Thutmose watched in silence as the blur of white fur and steel faded into the distance. The great tigress, Nyxara, carried its rider into the wind until a speck remained on the horizon. Yet Thutmose stood there, unmoving.
Five minutes passed. Then ten. Then twenty.
Still, he didn't move.
The weight of everything settled onto him, heavy and suffocating. The battlefield stretched around him in a grotesque sprawl of death and devastation. Broken weapons. Shattered stone. Pools of blood that had long since soaked into the cracked, dead earth.
An hour passed.
And still he stood there.
His eyes remained fixed where Alex had disappeared, but his mind wandered. Slowly, his gaze dropped to the ground, taking in the scale of destruction.
The land was ruined.
