The silence that followed the retreat of the Logos was not the peaceful quiet of the mountains, but the heavy, ringing stillness that follows a massive magical discharge. The Ironspire Mines were no longer a place of industry; they were a graveyard of brass and scorched snow. Fragmented pieces of Federation armor lay scattered across the slopes, still hissing as the internal steam-valves bled out.
Livius lay on a makeshift cot inside the Tenth Gallery, his breathing shallow. His hands were wrapped in bandages soaked in "Moon-Sedge" ointment—a cooling herb used by the Silver tribes to treat internal burns. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the violet beam of the Dreadnought's cannon. He had caught a god's lightning and thrown it back, but the cost was etched into his bones. His mana-veins felt like they had been scrubbed with glass, and his Golden-Silver eyes were clouded, the pupils flickering with a dim, erratic light.
"He's stable, but his core is empty," Cian whispered, standing by the entrance of the small medical tent. The Chancellor looked older this morning, the stress of the defense having carved new lines around his mouth. He held a cup of water, his fingers shaking slightly. "He used his own body as a grounding wire for the 'Void' energy. No human—no Dragon—should have survived that."
Raven stood in the shadows, her obsidian daggers cleaned and sheathed. She looked at the boy on the cot, her usual stoicism cracked by a flicker of genuine worry. "He isn't just a Dragon anymore, Cian. He's something... different. The way the Silver survivors looked at him as they were being evacuated... they didn't see a King. They saw a miracle."
Suddenly, the flap of the tent moved. A woman stepped inside, her presence so quiet that even Raven didn't sense her until she was already standing over Livius. She was tall, her hair a waterfall of silver-white that reached her waist, and her eyes were a deep, mourning violet. She wore robes of woven starlight, old and frayed, but held together with a dignity that commanded the room.
This was Aethelgard, the "Memory-Keeper" of the Silver Dragon Tribe—the woman the survivors called their Queen.
"The boy carries the scent of Elara," she said, her voice a low, melodic chime that seemed to soothe the raw mana in the air. She placed a cool, slender hand on Livius's forehead.