The portal deposited them into the cold Ashwick morning, and for a long moment, no one moved.
The sun was rising over the eastern hills, pale gold through the drifting ash. The air was cool and clean—impossibly clean after the volcanic furnace they'd spent hours fighting through. A light breeze carried the scent of wildgrass and woodsmoke from the village below. Birds were singing somewhere in the distance.
Nathan stood at the Tower's entrance, Moonlight still in his grip, and looked back at the archway. The portal shimmered with residual heat, the volcanic stone around it still radiating warmth. Above it, the Tower of Ash rose against the sky—its black spire wreathed in smoke and embers, its crimson mana veins pulsing with their steady rhythm.
But something felt different now. The Tower wasn't a monument to failure anymore. It was a monument to what they'd overcome.
"You're staring," Mirko said with a faint smile.
