Mia POV

The silence pressed down heavier than the smoke. Every step through the ruins felt like walking through a grave.

Ash crunched under my boots. There were shattered pottery and blackened wood littered the ground. A child’s toy, a wooden horse with one wheel missing, lay half buried in soot.

I forced myself to look away.

Orion limped at my side, his arm bound in the strip of my cloak, blood still seeping through. He didn’t complain, but I caught the tightness in his jaw, the way his ...