Elyos staggered through the broken remains of the rebel center, his hands still gripping the wooden effigies of the gods so tightly his knuckles had gone white. His robes, once pristine symbols of purity and devotion, now clung to him with grime, ash, and the stench of burning flesh.
Around him, the world collapsed.
Smoke coiled upward like snakes into the night sky, swallowing the stars and smothering the moon. Fire licked the edges of tents and wooden palisades, climbing higher, spreading in hungry waves. The screams that had once come from the outer edges were now here—too close—layered and endless, a choir of death.
The men he had led in prayer, who had believed in him—who had whispered oaths of purpose around the campfires when bread was scarce and the cold crept into their bones—were being butchered.
One by one.
Each death was a nail in the coffin of the faith he had spent two years building.
