The silence after the chaos was deafening. It wasn't the peaceful kind of silence—the kind that comes after a storm, soft and restorative. No. This was something else. This silence felt like the air itself was holding its breath.
Smoke drifted like ghosts between the broken stones and bloodied bodies, coiling around shattered idols and crushed bones. The shrine, once a place of ceremony and chants, now stood frozen in the wake of the unimaginable.
Liam didn't move. His blade hung low, slick with blood, and his shoulders rose and fell in shallow breaths. His chest was stained with sweat, dirt, and crimson. His face, pale under the flickering light, was unreadable—his eyes staring ahead, not at the crowd, not at his companions, but into something only he could see.
