The first dawn after crossing the River of Silence broke with a sky the color of rust. The sun bled weakly behind torn clouds, its light dull, almost reluctant to touch the land ahead. It was as though the heavens themselves wished to wash their hands of what we were about to do. The air smelled of frost and ash, the soil dark and swollen with years of unburied bones.
I stood apart from the camp, my boots sinking into the black earth, watching smoke curl upward from the fires my men had built. Behind me, the South stirred—the clang of armor, the muttered prayers, the coughs of those who still carried sickness from the crossing. But none of them looked toward me. Not directly. They whispered my name, yes, but always when they thought I could not hear. Always like a word too heavy for their tongues.
