Dawn broke not with fire—but with silence.
Not the victorious kind.
The kind that creeps in too clean. Too measured. Like the world is holding its breath again.
Sofia hadn’t slept. Her muscles still burned. Her lungs still hadn’t settled. But her eyes were open.
She stood at the highest window, grime from the night still clinging to her skin, and watched the treeline to the south.
Nothing moved.
Then—everything did.
Not a surge. Not a charge.
A retreat.
The Ixchele army—once a wall of heat and blood and impossible coordination—began to shift like a tide being called home.
They moved in rows. In silence. In perfect rhythm.
Not wounded.
Not broken.
Just… leaving.
Among the Ixchele ranks, a few wolves moved with heads low, steps uneven. No feathers. No paint. Just bare skin and
