Kolma was gone.
Burned to ash in a single night. The town Teclos had known—the place of lantern-lit streets, noisy guild halls, familiar voices, and childish dreams of becoming hunters—had been destroyed.
Toby carried Teclos through the tunnel.
He did not know how long he had been running anymore. Time had lost meaning somewhere behind them, buried beneath collapsing stone, screams, and the muffled sounds of battle still clawing through the wall at their backs.
The tunnel stretched ahead, dim and trembling, its reinforced walls scarred by cracks and loose dust. Every few breaths, the ceiling groaned as if the earth itself was deciding whether to spare them or swallow them whole.
Around him, the remaining hunters moved in ragged silence.
