Sasha’s POV
The wind howled through the valley like it mourned something ancient.
It wasn’t a breeze. It was a dirge—cold and keening, racing down from the cliffs as though it carried the memory of every war, every scream, every drop of blood that had ever soaked into this cursed ground. It pulled at tents like greedy fingers, made campfires hiss, and sent flurries of ash and frost curling through the air like ghosts.
And beneath it all—silence.
Not stillness. Not peace. The kind of silence that holds its breath before something breaks.
Before someone does.
That someone was me.
I stood alone in the healer’s tent, the canvas walls trembling from wind and weight, fastening the last clasp of my armor with shaking fingers. Not from fear. Fear had been burned out of me. What trembled in
