The wind had changed.
Evelina noticed it first in the way her wings moved through the air, in how the pressure against her feathers no longer felt openly hostile, only heavy and lingering.
The Grand Cleric's relentless force, that suffocating divine weight that had pressed down on her since the battle began, was finally starting to loosen.
Below them, the grey city stretched out like a frozen sea. The cathedral district was barely visible now, swallowed by ash, shadow, and the slow, creeping tide of Cael's spell.
Even so, Evelina could still feel the ritual pulsing through the stone beneath it all, could still sense the dying convulsions of something that had been gathering strength for decades.
And now, at last, it was weakening.
