Chapter 155: The First Thread of Mending
The silence after the retreat was not peaceful. It was the ringing in the ears after an explosion, a hollow space waiting to be filled with the sounds of grief and repair. The cove, for the first time in its history, looked like what it was: a battlefield.
Lyra stood at the main gate, staring at the vicious glyph she had etched days before. In the grey dawn light, it looked like a scar. Her shoulder was bound and stiff, the Alarian 'Sentence' leaving a deep, resonant ache that no poultice could reach. She raised a piece of chalk, her hand trembling slightly, and began to alter the lines. She didn't erase the glyph of despair. She transformed it. She softened its jagged edges, redirected its energy from inducing paralysis to fostering a gentle, protective stillness a ward against nightmares for the children in the cellar. It was her first act of mending. It felt like a penance.
