The Imperius family estate lay in ruins.
What had once been a grand compound of pavilions, training grounds, and manicured courtyards was now nothing but shattered stone and scorched earth. Walls that had stood for decades were reduced to jagged stumps. Towers were gone, replaced by yawning craters gouged deep into the land.
It did not matter to the Imperius records.
This was not the main house—not the central seat of power where the core family resided. The Imperius clan owned hundreds of such estates scattered across the kingdom.
The destruction itself was not the problem.
The person who caused it was.
Several massive craters sat where buildings had once stood. Their edges were cracked and glassed black, as if the earth had been flash-burned. Inside the craters, and all around them, lay bodies.
Hundreds of them.
