Stein

The iron tankard hissed between them, steam curling like phantoms. A dragon in mid-flight coiled across its blackened surface, while the handle—skeletal wings intertwined—cast shadows across Juno's scarred knuckles.

"Why us?" Mila's voice scraped like rust. She stared into the Dragonstein, something ancient and bitter.

Juno watched crimson swirl in the depths. "We're cursed to remember."

Outside, Agabon's field lay thick with the fallen. Bodies twisted in final agonies, pride's monument built from broken flesh. The fireball strikes had painted the earth black. Their brothers rotted under carrion birds.

"They believed," Mila whispered. "Believed it mattered."

"It didn't."

She lifted the tankard by its wing-bones, metal singing against wood. "Then we drink to forget."

But Juno knew—survivors never forget. They're condemned to carry the weight until it crushes them.

The Dragonstein scalded going down. It changed nothing.