Sera's POV
Dawn came like a blade.
One moment the sky was dark, the mountains sleeping under their blanket of stars, the world holding its breath in the hush before morning. The next, light spilled over the peaks—gold and rose and blood-red, painting the world in colors that made my heart clench and my stomach twist.
Today, people would die.
I stood at the window of our quarters, already dressed in the leather armor Lyra had given me the day before. It fit like a second skin, light and flexible but reinforced in all the right places—leather plates over my chest, my shoulders, my thighs. I'd strapped it on myself in the darkness, my fingers trembling so badly I'd had to start over three times.
A dagger rested against my right thigh, the same one I'd carried for years, the one that had
