Chapter 18 A Kingdom Divided

• The wind carried the scent of burning wood and old blood. Kael stood at the edge of the shattered keep, his boots sinking slightly into the ash-covered earth. Behind him, Durnhold’s ruined spires clawed at the grey sky like the bones of something once proud. Before him—silence. No cheering crowd. No horn of return. Just the weight of memory and the echo of all that had been lost.
• Elira stood beside him, her cloak tugged by the breeze, her eyes trained on the broken battlements. "This place feels like it remembers," she murmured.
• Kael turned to her slowly. "It does. Every stone. Every scar." His gaze swept over the courtyard, littered with fragments of the past—shattered helmets, a torn banner fluttering weakly, and blood long turned brown. "I remember bleeding here."