Leah Carter’s Point of View
The first sunrise after the war felt wrong. It crept slowly over the ruined valley, pale and cold, the light touching the ash that blanketed the land but giving no warmth to it. The snow had long melted into gray mud, soaked with blood and memory. Smoke still curled from the scorched trees, and the once-living forests that surrounded the neutral zone were nothing but charred skeletons of what they used to be.
I stood on a ridge overlooking what remained of the battlefield. Thousands of footprints had been burned into the ground, wolves, allies and enemies, all swallowed by the same storm. The silence that followed victory was heavier than the roar of battle itself.
Behind me, I could hear the sound of shovels scraping earth. Warriors of the Ashfangs, Iron Pel
