The sun was a pallid ghost when it rose over the plateau, its light dimmed by a sky still heavy with drifting ash. The ruins of the dead village seemed to shrink beneath its wan glow, houses collapsed into themselves like hollowed skulls, firepits choked with yesterday's embers. Men moved sluggishly among the wreckage, packing gear, tightening straps, and murmuring to one another in voices that barely carried beyond an arm's length. Every one of them looked as if the night had drained something vital, leaving only tired flesh wrapped around brittle bone.
I had not slept at all. I sat through the hours of darkness at the dead well, listening to the creak of beams in the ruined square and the restless turnings of soldiers in their bedrolls. My thoughts circled endlessly, Kael's voice echoing louder than the System's silence. Oaths can break. Just as men can.
