The silence that draped the ruins of the Silver Mines was not the silence of peace; it was the heavy, expectant hush that follows a cataclysm. The dawn that broke over the southern mountains was a sickly thing, the sun's natural gold filtered through the lingering shroud of the Blood Moon. The sky was no longer violet, but a deep, bruised magenta, and the air held a strange, metallic vibration—the hum of ten thousand hearts beating in perfect, terrifying synchronization.
I stood on the lower terrace of the black basalt ziggurat, my body trembling with a fatigue that felt as if it had settled into my very DNA. The golden ash that coated my skin had begun to fade, absorbing into my pores, leaving behind a faint, shimmering iridescence.
I looked out over the sea of liberated shifters.
