Chapter 40 The Crown That Waited

• The castle felt like a memory.
• Kael stepped through its battered gates with Elira at his side. The stone walls still stood, though they bore the scorch marks of war, the cracks of ancient rage. Ivy had begun to grow again along the western columns, climbing toward a broken spire like it wanted to reclaim what time had left behind. It had been weeks since the Throat of Fire. Since the end.
• The people had started to return. Not in floods—but in trickles. Survivors, refugees, those who had believed the curse would end them and now found themselves blinking into a world that still turned. Children laughed in the courtyards. The kitchens had smoke rising from them again. The war was over, but something else had begun.