The smoke of Dawn Keep still stained the evening sky long after the survivors reached the mountain pass.
No one spoke.
The silence hanging over the refugees was heavier than grief itself. Soldiers marched with lowered heads, their once-proud banners blackened by soot. Healers moved quietly among the wounded, tending injuries with the little medicine they had managed to rescue before the fortress fell. Children clung to their parents, too frightened to ask whether they would ever have a home again.
Nyra rode beside Kael in complete silence.
She had looked back only once.
The burning ruins of Dawn Keep remained visible on the distant horizon, glowing like a dying ember against the darkening sky.
A fortress had fallen.
Thousands had died.
And she could not silence the voice inside her
