Time moved with cruel indifference through the ruins of what had once been the greatest city in human civilization.
Two years had passed since the night Avalon City burned—since thirty million lives stood on the edge of annihilation beneath the Order of Fallen Flame. Two years since sacrifices held the darkness at bay and cracked the Empire's foundations. Time marked none of it. It went on.
Autumn breathed through the Memorial Gardens in cold drafts. The grounds spread where the old noble district had stood: a plain of white marble among the scars of palaces. Names shone—knights, Nighthawks, civilians.
At the garden's heart, a low platform gathered morning like an altar. Two tombs rested there, unadorned and absolute.
