The Ruins of the Capital

The air over the former capital of the empire was thick with smoke and ash. A deathly silence had settled over the ruins, broken only by the occasional groaning of scorched beams collapsing into the rubble. Once a sprawling marvel of imperial power and grandeur, the city was now reduced to little more than smouldering stone, blackened wood, and the unrecognizable remnants of countless lives.

The morning sun barely pierced through the dark clouds that loomed overhead. The rain had fallen the night before, its feeble effort to extinguish the flames leaving pools of murky water scattered across the rubble-strewn streets. The once-proud imperial banners, now torn and charred, flapped weakly in the wind—pitiful remnants of a city that had ruled over kingdoms for generations.