The days after Dara's death blurred together.
Lena moved through them like a ghost, present but not present, speaking but not saying anything, existing but not living. She woke each morning and went through the motions of the day, eating when food was placed in front of her, nodding when people spoke to her, walking from one place to another without remembering how she got there. But inside, she was hollow, empty, a shell of the person she had been before the battle.
The camp continued around her. People healed from their wounds, physical and otherwise. They rebuilt what had been destroyed, the cabins and training grounds and gathering spaces. They hoped, because hope was the only thing that had carried them this far. But Lena could not feel any of it. Dara's face was everywhere she look
