Healers led Zephyr out; Star limped but tail swayed. Fenna's tear-bright eyes met his; Aurora circled overhead in triumph. Muse bellowed somewhere outside, having sensed the outcome through walls.
Zephyr lifted his sword once to the roaring stands—not for vanity but promise. Emberkind is coming.
Yet the night would bring tribunal threats, bribes, and invitations slid under doors. The furnace of politics waited—but for a few breaths, in the quiet corridor smelling of balm and smoldering glass, a boy and his drake tasted hard-won hope.
Outside, bells rang in celebration while a tiny phoenix spark traced spirals under a slate-gray sky—guarding, guiding, lighting the path toward the next unknown.
The Forge-Arena infirmary sat beneath the south stands, a half-subterranean maze of basalt corridors made tolerable by rune-fans that recycled crust-warm air into cool, sage-scented drafts. Zephyr had visited once as a spectator; being wheeled in on a rune-sled felt vastly different.
