After a while;
Inside Quill Manor, the scent of blood had not yet faded.
Around the courtyard, more than a dozen bodies lay scattered in uneven positions, some face down in darkening pools, others twisted where shotgun blasts had thrown them backward.
Kiara stood at the center of it all, boots steady against the fractured ground.
A shotgun rested in her hands, the barrel pressed unflinchingly against the forehead of an unconscious teenager.
Cedric Quill's silk garments, once pristine and carefully arranged, were now smeared with dust and blood. His golden hair ornament had rolled several feet away, glinting uselessly in the afternoon sun.
Beside them, Noah's Twilight Shackles pinned Lucan Quill to the earth.
The shadow-forged chain pierced through his chest and anchored him to the courtyard stones.
