The isle throbbed with a raw, frenzied vitality, humming with a madcap excitement that swept across the salt-sprayed rocks the moment the news of Khairo's spectacular fall blew through every sea, land, and wind in the known world.
There was something undeniably immortal about it. They had felled one of the ancient, towering wonders of the two continents, turning a myth into splintered timber and ash.
By taking the city, they had violently tarnished the long-standing mantra of invincibility held by two great empires. No one could find fault among the captains of the Confederation if the dangerous, intoxicating idea began to take root in their minds that this was, at long last, their time.
And why not?
