By the time the morning sun had fully risen, Red Tide Memorial Square was covered in crimson.
Countless flags unfurled in the wind, their varying shades of red mingling like a surging sea of fire.
As the cries of nearly a million people converged above the square, the very air seemed to press down.
This collective will of ordinary people was far more awe-inspiring than the Dragon Emperor's roar had ever been.
At the front of the square stood the places reserved for those receiving honors. Innie stood there too.
These people had formed the backbone of an era.
Innie's gaze settled on one of the elderly men among them.
Marshal Lambert sat in a wheelchair, his frame much smaller than in the images she remembered.
His loose marshal's uniform hung somewhat empty on him.
His hands rested quietly on his knees, his skin covered in mottled lines of age, like a map folded over and over by the years.
Yet when he raised his head and looked toward the far end of the square, his eyes remained as keen as when he had stared a dragon in the face.
Beside him sat General Vale.
He was nearly seventy, yet he still sat ramrod straight. It was not a posture he consciously maintained, but an instinct cultivated over many years.
This general had devoted his entire life to a single duty: keeping Lord Louis safe.
Farther back, Little Hamilton stood with his shoulders straight.
He held an enormous, extravagantly shaped gear wrench, the symbol of the chief engineer.
Innie remembered the day the great Hamilton died. The entire world had fallen silent.
That man had sacrificed his health to steam machinery all his life, dying before he even reached forty.
Now his apprentice and adopted son had taken up that