The fall of Valaris did not come with fire. It came with silence. No horns. No sieges. Only the slow unraveling of loyalty, memory, and meaning.
By the time dawn touched the walls, no one raised a banner. The dukedom was not conquered. It was... unmade.
And now, those who remain must decide what rises from the ash — and what is better left forgotten.
The throne room had no echoes left.
Breven stepped through its shattered doors, boots whispering across marble veined with soot. The tapestries still hung, but their colors had bled — not from flame, but from silence. Where once banners fluttered and firelight danced, there was now only dust and the faint scent of iron too old to name.
Vaelen stood near the dais.
Or the thing that had once been Vaelen.
His eyes were too still. His breath too even. Around him stood soldiers in perfect formation — armor polished, blades clean, lips closed. All of them were dead. And none of them had fallen.
