Talia POV
The air was still heavy with it.
Smoke. Fear. The residue of violence clung to stone and steel long after the fires were extinguished and the crowds dispersed. The outpost stronghold sat in the lowlands below the city walls. It was one of the last outposts before reaching the city gates. Built for moments like this—withdrawal, regrouping, survival—but even here, the remnants of the attack a few days earlier lingered.
Talia stood near the open windows of the command hall, breathing slowly. The fresher mountain wind had begun to push the worst of it away, thinning the acrid smell of pine and cold stone, but traces remained. Civil unrest left scars that didn’t scrub clean.
Her chest ached beneath the bandage. The mark—on the left side above her breast, close to her heart—pulsed
