Chapter 136: Loss and New Beginnings

The morning air carried a crisp chill as Conor, Kerrigan, and Sorcha stepped out of the SUV, their boots crunching on the gravel driveway of the once-beautiful violin shop.

Smoke and charred wood lingered in the air, the acrid scent of loss and devastation permeating the quiet street.

The shop that had once been filled with the soothing strains of masterful violins and the soft murmur of customers was now nothing but a blackened skeleton, its heart and soul reduced to ashes.

Master Gunther, the elderly luthier who had built the shop from the ground up, stood at the edge of the rubble, his shoulders slumped. The faint sound of creaking timbers echoed as a light wind blew through the remains, carrying away fragments of the past.

His hands, usually steady and confident, trembled slightly as he ran a hand over what was left of the carved sign that had hung proudly above his door for decades.

The sign was barely readable now, scorched and broken, like a cruel reminder of the destruction wr