The woods were quiet except for the sound of boots and the soft clinking of metal. The noise seemed too loud in that silence, as if the forest itself were holding its breath and listening. They had marched for hours, leaving the glow of Sbelto behind them, until even the smoke faded into the dark and the memory of the city became only a smudge on the horizon. The air smelled of pine and wet earth, cleaner than the city, sharper in the lungs, but too still to feel comforting.

  When Talon finally raised his hand, everyone stopped. The halt rippled down the line like a tired wave. They found a clearing beside a small stream, the kind of place that might have been peaceful once, when it belonged only to water and trees. Now it just felt like somewhere to fall down and not get up again.

  Broko dropped his pack with a groan. “If I move one more step, you’ll be carrying me too.”

  No one answered. They were all too tired to laugh, their bodies past the point where jokes could lift anything.

  Phillip leaned against a tree, his clothes torn, hair matted with ash and sweat. He looked at the group, what was left of it, and let out a long breath that seemed to carry more than air. “This’ll do. At least the ground isn’t burning.”

  The Knights began to settle. Some knelt by the stream to wash blood and soot from their hands, watching the water cloud and carry it away. Others collapsed against tree roots, letting the weight of their armor sink into the soil. Candriela and Gemma laid Aros down on a tarp. He had not woken since the fight, his face too pale against the dark fabric, his breathing shallow and stubborn.

  The fire they built was small, a nervous glow in the middle of the clearing, throwing light that did not quite reach the edges of the trees. When Renn came back from counting the wounded, his face said enough before he even opened his mouth.

  “Four dead,” he said. “Four knights.”

  Talon nodded, not looking up from the flames. “Then we were lucky.”

  “Lucky,” Renn repeated, his voice flat and empty. “Right.”

  Phillip was sitting nearby, elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on the fire as if searching for answers in the shifting embers. “Whatever else, it worked. The Priesthood bled today. People saw it. That matters.”

  Gemma did not look at him. She was beside Aros, watching his chest rise and fall as if each breath cost him something he did not have to spare. Broko was crouched next to them, tightening a bandage that had already soaked through once.

  “He’s still breathing,” Broko said, half to himself. “That’s something.”

  Gemma turned to Candriela, who was cleaning a knife with a strip of cloth, her movements slow and precise. “Will he make it?”

  Candriela shook her head slowly. “I don’t know, Snowy.” Her voice was quiet, honest, stripped of false comfort. “He’s strong. But that cut… it’s bad.”

  Gemma nodded, though the word barely reached her. Her hands stayed on Aros’s arm, fingers curled gently around it, as if contact alone could anchor him to the world.

  Talon stood and stretched his back, wincing as his spine protested. The man looked like stone cracked by years of weather, older in that moment than Gemma had ever seen him, and yet there was a faint smile touching the corner of his mouth.

  “We did it,” he said to no one in particular. “We actually did it. The Light is with us.”

  Gemma snapped her head toward him, the movement sharp. “People died,” she said, her voice cutting through the air. “You’re smiling?”

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  Talon blinked once. “Yes.”

  She stood up, legs unsteady, trembling from exhaustion and anger. “Latis is dead. Hest. Morin. Aros might not make it through the night. And you’re…”

  “I’m smiling,” Talon interrupted, “because for once, those deaths mean something. I knew many men and women who died for nothing. Not them.”

  Gemma stared at him, disbelief and fury warring in her expression. “You sound just like the Priesthood.”

  He did not flinch. “No. They killed to keep power. We kill so people remember they can fight back.”

  “That’s the same thing with a prettier sentence, Talon,” she said bitterly.

  Talon sighed, the sound old and tired. “You’re too young to understand. You are just emotional for what happened to Aros.”

  “Or maybe you’re too old to care,” Gemma shot back.

  For a second, nobody spoke. The fire cracked between them, sending up a small shower of sparks that vanished into the dark.

  Then Phillip stood, brushing dirt off his coat with slow hands. “All right,” he said quietly. “That’s enough.”

  He looked at Gemma. “He’s not wrong, and neither are you. Just… give it time. Everyone’s bleeding in their own way right now.”

  Gemma glared at him, but the heat had already drained from her voice, left behind only a raw ache. She sat back down next to Aros, her body sinking under the weight of exhaustion. Phillip gave her a small nod, not pity, just understanding, and turned to Talon.

  “Rethal and his company went east. He said they’d split at the river and circle back to Bondrea in a week.”

  Talon nodded. “Good. Less noise for us.”

  Phillip hesitated, as if measuring his words. “I’ll stay until midday, then head the same way. My brother will want a full report before the Priesthood go visit him.”

  “Tell him it worked,” Talon said.

  Phillip smirked faintly. “He already knows. He always does.”

  He walked toward the edge of the clearing, muttering something about fetching water, though everyone knew he needed the distance as much as the water. When he was gone, the quiet returned, heavier this time, pushing down on shoulders and lungs.

  Broko finished tying the last knot on Aros’s bandage. “There. He’ll hate me for this if he wakes up.”

  Candriela gave him a look. “He’ll thank you.”

  Broko shrugged. “Doesn’t sound like him.”

  Renn came back from checking the perimeter, boots damp with mud. “No sign of pursuit. Guess Sbelto’s too busy burying itself.”

  “Then we rest,” Talon said. “One hour. Then we move.”

  “Back to Preta?” Renn asked.

  Talon nodded. “If we stay out here, we’ll freeze before sunrise.”

  Broko groaned. “I was hoping for a nap, not a death march.”

  “Sleep when we’re safe,” Talon replied.

  Gemma did not move. She sat quietly beside Aros, her head resting on her knees, eyes half closed. The fire painted her face in soft orange light, deepening the shadows beneath her eyes. She looked up once, toward Talon. “If we lose him,” she said softly, “was it still worth it?”

  Talon’s answer came after a long pause, as if he were afraid of hearing it himself. “I hope we don’t have to find out.”

  Phillip returned then, carrying a small water flask. He handed it to Gemma without a word, then crouched near the fire.

  “Whatever happens,” he said, “this was a turning point. Even if no one believes it yet.”

  Gemma stared into the flames, watching them gutter and rebuild themselves. “Maybe. But I don’t feel like we won.”

  Phillip’s voice was calm, almost kind. “That’s how you know it was real.”

  No one spoke after that. The forest settled around them, quiet except for the low crackle of the fire and the slow, shallow breaths of the wounded.

  Talon leaned back against a tree, eyes half closed but still alert, listening for threats only he seemed to hear. He did not look like a man celebrating. He looked like one who understood that the next fight had already begun.

  When the wind shifted, the faint smell of smoke from Sbelto reached them again, thin but unmistakable, a reminder of what they had left behind and what still burned.

  Gemma looked toward it, her hand still resting on Aros’s arm. The stars above the trees were faint, blurred by the lingering haze. She wondered if the people in Sbelto were seeing the same sky, or if the smoke had swallowed their heavens completely.

  Talon’s voice broke the silence one last time. “Get what rest you can,” he said quietly. “We leave before the sun.”

  No one argued.

  They stayed like that, the victors of a battle that did not feel like one, waiting for the night to end and the cost of their victory to finish unfolding.

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