The storm had passed.Smoke still curled from the ruins of Draven Tower, the once-impenetrable fortress now reduced to a skeletal monument of twisted steel and shattered glass. The sky was bruised with dawn light, streaks of gold piercing through the ash.Far below, the world had begun to stir again — confused, grieving, alive.Mara walked through the debris, her boots crunching against fragments of metal and broken armor. Every step brought a whisper of memory — the sound of Zayden’s voice in her comm, the blinding flash that had consumed everything.She carried a small container in her hands, inside it — Zayden’s cracked dog tag and a fragment of his reactor core, still faintly pulsing with blue light.Behind her, Liam clutched her coat, his small face pale but calm. The boy’s eyes — so much like his father’s — stared at the ruins with silent understanding.> “He’s not gone,” Liam said softly.Mara paused, her throat tightening. “Liam… we don’t know that.”He shook his head slowly.