The dawn broke weak and colorless, light smudging across the horizon like ash smeared on paper. The world had changed overnight; it felt smaller, shrunken, as if the collapse of stone and flame had pressed the sky itself lower, closer.
Aria had not moved from her place beside Kael. Her body ached from stillness, her legs prickled with numbness, her spine screamed for relief but she stayed anchored, eyes fixed on the fragile rhythm of his breathing. Every shallow rise of his chest was counted, guarded, cherished.
The camp around her was a ghost of what it had once been. Warriors huddled close to dying embers, their cloaks pulled tight, their faces hollow with grief. No laughter, no banter, no easy talk remained. Only the silence of the broken.
But it wasn't true silence. Not for Aria.
You see them, don't you? the mark whispered from the hollow of her chest. Their eyes cut into you. They wonder why you lived when stronger men fell. They wonder what you are.
