Chiron was still smiling when he turned toward Silmarien.
"So," he said calmly, wiping the thin line of blood from his finger, "where did Gadan and Arianna run off to?"
As if summoned by the question itself, the air above them rippled.
Two figures descended from the broken skyline and landed several meters away.
Stone cracked beneath their feet.
Gadan arrived first, wings folding back into his semi-human form, his bare skin still faintly glowing with draconic heat. Arianna followed beside him, light on her feet, golden knife already in hand.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Gadan inhaled.
His nostrils flared.
The smell hit him.
Death.
Not the fresh kind.
Not blood.
But something ancient, heavy, soaked into the very ground. The residue of an entire city extinguished and bound.
His eyes swept the ruins… then the kneeling figure behind Chiron… then finally settled on Chiron himself.
The battle had lasted barely an hour.
