The days following the battle were not filled with triumph or loud celebration. Instead, they were heavy with the quiet, difficult work of picking up the pieces. The ground still bore the scars of conflict—trampled grass, broken shields, stains of blood both enemy and ally. But deeper wounds lay in the hearts of those who had fought against their own kin, who had been forced to turn on neighbors and friends, who woke in the night screaming of the voices that had once commanded them.
We did not hold grand parades. We did not heap honors on the warriors who had struck hardest. Instead, we opened every storehouse, every hall, every hearth. We fed the hungry—regardless of which side they had stood on. We tended the wounded—no matter whose blade had cut them. And we sat with those who wept, of
