The last of the lizards went down with a crack that echoed off the impossibly high ceiling, and Noah stood there for a second, breathing hard, looking at the bodies scattered across the bedrock.
He felt bad about it. He hadn't expected to, given everything else this planet had thrown at him, but standing in the wreckage of an army that had once answered to someone real, someone who'd cared enough to mark this whole place with her presence, the killing sat differently than the bats or the frost giants had.
'You didn't ask for this,' he thought, looking at the nearest one, its claws still extended even in death. 'Whoever set you to guard this place, she's gone. You were just doing the only thing you knew how to do anymore.'
There wasn't another option, though. His hands were tied the moment they'd come pouring out of the walls. He let the thought settle and moved on, because lingering on it wouldn't change anything and Storm still wasn't anywhere he could feel.
