Flames of Defiance
The courtyard trembled still from the impact of the previous explosion. Dust whirled through the air, combining with the acrid smell of smoke and blood, coating broken marble and trampled petals. The moonlight highlighted the devastation in pale silver, making the destruction into something nearly otherworldly.
Leon stood at its center, his shadow cast over the shattered tiles. His boots scraped over the stone as he walked, slow, unflinching. Golden eyes ranged over the ruins— keen, unreadable, steady amidst the tumult that raged around him. His companions moved around him without hesitation, their lines drawn into shape by the authority of his voice alone.
"Take positions," Leon whispered, but the order sliced through the darkness like the rasp of steel unsheathed.
Each sentence weighed with import—solid, unyielding—the tranquility at the eye of a hurricane that would not pass.
