The dawn was crimson.
Smoke lingered over the horizon, the smell of burning wood and iron heavy in the air. Selara's army had been camped at the edge of a ravaged valley, recovering after weeks of grueling conflict, when the alarm sounded.
"Enemies!" shouted a sentry, voice cracking with fear.
Chaos erupted. Soldiers scrambled, shouting orders, drawing blades, and firing arrows into the early mist.
Selara's heart slammed. She mounted her horse without hesitation. The twins' laughter and Ophelia's letters felt like a lifetime away. Duty consumed her.
"This is nothing I haven't faced," she whispered, gripping the reins tightly.
The battlefield blurred into motion — screams, flashes of steel, the thunder of hooves. Selara charged forward, cutting a path through the chaos, every fiber of her body alive with instinct.
Then — something flew through the air.
A rock? A thrown object? She did not see.
Her horse reared. She was thrown.
Time slowed.
Pain exploded as her stomach slammed into a jagged rock. Warmth spread between her legs. The world tipped and darkened.
"Selara!" someone screamed.
She tried to stand. Couldn't. Couldn't even think clearly. Just a raw, aching numbness and the knowledge that something vital had been lost.
Soldiers rushed to her side. Aren arrived moments later, panic etched into every line of his face.
"You're going to be fine," he said, voice sharp, desperate. "We'll fix this."
She wanted to scream, to tell him she was fine. But the searing pain stole the words.
Back at the field hospital, chaos surrounded her. Medic tents flapped in the wind, the smell of disinfectant and blood thick in the air. Aren and a team of medics worked frantically.
Hours passed — minutes stretched into eternity. Every heartbeat of the child, every pulse Selara could feel inside her, was measured, prayed over.
But the child could not be saved.
Aren's hands trembled slightly as he delivered the news. Selara's knees buckled, though no one noticed through her armor, through her trained composure.
She sobbed — a guttural, raw sound that had no place on the battlefield. Soldiers stepped back. Dust swirled around her like the ghosts of what could have been.
All her strength, every triumph she had claimed over war and death… seemed meaningless.
Far away, in the palace…
Ophelia was tending to the twins' training — swords clashing, lessons in etiquette, laughter spilling like sunlight — when a royal messenger arrived, face pale, breath ragged.
"Your Majesty… news from the battlefield…"
Ophelia's hand froze mid-motion. The twins looked up, curious.
"Speak," she said, voice calm, masking the dread creeping along her spine.
"The commander… Lady Selara… there was an accident. She… the child…"
Ophelia's hands trembled. The words blurred. She dropped the sword she had been holding.
"No…"
The twins cried out, confused, as Ophelia sank to her knees. Her fingers gripped the parchment of Selara's last letter, now seeming impossibly fragile.
"My… my baby…" she whispered.
The room went silent. Only the sound of the wind against the palace walls seemed to echo the emptiness forming inside her.
Ophelia pressed her hands to her face, tears streaming freely. The grief that had always been abstract in letters, distant in miles, now hit with crushing force.
She thought of Selara's laughter, of Aren's steady presence, of the hope that had shone so bright only days ago. And now… all of it felt broken.
The twins tugged at her skirts, seeking comfort. She gathered them into her arms, holding them close as though she could protect them from the world's cruelty.
But she could not protect Selara.
Back on the battlefield, Selara lay swathed in blankets, bruised, broken, but alive. The weight of what she had lost pressed down with a force heavier than any sword.
She wept openly.
Aren sat beside her, hands holding hers tightly, whispering soft, unbreakable words:
"I'm here. Always. I won't leave you."
But even his warmth could not erase the absence. The empty cradle within her that had once carried hope.
The battlefield, once a place of valor and triumph, had become a tomb of dreams.
And the news, carried swiftly across miles, would shatter another heart, another home.
Ophelia clutched the twins tighter, whispering promises into their ears she barely understood herself:
"We survive. We endure. We love. And we remember."
Because that was all that remained.