What Remains
Madeline
The world didn’t fall.
It cracked. It bled. And it groaned under the weight of old gods dying. But it didn’t fall.
In the first few weeks that followed, we did what survivors always do—we gathered the pieces, not to restore what was, but to make something new. Something even better than before.
The ruins of the cathedral still stand like ribs along the horizon, half-swallowed by the earth and ivy. We let it rot. Let nature consume the stone that once held so many lies. Where the pulpit once stood, we planted wildflowers. Belladonna. Poppies. And a single bloodroot that bloomed despite the frost.
Lucien even tilled the soil himself, his hands bare with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. No blade, no crown. Just him. His shadows curled around his ankles like do
