The Weight of Ruin

Meilara could not hear her own footsteps over the ringing in her ears. The palace, her home, lay broken around her, yet she moved as if wading through the tide, pulled deeper into the wreckage by the sheer gravity of it all. The scent of burning silk and crushed stone thickened the air, the weight of dust making every breath heavy. Somewhere behind her, a support beam gave way with a sickening groan, sending another cascade of rubble crashing down the ruined corridor. A voice, hoarse and raw, was calling out for help—but it was not her daughter's voice. It was never her daughter's voice.

She swallowed the bile in her throat and forced her focus forward.

The grand corridor that had gleamed with polished marble only hours before was unrecognizable. Festival banners, once a riot of color, now hung in tatters. The floor, once a masterwork of mosaic artistry depicting Masan's proud maritime heritage, lay fractured and buried beneath debris. The overhead vaults had split apart, revealing the dim shimmer of a moon struggling through heavy clouds. Ash swirled like ghostly fingers in the lantern light.

She had to find Aiyara.

"Your Majesty!" A voice cut through the wreckage. Meilara turned sharply, finding Sergeant Kendo stumbling toward her, a hand pressed against his ribs. His ceremonial armor was dented, his face smeared with soot and blood. A fresh gash marked his temple, but he barely seemed to register it.

"We thought you were still in the main hall with the King-Consort. The dwarves—"

Meilara lifted her palm sharply, silencing him. "Where is Aiyara?" Her voice came out harsher than she intended. "Anyone see her?"

His gaze flickered with hesitation. "Not since the collapse." He hesitated, then forced the words out. "Guard Cerel said the princess… She was at the center of it all. There was a flash of light. People saw her anger, heard her shout. Then the floor—" He looked away.

A lead weight settled in Meilara's chest. "Rumors," she snapped. "There was no light. No magic. This was an attack. A sabotage. Something—someone—" She stopped herself, inhaling sharply. "We have to find her. Now."

Kendo nodded stiffly, though doubt flickered in his eyes.

Meilara stepped over shattered stone, the hem of her gown catching on jagged debris. Her slippered feet slid across something wet. Blood. She swallowed against the rising nausea. Nearby, a half-buried noble moaned weakly, his fingers twitching toward her. His velvet doublet was torn open, revealing the glint of ribs where stone had split his flesh. She did not stop.

She was nearly at the end of the corridor when she heard Captain Roland's voice. "Over here—someone's pinned!"

Meilara's heart leapt. Not Aiyara. But someone. She forced herself forward, rounding the wreckage. The corridor widened into a small cross-passage where broken banquet benches had collapsed. Roland and two guards were lifting a heavy slab of marble, sweat streaking down their soot-streaked faces. Beneath it, a nobleman from the eastern plains groaned, his elaborate robes soaked in crimson.

Meilara barely spared him a glance before something further in the shadows caught her eye. A silhouette. Kida.

And there—crumpled beside her—Aiyara.

Meilara rushed forward, the queen in her forgotten. "Aiyara!" She nearly stumbled over the debris, sinking to her knees beside her daughter. Aiyara's face was pale, her dark lashes resting against cheeks smudged with dust. Her gown—absurdly intact compared to the destruction around them—seemed untouched, the pearls in her hair still glinting as if nothing had happened.

Kida was trembling. "She won't wake up," she whispered. "She's breathing, but she won't wake up."

Meilara touched Aiyara's forehead, expecting fever, clammy shock—anything that would explain this unnatural stillness. But her skin was cool. Too cool.

Masaru appeared from the wreckage, his once-pristine jacket torn, a dark bruise blooming across his cheekbone. He staggered, taking in the scene, and dropped to his knees beside Meilara. He placed his hand gently against Aiyara's chest, waiting, feeling for the faintest rise and fall of breath. A breath of relief left him when he found it. "She's alive." But his voice held no comfort. Only disbelief.

Meilara met his gaze, saw her own fear reflected in his eyes. She turned back to Kida. "Did she say anything before—before this?"

Kida's lips trembled. "No. There was a light—blinding, rippling out of her like the sun breaking through storm clouds. It swallowed everything, and then when I could see again..." Her voice wavered. "She was just lying there. I tried to wake her, but she wouldn't move. Wouldn't even stir." She swallowed hard, her hands tightening into fists. "He's dead."

Meilara blinked. "Who?"

"The fisherman. Harim." Kida's breath hitched, and she wiped fiercely at her eyes. "He was a good man, Mei. A good man, and he—" She cut herself off with a choked sob.

A flicker of memory surged in Meilara's mind. The young fisherman who had spoken so earnestly, who had braved the festival of suitors despite having nothing to offer but his honesty. The one who had knelt before Aiyara and made no grand promises—only the simple pledge of a man who loved his home.

Gone.

She pushed the thought aside. Later. Now, she had to move.

"We need to get her somewhere safe," Meilara said, her voice raw. "The dwarves are in chaos. The Church is already whispering. If they see her like this, they'll start asking questions we can't afford to answer." She looked over the devastation, the flickering torchlight casting long, jagged shadows across the broken bodies and ruined stone. "We have to move now, before anyone starts thinking too much about what happened."

Masaru nodded sharply. "Jorgan, Lirian—clear a path!" His voice cracked through the smoke, and the two guards snapped to attention. Jorgan, a grizzled veteran with a deep scar running across his jaw, immediately took charge, barking orders to the others. Lirian, younger but quick-witted, moved with practiced efficiency, guiding the remaining soldiers into action as they began shifting rubble and forming a protective barrier around the queen and princess.

As they lifted Aiyara between them, Meilara's gaze flicked over the wreckage, over the shattered bodies, over the smoldering ruins of what had been meant to be a celebration. The smell of blood and burnt silk filled her lungs.

Meilara heard the choked sobs before she saw him. Near the base of a splintered column, a dwarf knelt in the rubble, his fingers trembling as they traced the cracked edge of a shattered marble relief. His shoulders shook, but whether from rage or grief, she could not tell. "Three generations..." his voice was hoarse, barely more than breath. "Three generations chiseled into stone—now ground to dust under human feet."

He did not look at the bodies strewn around him, not even at the dwarf crushed beneath a fallen archway a few paces away. His knuckles whitened as his grip tightened on the fragment in his hand. "You think we mourn like you do? That we wail for flesh and blood? No. We grieve for what was eternal—what should have lasted beyond us. You robbed us of more than life tonight."

He exhaled sharply, shaking his head. Then his gaze snapped up, locking onto a passing guard. "You humans build atop mud and call it strength. But this—" he gestured at the wreckage, his expression twisted in fury. "This is what your strength looks like. A pile of broken stone and lost names."

Anger gnawed at the edges of her grief, clashing with the cold, creeping dread curling in her stomach. The weight of it all pressed down on her—on her ribs, her throat, the back of her skull. The scent of blood was thick in the air, mingling with the acrid smoke of smoldering silk and broken stone, coating her tongue with something metallic and bitter.

She tipped her head back, staring through the jagged gaps in the ceiling where the moon hung pale and silent. Somewhere, far above the ruin, the world continued on, indifferent to the suffering below.

Her fingers curled into her palms. She turned away. There was no time to grieve. No time to plead with gods who had never listened.

Only the living remained, and they needed her to act.