The street had not yet recovered its breath when the next fracture tore through it, for the silence left behind by the vanished assassins did not bring peace, but rather a sharper tension that clung to every surface, every heartbeat, every instinct warning that what had passed was only the beginning.
Elara remained where she stood, her shoulders rising slowly with each controlled breath, her gaze sweeping the broken space with a precision that no longer belonged to mere awareness but to anticipation sharpened by experience.
Dust lingered in the air, drifting in thin veils through fractured light, while distant footsteps and panicked voices echoed faintly, retreating further as the world instinctively fled from what it could not understand.
Her fingers twitched faintly at her side, not with uncertainty but with readiness, her body aligning once more with the unseen rhythm that pulsed just beneath the surface of the moment.
"…they're not done," she murmured.
