They flew on.
The heavy atmosphere pressed down on them like a physical weight. No one spoke. The wind seemed muted, the calls of distant animals silenced, as if the Land itself knew that words were insufficient.
Serala couldn't stop seeing them.
The images of dead children and mothers played behind her eyes every time she blinked. Small hands reaching for comfort that would never come. Faces frozen in final moments of fear. Bodies broken and discarded like things that had never mattered.
The Hallowed Voice taught that all life was sacred.
The Covenant preached peace and understanding and the resolution of conflict through wisdom rather than violence.
But where was the wisdom in what she had just witnessed? Where was the sacredness in children trampled beneath the feet of beasts? Where was the understanding that could make sense of mothers dying with their young clutched to their chests?
There was none.
There was only cruelty.
And cruelty demanded a response.
