood on the battlements with tired eyes, waiting for smoke to rise from the farms again.
Now the road was quiet.
The fields beyond the wall were still scarred from battle. Burned carts sat near the southern approach. Broken shields and abandoned weapons had been piled into wagons. Workers had already started clearing the dead under guard supervision.
But the threat was gone.
Everyone knew it.
Not because the city council announced it.
Not because Cedric Valehurst said so.
Because Atlas had proven it.
