69. A Closing Eye (Tadevi)¶
The Eyewall did not die quietly. It unleashed its fury on Thelenza like a beaten dog attacking its master. A great flood swept through the streets and tunnels, drowning rich and poor alike. The Cantereians, driven from their homes, emerged to find the government in disarray, the army away at war, and many of the senior leaders dead or missing. The anger that had smoldered below the surface for years erupted into a cleansing fire, fueled by resentment and desperation.
Outside the city, the dying storm scythed across the landscape, carrying away thousands of lives in muddy torrents. Stout buildings and stone bridges collapsed as rivers overflowed their banks, walls of foaming water shattering whole villages. Far away, in many directions at once, storms raged out of season, then disappeared just as suddenly, taking crops and livelihoods with them. A system of massive cyclones appeared in the Whirling Wastes and ripped through eastern Dzhar, one of them crushing Ewederi to splinters.
And at last, for the first time in generations, the sun shone on the streets of Thelenza.
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