~ZARIA~

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The scent of ash clings to the corridors.

It doesn’t belong to the fires we set outside the walls. It’s older. Deeper. The kind of scent you only find in places where history has been smothered but never silenced.

We buried a dozen bodies last night. Some enemies. Some ours. Some we couldn’t even identify beneath the claw marks and burned flesh.

I stand over the last pyre long after the others have gone. My blade is still in my ...