The air inside the ruined Black Citadel pulsed with tension, thick with blood, magic, and ash. The great obsidian walls, once symbols of Blackwood might, now stood fractured, scarred by betrayal and war. Crimson banners that once bore the sigil of the Vale Dynasty now hung in tatters, fluttering in the wind like ghosts of a fading era.
Cambria stood alone at the top of the throne dais, her blood-stained armor cracked but gleaming in the torchlight. Behind her, the shattered remnants of the God Engine pulsed erratically, flickering between realms a dying heart on the edge of implosion. She had bound it to her soul, sacrificed part of her humanity to control its power, and now she could feel it unraveling inside her.
Her hands shook, not from fear, but from restraint. Every breath she took was a battle between godhood and mortality.
Below, on the marble floor, lay Maddox Raye, motionless.
