Ash blanketed the devastated land as snow, soft and gray. It blanketed the burned stones, created edges over empty spaces once filled by gigantic buildings, and flowed into the shattered remnants of a kingdom that had consumed itself from the inside out. The wind held no song, no scream, no whisper of life. Nothing but the gentle whisper of movement and the random fall of collapsing walls broke the silence.

Ezra stood on the border of the central square, where once BlackClaw land's very heart ...