The dawn did not rise clean.
It crawled over a sky still bleeding with smoke, sun smothered into a dull orange disk. Ash drifted down like slow, endless snow. The forest was silent except for the crackle of dying fire and the broken murmur of men and wolves who no longer knew what side they belonged to.
Aria sat in the center of it all, her wrists still ringed by chains that had no captor, blood still glowing in the dirt where it had fallen. Around her, the clearing was split. Worshippers knelt in ash, smearing her blood across their brows as though it anointed them. Zealots crouched opposite, palms marked with their own cuts, eyes burning with conviction that she had to die before the fire consumed everything.
Between them, Seraphina's whip traced lines in the earth, the only barrier keeping blood from spilling outright. Her arms trembled with exhaustion, but her stance was unyielding, eyes flashing between one side and the other.
