Chapter 125 What The Flames Took

• Silence settled like ash.
• Not the peaceful kind—but the ringing quiet left after something vast had collapsed and the world hadn’t yet decided how to breathe again.
• Lucia lay where Kelvin had carried her, half-cradled against his chest on the cold stone of the outer ruins. Her breath came shallow, uneven, every inhale burning as if her lungs were still drawing fire instead of air. The Third Flame had receded—but it had not left her unchanged.