The sun's warmth continued to rise, chasing away the remnants of the cold that had settled into the bones of the land. Emily could feel the earth beneath her boots softening, no longer the dead, brittle crust it had once been under the Abyss's reign. It was as if the world itself was healing, one step at a time, just as they were.
For the first time in a long while, there was no immediate threat looming over them. No impending battle to brace for, no enemy waiting in the shadows. The Abyss had been defeated, and the Heart of the World, once a powerful weapon in the fight, was now dormant, its glow faint. But the peace that had settled over the land felt tentative—fragile, like the first shoots of spring after a harsh winter.
