The silence that followed was heavy and wrong.
Inigo stood still, his chest rising and falling in shallow, ragged breaths. The tip of his M4 Carbine trembled slightly in his grip, held low but ready. Violet smoke drifted from the epicenter of the Lady of Illusion's death, curling and fading like it was being swallowed by the air itself. The echo of her last scream still seemed to linger in the corners of the chamber, a phantom wail stuck in the stone.
He shifted slowly, eyes scanning the scorched floor. Cracks ran like veins across the stone, lit faintly from below by flickers of magic too stubborn to die. The crater she left behind was wide, its edges melted smooth. A few feet from the center, something glinted faintly—metal, or maybe crystal.
Inigo crouched and brushed ash aside with the back of his glove. A shard of the Lady's crown lay there—small, but warm to the touch. He pocketed it without a word.
